The crying game

'The Ulster Unionists are a fascinating bunch. They have spent 20 years droning on about the suffering inflicted on their community, but rarely have I seen a more crestfallen group on the day the ceasefire was announced'

What strange games the British government seems to be playing with the Irish peace process. Perhaps it is so flushed with the success of its strategy in the former Yugoslavia that it has now decided that peace without pure military aggression is no peace at all. After all, there are no planes bombing Belfast, no carnage in the streets of Newry, no trails of refugees flooding out of Derry. I mean, what sort of peace initiative is that?

Yet little over a year ago John Major was particularly pleased with the Irish peace initiative, as were his desperate supporters who were frantically trying to find something good to say about the dull grey wonder. They had now apparently found it--he was a 'great statesman' and the man who'd 'brought peace to Northern Ireland'.

In fact even then the claims were extravagant in the extreme. Major's role in the whole affair had been very much that of the snail rather than the pacesetter.

He had cautiously, and in a most mealy mouthed manner, dragged behind Gerry Adams, John Hume, Albert Reynolds, and even the Loyalist paramilitaries. Most of all he had dragged behind the ordinary working people of Northern Ireland who had provided the real initial impetus and drive for peace.

When peace broke out Major was the one who went on and on about not being sure the ceasefire was genuine. John Hume thought it was genuine, all the major political parties in Southern Ireland thought it was genuine, but not John Major, oh no!

He was busy prattling on about needing the word 'permanent' from the lips of Gerry Adams. It soon became clear that pompous pedantry was not a good excuse to allow a resumption of bloodshed, so suddenly--as if from nowhere--he dreamed up the decommissioning of arms.

In all this stalling he had the support of only three groups--his own party, the leader of the opposition, one T Blair, and the Ulster Unionists.

The Ulster Unionists are a fascinating bunch. They have spent 20 or more years droning on about the terrible suffering inflicted on their community, but rarely have I seen a more crestfallen group of people than the various wings of Unionism on the day the ceasefire was announced.

Since then they have been as obstructive as possible, only ever expressing joy when the process seems to be running into trouble. So they were positively orgasmic that the recent inter-government forum was cancelled. In the summer they were seen happily leading sectarian mobs through Catholic areas, completely unperturbed as to what it would do to the peace process.

Finally, they have elected a man as their leader who accurately reflects their desire to obstruct peace at every step. David Trimble is a right winger with extremely dubious past connections who is happy to be seen hand in hand with arch-bigot Ian Paisley, and has apparently received a bigot's medal for his little contribution to destabilising the whole peace process.

For Trimble, decommissioning is not enough. He wants the IRA to disband before he will plonk his orange arse on a chair at the peace table. Both Gerry Adams and the IRA must wonder if this will become Major's next demand also.

Of course Major knows that the IRA will not decommission. Imagine if you were Gerry Adams going to a peace table having already handed in your arms, announced to all intents and purposes your surrender, and sitting across from you were representatives of the heavily armed British state, and the Unionists backed by heavily armed police forces.

They would be seated alongside Loyalist paramilitaries. Although these paramilitaries are officially disarmed, they have not had to hand in their legally held weapons. Many of them double up as part of the security forces anyway. Even if all the talks failed they know that their old sponsors in M15 could get them fresh arms.

Adams and the IRA would be mad to agree to such terms, and even if--in his desperate desire for a piece of the action--Adams did take such a road, he knows it would split the Republicans and the peace would never hold.

Apparently the Irish government did hold out one hope that progress could be made. That hope lay in the British government in waiting and its fresh faced young leader. If Blair would let it be known that he was unwilling to blindly follow the Brixton bumbler into the potential abyss then there was a real chance of progress.

The tragic history of Northern Ireland was made first and foremost by the British Tory Party and Ulster Unionist demagogues and politicians, but it was copper fastened by a Labour Party that always acquiesced to the sectarian state.

If the peace does break down, and the killing resumes, let everyone remember the names Trimble, Major and Blair, because they most surely will have to take the credit.

Thankfully, the desire for peace amongst the ordinary people of the North still stands between them and disaster.
Pat Stack