Sinn Fein’s Day About to Come?

By John Spain

THE comments made by Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams last week in which he spoke about winding up the IRA have caused considerable excitement here and widespread analysis in the Irish and British media over the weekend.

People interviewed on the streets in Dublin were incredulous. Could this be for real? Or is Gerry Adams winding us up, rather than the IRA?

It does seem unbelievable. Is it possible that this is it, that after three and a half decades of bloody mayhem and thousands of deaths, the IRA could finally be going out of business?

Could this be the long awaited breakthrough, the final step that will settle the Northern problem for good and put an end to the curse of political violence on the island of Ireland forever?

We have had our hopes raised before, of course, only to be disappointed. But this time there appears to be genuine grounds for optimism, for two reasons — firstly because of what the Sinn Fein leader had to say, and secondly because of the timing of his remarks.

First, let’s look at what he said. In the BBC interview that started it all last week, Adams spoke about “justifiable fears within unionism about the IRA.” He said that “political unionism uses the IRA and the issue of IRA arms as an excuse” (for refusing to share power in the North) and that “Republicans need to be prepared to remove that as an excuse.”

The first thing to be said about this is that the existence of the IRA is not some ill-founded excuse being cooked up by Unionists just to block Sinn Fein. Getting rid of the IRA is a fundamental necessity, not just for the Unionists, but for all democrats in the North. In any democracy, there can be no place for a political party with a private army and that is true in Ireland both north and south of the Border.

But for Adams to say that “Republicans need to be prepared to remove that (the IRA) as an excuse” is a big step. For the master of ambiguity, that is unusually direct language.

It appears to suggest that the IRA will have to be disbanded in the near future. It sounds very much like the beginning of the endgame, the tentative acceptance that a settlement in the North will be impossible as long as the IRA exists.

If this is what Adams is saying, then it is of great importance. If this is what he is saying, then he has come closer than he ever has before to a public admission that it is time for the IRA to disappear for good.

So what Adams had to say last week was significant. But equally significant was the timing, since his remarks have come just a few weeks before the resumption of the talks to break the political deadlock in the North are due to get underway in Britain.

Although the middle ground of the SDLP and David Trimble’s Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) still matter, the immediate future of the North lies with Sinn Fein and Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the two biggest parties on the two sides after the last Northern elections.

A meeting of minds between these two polar opposites will make real progress possible. Both sides recognize this.

And the bottom line is that both sides are hungry for power. No matter how much they affect to despise each other, when push comes to shove (and there will be plenty of both in the coming weeks from Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair) they will do everything they can to find a way of working together.

It is in that context that the timing of the remarks made last week by Adams is so important. We are now in the run-up to these vital talks, which will be held in Leeds Castle in Kent next month. All the Northern parties will attend and Ahern and Blair will be there to bang heads together, if necessary.

It will be make or break time. Both sides clearly want to do a deal. What makes it different this time is that this would be a deal between the extremes of the two communities.

If the deal can be done, there will be no one on either side to undermine it, unlike in the past. Indeed, that is one thing that is sickening about what is happening now.

Sinn Fein has climbed to power over the rivers of blood let loose by the IRA over the last 30 years, wrecking any attempt at a settlement between the SDLP and unionism. Now that they are in the driving seat, Adams and his friends can’t wait to cut a deal and get into government.

On the other side, Ian Paisley and his DUP were doing the same, holding back official unionism over the years and finally undermining Trimble. Now that the DUP is the biggest Unionist party and he is on the brink of power, Paisley is willing to do a deal with the Republicans he could not bare to talk to before. At 78 and in poor health, this is Big Ian’s last chance and he’s going for it big time.

So both sides are now starting to prepare their supporters for the concessions that are going to be necessary if the deal is to happen next month. That’s why Adams is talking about the ending of the IRA.

And that’s why the DUP’s Jeffrey Donaldson last week was sharing a platform with Sinn Fein leaders and talking about sharing power if the arms and IRA question is tackled in a timely manner.

The BBC interview given by Adams last week appears to have opened the door for the DUP, by indicating a willingness to deal with the IRA question. For that we should be grateful.

But our gratitude will be tempered by the knowledge that the move comes several years after it was supposed to happen under the Good Friday Agreement, and that it is happening now only because it is essential to get Sinn Fein into power. Maybe Ian Paisley is the one who deserves our gratitude by forcing them into it.

This endgame has yet to play itself out. And Adams has left himself the usual wriggle room.

His BBC interview also had a hint of the old ambiguity when he envisaged the IRA going out of business only as part of an “ongoing process of sustainable change.” Sound familiar? When Adams talks about an “ongoing process” seasoned travelers on the peace process train like me tear up their timetables.

Partly for that reason, there have been some skeptical voices from the DUP over the weekend. It’s the usual Adams guff that means nothing, they said.

And of course, you can read what Adams had to say as more artfully constructed illusion. If IRA movement depends on an “ongoing process” with unspecified detail, then the reality may be that Sinn Fein has not altered its position on the IRA at all.

Adams has to realize that we need to get rid of the IRA not because it is an “excuse” for Unionists to refuse to share power with Nationalists. We need to get rid of it because it is a murderous and brutal private army which even now, when it is on ceasefire, mutilates youngsters who are petty offenders and terrorizes anyone in its own community who defies it.

We need to get rid of it because its continued existence raises justifiable fears not only among Unionists, but among everyone else here as well.

But let us be optimistic. The endgame may really be starting. Sinn Fein knows that the unthinkable must happen, not just to get into power in the North, but to have a chance of doing the same when the next general election comes around in the South in two or three years. So the IRA soon may be disbanded, and if that happens the arms question may become irrelevant. The guns can be left to rot in their dumps in the bogs, having been inspected by the general and his team.

The much quoted IRA slogan Tiochfaidh ar La (Our Day Will Come) may at last be about to come true not just for Sinn Fein, but for the rest of us as well.

For Sinn Fein, their day will come with the achievement of power. For the rest of us, our day will come with the arrival at last of the final peace.