An agreement that buys time
For the first time in living memory, the overwhelming majority of radical Irish Republicans are supporting peace with the UK and an attempt at a political, non-violent path to their continued goal of Irish unity. Some 331 of the 350 delegates to a special conference of Sinn Féin – the Irish Republican Army (IRA)'s political wing – voted on 10 May to support the 'Good Friday' Agreement. A threat from terrorist splinter groups remains, but all significant Nationalist politicians can now be expected to try to make the institutions set up under the accord a success. However, a different situation exists among the Unionists, where very powerful political forces are still opposed to the Agreement.
Referenda in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland on 22 May 1998 will almost certainly result in a vote of support for the deal. But democratic ballots have never been the only – or even the main – factor in the long history of Anglo-Irish conflict. It is probable that the May polls will be only the first of a series of tests of the accord over the coming years, or even decades. The threat to the Agreement from violence will come largely from radical Nationalists, while political pressure will be applied mainly by the Unionists.
The 'Good Friday' Agreement
The web of new institutions created under the Agreement – the Northern Ireland Assembly and government and the North/South Ministerial Council – will require unprecedented cooperation between old enemies. London is to maintain sovereignty over Northern Ireland, but Dublin has been granted significant participation in the affairs of the state.
The US is not formally involved, although former Senator George Mitchell's personal role as Chairman of the multiparty negotiations that led to the Agreement was crucial. Washington also played a key behind-the-scenes role, both through President Bill Clinton's personal intervention and by putting pressure on the Irish-American community, from which the IRA draws most of its funds.
It is already clear that Nationalists in Northern Ireland and south of the border will overwhelmingly support the deal. For Northern Irish Catholics, it represents a huge advance on the situation that existed in autonomous Ulster between 1922 and 1968, when the current round of troubles began. During this period, the Unionist and Protestant administration discriminated against Catholics in almost every field of public life.
Safeguards are to be built into the new Assembly to ensure:
Controversial issues
All prisoners affiliated to paramilitary organisations observing cease-fires are to be released within two years, including inmates jailed for murder. Although one of the most controversial aspects of the Agreement, this is of tremendous personal importance to the families and friends of imprisoned Republican and Unionist terrorists. Another contentious provision is decommissioning of weapons by the paramilitaries of both sides. British and Irish officials admit privately that this is likely to be symbolic, and that the IRA's refusal to surrender its guns will be used by hardline Unionists as a reason to reject the whole Agreement.
For the IRA, the deal does not satisfy the traditional Republican objective of creating a united Ireland by compelling the British to withdraw. Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams' policy is based on the recognition that the IRA's terrorist campaign has run its course, and that the Republicans are more likely to achieve their goals through politics and time. This implies dialogue with the Unionists, short-term compromise and long-term patience, rather than quick and outright victory. In this way, Sinn Féin and the IRA have drawn much closer to Ulster's moderate Nationalist party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, which is a strong supporter of the Agreement.
Most Republican supporters have demonstrated that they are prepared to settle for this approach. Sinn Féin has stressed that the accord is not a final settlement, but a transition towards their ultimate goal. The leadership emphasises that the deal weakens the Union and is 'all-Ireland' in character. This is of course why so many Unionists reject the Agreement.
The IRA hopes that the Nationalists will gradually take control of Northern Ireland's institutions from within. Given the higher Catholic birthrate and lower emigration levels, Nationalists privately believe that they will eventually outnumber Protestants and will be able to win a democratic vote. However, while the Catholic proportion of the population rose from around 33% in the 1950s to approximately 45% in the early 1990s, Catholic birthrates have more recently fallen sharply.
The terrorist die-hards
The Sinn Féin conference vote on 10 May was the latest in a series of changes which Adams, a cautious but determined moderniser, has introduced in both Republican procedures and philosophy. However, two die-hard Republican splinter groups, 'Continuity IRA' and the newly-named 'Real IRA', have broken away from Sinn Féin in protest against the peace process.
Three times this century, a majority of Republicans have voted for peace, only to see a dedicated and ruthless minority continue the struggle. As yet, no senior Sinn Féin figures have defected and taken up irreconcilable positions, but enough important IRA personnel have left the organisation to worry security forces on both sides of the border. Continuity IRA has caused great damage to a number of Northern Ireland towns with car bombs, while the Real IRA has mounted rocket attacks against security-force bases. On 2 April, it unsuccessfully attempted to transport a bomb to the British mainland.
An older splinter group, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), is also active. On 27 December 1997, INLA inmates in Belfast's Maze prison shot dead Billy Wright, a leader of the hardline Unionist paramilitary splinter group, the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). This led to a Unionist retaliation and nine deaths. Despite this activity, the security forces believe that the three Republican splinter groups together have less than one-tenth of the mainstream IRA's armed capacity.
The military situation of hardline Unionist groups is similar. The cease-fires of the two main paramilitary groupings, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), have remained largely intact over recent months. The LVF, the only Unionist force which has not declared a cease-fire, is only a fraction of the size of the UVF and the UDA.
Unionist opposition
However, unlike on the Republican side, the Unionist threat to the accord is not limited to terrorist factions, but embraces an important part of the democratically elected political leadership. The extent of this threat will be largely determined by the elections for the new Northern Ireland Assembly, scheduled for 25 June.
The second biggest Unionist grouping – Reverend Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) – is vehemently opposed to the Agreement and will undoubtedly do its utmost to paralyse and discredit the new institutions. A majority of the leadership of the largest Unionist party – David Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) – has endorsed the Agreement. However, six out of ten of its Members of Parliament are opposed to the accord in its present form, as is the influential Orange Order. Opinion polls suggest that overall, only 34% of ordinary Unionists are firmly in favour of the Agreement, with 22% against and 42% undecided.
This is extremely dangerous, because the Agreement stipulates a complicated set of rules for the Assembly, designed to balance the two communities in Ulster and compel compromise between them. Under these rules, not only will the Assembly be elected by proportional representation, but 'key decisions' by the new Assembly will require the agreement of 60% both of the Nationalist and the Unionist representatives.
This means that if Paisley and his followers – who could well include several dissident UUP Assembly members – gain just 41% of the overall Unionist vote, they will be able to block every significant move by the Assembly, paralyse the new government and prevent any institutional cooperation with Dublin. If this were to happen, it would probably not be long before the IRA took up arms again. On the other hand, if the elections to the Assembly result in a heavy defeat for the DUP, this would greatly limit their ability to cause trouble – at least for a time. Trimble has stated that at least 70% of ordinary Unionists must vote for the Agreement to give him the moral authority to push through the accord in the face of opposition from other Unionist politicians.
Trouble on the streets
The potential for trouble is restricted neither to the politicians nor the terrorists, but also exists on the streets. In the past, the capacity of the rejectionist Unionists to turn out masses of supporters for strikes and demonstrations has been a key obstacle to peace. An important test of the accord in the immediate future will be the 'marching season', when the two communities celebrate their own historic victories and by implication the defeats and humiliations of the other side. There are more than 20 processions which take routes directly provocative to the opposing group, and each one of them could be used by rejectionists to try to spark rioting. The marching season will therefore be an important test both of Trimble's and Adams' personal commitment to the Agreement and of their authority over their own followers.
The marching season will also be a test of whether Republican and Unionist representatives may for the first time be able to compromise directly with each other, rather than through the British authorities. Unless there is progress of this kind, then the prospects for the new Northern Ireland government look bleak. The Agreement dictates that all the parties represented in the Assembly are entitled to a proportional share of ministries in the new 12-member administration. Given the hatred between Sinn Féin and even moderate Unionists, it is at present very difficult to imagine them cooperating in government.
An historic compromise?
In fact, many supporters of the peace process privately admit that the new institutions bringing together Nationalist and Unionist representatives are unlikely to work effectively. Nevertheless, the Agreement has the hallmarks of a historic compromise that could provide almost all of the political and paramilitary combatants with an acceptable way at least to suspend 30 years of conflict. Its advocates argue that every year without fresh killings will increase the chances that bitter memories will fade and that cultural and economic change will eradicate the roots of violence. The real point of the Good Friday Agreement is therefore to buy time.
