I hesitate to write this letter in response to the AP article you printed on the recent unraveling of the peace process in Northern Ireland since I know that my disagreement is with the Associated Press and not really with The Observer. But you did choose to print it, and so I write in an attempt to show that what passes as merely factual reporting is severely slanted. The aforementioned article gives the appearance that the breakdown in the negotiations is the sole responsibility of the Irish Republican movement (Sinn Fein and the IRA). But certainly this is a radical misconstrual of events. First, the Good Friday agreement never set requirements for the IRA to start decommissioning before the formation of a government with Sinn Fein. Indeed, this is why hardliners in the UUP like Jeffery Donaldson objected to the agreement in the first place. And so the "IRA's longstanding refusal to start disarming" is not (as the article implies) the reasons for the deadlock. Instead, the reason for the breakdown is that the hardliners within the Ulster Unionist Party have gotten their way after all. These radical elements wanted decommissioning to be a precondition of the agreement all along, and when Trimble signed the accord without this precondition he was chastised by the rest of the party. But apparently he did the right thing for the hardliners, for now, even though it is not to be found in the Good Friday Peace agreement, the media and the public seem to think that decommissioning is a precondition for the formation of a government. Ergo, it's all the IRA's fault. In reality Sinn Fein and the IRA are abiding by the terms of the agreement and Trimble and the UUP are not. Moreover, not only is the Republican movement not intransigent as is suggested, but Sinn Fein has, by far, made more concessions than any other party. Indeed, they have given up a central doctrine of Irish Republicanism: a rejection of the principle of consent (i.e., the principle that the people of Northern Ireland should be able to determine whether they will remain in the UK by a majority vote). This principle is clearly embodied in the Good Firday agreement and so by signing Sinn Fein has accepted it and compromised their tradition. On the signing of the agreement Trimble could have claimed a similar concession in the elimination of the precondition for decommissioning. But now that this aspect is effectively forgotten by all, this concession is de facto null and void. Second, the article points to the instances of threats and violence perpetrated by the IRA in recent weeks and yet fails to mention similar threats and violence made by loyalist paramilitary organizations. Indeed, since the respective ceasefires, Loyalist violence has killed many more than Republican violence. Moreover, there are continued allegations that the RUC colluded in the deaths of Human Rights lawyers Pat Ficunane and Rosemary Nelson — indeed, Nelson had just filed a complaint that she had received death threats from RUC members just before she died in the loyalist car bomb attack. These allegations are all but ignored by the British Government (the RUC is investigating itself in the Nelson matter!) and the international media while investigations into the IRA intimdation of several drug dealers make every headline and occupy the attention of every government agency. Finally, the article emphasizes and repeats Trimble's view that the IRA is turning Northern Ireland into a Mafia state. Even if this were true it would be of little consequence in a state where the police can issue death threats to Lawyers who defend unpopular defendants, colluding with sectarian assassins.

R. Dennis Potter

Professor, Department of Philosophy

September 1, 1999

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