IRA disbandment, not promises, needed - Trimble

IRA disbandment, not promises, are needed to get devolved government restored to Northern Ireland, Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble said today.

Words like “the war is over” that might once have meant something cut no ice today, he told the party annual conference in Derry.

Neither would deeds, if, again they were “grudging and minimalist”.

Unionists would not be satisfied with some “phantom disbandment”. The paramilitaries really had to go away. “Their day is over,” said Mr Trimble.

The message was also for loyalist paramilitaries, he said. “People are fed up to the back-teeth with the racketeering and feuding that is disguised as loyalist.

“To those still addicted to violence, drugs and criminality, we say in the name of God, go.”

But it was republicans Mr Trimble focused on as he gave Tony Blair his considered response to his Belfast speech on Thursday.

The British prime minister had pointed the finger unambiguously at the IRA, said Mr Trimble.

The real question now was how he would follow through in terms of actions in the coming months.

“He must not repeat the mistake of government actions in advance or in response to republican promises.

“This time he must insist on completed acts.”

He added: “It is time for conclusions, time for the transition that republicans say they are making to be completed.”

Mr Trimble had no intention of going back to his party seeking backing for a return to the power-sharing administration “until it is demonstrably clear that this time obligations have been fulfilled”.

To be fair, he said, republicans had done some things – not enough – but they had moved. They were not “wholly unreconstructed” but during the past spring and summer the evidence of “serious backsliding” had been overwhelming.

To Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams he said: “It’s up to you, only this time do not expect promises or beginnings to do the trick.”

He said he was not downhearted to be out of office again following the discovery of a republican spy ring at Stormont. “We will just roll up our sleeves again and get down again to the job of forcing republicans to behave democratically.”

The raid on Sinn Fein’s office at Stormont, he said, had not been just another crisis in the peace process, it was “the moment when the republican spin machine ran out of road.”

“No longer can the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland refer to a unionist ‘perception’ of republican wrong-doing.

“The problem was not our perception, but the reality of a republican movement mired in its anti-democratic, conspiratorial and criminal past.

“Our scepticism about the oft-stated republican commitment to ‘conflict resolution’ has proved well founded,” he told delegates.

He hit out stressing: “Frankly republicans’ words are as devalued as Argentina’s currency. Words like ‘The War is Over’ that might once have meant something cut no ice today.

“Neither will deeds, if again they are grudging and minimalist.

“We will not be satisfied with some phantom disbandment. The paramilitaries really do have to go away. Their day is over.”

The unionist leader had harsh words for the British government too over the suspension of devolution. He said back in July Ulster Secretary John Reid had given what he called a “yellow card” to republicans. “He promised that if they were caught with their hands in the till again the government would support the exclusion of Sinn Fein from the Executive.

"It would have been the just result, not the unfair one of suspending everyone and punishing the innocent along with the guilty.

“Reid and Blair have not bothered to justify breaking their word. Evidently they do not need to explain. It’s just what they do,” he said.

Speaking outside the conference, Mr Trimble indicated he saw no purpose in round table talks between the parties in Belfast in the immediate future.

Sinn Fein has called on the British and Irish governments to hold such discussions to address the latest political crisis.

But speaking on BBC Northern Ireland’s Inside Politics, Mr Trimble said: “ I am not quite sure what there is to talk about because there is nothing we can say with regard to whether or not paramilitaries are going to do what they should in terms of finding ways of taking themselves out of the picture as armed organisations.

“We can address some words to loyalist paramilitaries, and I will do that, but that is not a round table activity.”

Back in the conference hall, Mr Trimble made a big pitch for grassroot unionist support, lashing out at the rival Democratic Unionist Party headed by the Rev Ian Paisley and his deputy Peter Robinson.

He accused them of using emotional rhetoric to cover their “moral cowardice” and of hanging on to his party’s coattails.

The DUP hung back at every stage “let others do the hard work, and then sneaked forward to take advantage of other people’s efforts,” he said.

“The DUP are no friends of Ulster Unionists. They are short-sighted political opportunists. Their own personal ambitions are of much greater importance to them than anything else.”