DUP meets arms-scrapping witnesses
The Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party today had talks with the clergymen whose witnessing of IRA arms decommissioning they have questioned.
A former Methodist Church president, the Rev Harold Good, and Catholic priest Father Alec Reid said on Monday that witnessing the process on a minute-by-minute basis gave them clear and incontrovertible evidence “that beyond any shadow of doubt the arms of the IRA have now been decommissioned”.
They have remained tight-lipped since, refusing to give further detail.
Mr Paisley said he wanted more – together with an explanation of who appointed them as witnesses.
He said decommissioning chief General John de Chastelain had said neither he nor the British or Irish governments appointed the churchmen as official witnesses.
“They were IRA-nominated witnesses,” he thundered in disgust after meeting the general.
Mr Paisley stopped short of calling the clerics liars, but questioned how they could know that the weapons they saw decommissioned were all the weapons in the IRA’s hands.
He came under heavy criticism from the Ulster Unionists for calling into question the integrity of the clerics, and denied that he had done so.
The Ulster Unionists, who accepted the word of Mr Good and Father Reid over what they said they saw, also met them at Stormont today.
It is doubtful that the politicians had much more light cast on the issue, since Mr Good made clear in advance that he would not betray a trust by saying more than he had.
He added: “I can make no comment. I will go to my grave with all of this.”
UUP deputy leader Danny Kennedy revealed after his meeting with the churchmen that they had been ready to carry out their witness roles as far back as last November.
That was a month before political progress foundered on Mr Paisley’s demand for photographic proof of decommissioning.
Mr Kennedy said his meeting with the churchmen had given him “valuable insight” into what they had witnessed.
However he said the party would not reach any final conclusions on political progress until assessments of IRA activity on the ground had been made.
Meanwhile Sinn Féin chief negotiator Martin McGuinness challenged the DUP to get into talks with his party.
“Have they the confidence to represent their constituents in direct dialogue?” he asked.
He said the IRA’s decision to put weapons beyond use was “unprecedented in the long history of the Irish struggle for freedom”.
It was also a “genuine attempt” by the IRA to revive the peace process by conclusively resolving the concerns of unionists about its future intentions.
“Monday’s historic initiative creates the conditions, so often demanded by unionism, for the re-establishment of the political institutions established under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement,” he said.
There was now a golden opportunity to move forward, he said.
“I would appeal to unionists to grasp this unique opportunity. That is the immediate and urgent challenge facing the DUP leadership.”
Mr McGuinness was speaking in Washington after a meeting with President Bush’s special envoy to Ireland, Mitchell Reiss.
He also had talks with 18 Republican and Democratic members of Congress as well as meetings with Senators Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton.
