Paisley is happy to make the most of a missed photo opportunity
But he’s optimistic, especially as both sides were practically on the brink of an agreement before the intemperate intervention of the Reverend.
Both Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair can take some consolation from the fact that if it wasn’t Paisley’s happy snaps that created the stumbling block, then it would have been something else.
Quite simply, while Ian Paisley is in the pivotal position he now holds, there is no real prospect that Northern Ireland will return to devolved government.
The fact is he would be far happier to have direct rule from London rather than share power again with Sinn Féin. It was, and is, his ambition to see the Good Friday Agreement disintegrate. He never wanted it in the first place and did his utmost to thwart it, and when the political institutions were suspended in October 2002, he was a happy man.
He’s happier now. I can only presume that he had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek when, in a comment afterwards, he called on the two governments to move forward without Sinn Féin.
He knows that’s not going to happen, just as he knew this week wasn’t going to bring deliverance for Northern Ireland. It didn’t happen because he orchestrated the outcome he wanted.
The Taoiseach said afterwards that the Government had supported the DUP’s insistence on photographic evidence of decommissioning. Whether or not that was ever going to happen from an IRA perspective was debatable, but it certainly wasn’t going to happen because Paisley just couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
He taunted the IRA and Sinn Féin that they would be humiliated by publication of that photograph, thereby ensuring they would not agree. That was a deliberate ploy to scuttle what should have been a great day for Northern Ireland, and immediately jumped on his hobby horse of blaming the IRA and Sinn Féin.
He forgot, or chose to forget, the sound advice from former US senator George Mitchell some years ago that decommissioning should not be seen as either victory or defeat for either side.
It was hardly surprising that the IRA replied in the negative to the DUP’s demand for photos, especially after Paisley’s gloating statement that he wanted to see them humiliated. It was compounded by his reference to them as monsters after the Waterfront Hall press conference.
I, like most people, was under the impression that it was a question of just one picture. It transpired that the man was demanding practically an album of what would have been an historic happening.
What Ian Paisley has rejected was a commitment from the IRA to undertake complete decommissioning, something that Northern Ireland has been awaiting for decades. You would have to admire the stoic approach of the Taoiseach and the British prime minister at the press conference at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall afterwards. They produced the 23-page document with the formula to resuscitate the Executive and Assembly, given that only a miracle could make it happen at that stage.
Tony Blair was right when he said that “considerable progress” had been made. It had, certainly from the republican side. He spelled out exactly what they were committed to doing. He said he had received a commitment from the IRA fully to end paramilitarism and that the IRA had agreed with the two governments that the ‘causes of conflict’ would have ended once the fundamentals of Belfast Agreement were in place.
There was a commitment by the IRA to decommission fully by Christmas. There was also a period between the end of decommissioning and the setting up of the Executive, which would have been in March next year. There was consensus that there should be power-sharing and on amendments of certain elements of the Belfast Agreement that would allow this to resume. There was also an agreement on resolving the policing issue.
Bertie Ahern described the Governments’ proposals as “landmark” and “comprehensive”. He also promised to maintain contacts with all parties “to ensure peace and political stability in Northern Ireland”.
ACCORDING to documents released on Wednesday, the IRA would have agreed to photographs under the deal, something which was reiterated by Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern yesterday on RTE’s Morning Ireland. Yet Sinn Féin’s Mitchel McLoughlin said it was “a bridge too far”.
Eventually, Ian Paisley’s inane comment about humiliation ensured that it would not happen. A draft statement from the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) said that had a deal been struck there would have been two acts of disarmament this month destroying the IRA’s entire stockpile of weapons by Christmas. One Catholic and one Protestant clergyman, acting as independent observers, would have witnessed IRA disarmament. They would have been able to make public statements about what they had seen. A photograph would also have been taken by the IICD, which would have been shown to political parties at Stormont and the governments once decommissioning was completed.
It would have been published when power-sharing was restored in March. In its editorial yesterday, this newspaper suggested that Ian Paisley might agree to be the witnessing Protestant clergyman. Facetious though that may have been, it’s not beyond the bounds of what he might insist on next.
Apart from total decommissioning, there would have been huge strides undertaken by Sinn Féin as far as policing is concerned. There would have been an initiative to transfer policing and justice powers to the Stormont Executive within a short period, as Gerry Adams was prepared to recommended to his party that it end its boycott of the PSNI as soon as the new laws were passed.
This would have been a major step by the party from its present position on policing and one which Chief Constable Hugh Orde has been seeking for a long time. Because the two governments released what was being proposed, it can be seen that they were not engaging in hyperbole when they described it as the brink of an agreement.
An IRA statement issued through An Phoblacht confirmed it supported the comprehensive agreement, and what the two governments had said, apart from the issue of pictures.
“This creates the conditions for the IRA to move into a new mode that reflects the determination to see the transition to a totally peaceful society brought to a successful conclusion,” it said. “All IRA volunteers have been given specific instructions not to engage in any activity which might thereby endanger the new agreement.” It added: “We have also made it clear that the IRA leadership will, in this new context, conclude the process to completely and verifiably put all its arms beyond use.” When you think about it, it could have been a DUP letter to Santa for what it would like to see happen in the North.
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