IMC report - Opportunity for progress on devolution

THE relentless political battle to restore devolved power-sharing government in the North has received a welcome boost in the latest report from the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) that depicts a highly encouraging picture of how the paramilitary landscape there is changing.

By any yardstick, it is the most encouraging analysis to date of how far nationalists have gone down the difficult road of putting criminality behind them.

In particular, it sends out highly positive signals about the leadership of the Provisional IRA and augurs well for the future of the peace process, a point warmly welcomed yesterday by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

Set up two years ago by the Irish and British governments to report on paramilitary activity, the IMC is playing a significant role in influencing public opinion in the North.

Not alone is the commission helping to convince sceptical unionists that republicans are genuinely committed to peace, it is, as Justice Minister Michael McDowell put it, helping to create an environment in which the political parties can come together and begin the restoration of devolved government.

The picture is not entirely rosy, however, as the document draws a fine distinction between what individual members of the IRA are up to as opposed to the collective leadership of the organisation.

In IMC eyes, while senior IRA men are continuing to line their own pockets with the proceeds of crime, the monitors saw no evidence that violent activity has been sanctioned by the organisation itself. Specifically, it found no current sign of IRA training, engineering, recruitment, violent activity or targeting for the purpose of attack.

Few eyebrows will be raised at the fact that some IRA members did not surrender their weapons after decommissioning, albeit without the knowledge of the leadership.

Equally unsurprising is the IMC conviction that loyalist and dissident republican paramilitary elements are still active and continue to pose a threat.

Moderate loyalist opinion, echoed by Ulster Unionist Party leader Sir Reg Empey, is that the report continues to represent progress. However, Nigel Dodds of the more extreme DUP emphasised that co-operation on policing should be a prerequisite for any party in government in any part of Britain.

Logically, Sinn Féin should now take that vital step, which sooner or later will have to be taken, of engaging directly with the policing structures in the North.

With characteristic ire, DUP leader Ian Paisley suggested unionist pressure on republicans was beginning to have some effect. And he pointedly challenged Northern Secretary Peter Hain on whether the British government could publish details of all IRA weapons decommissioned so far.

For his part, Mr Hain welcomed the report as positive and providing further evidence of the direction that the Provisional IRA and its leadership was taking.

Broadly speaking, the wide-angle IMC vision of paramilitary activity, in the three months up to the end of February, is distinctly up-beat.

Leaving aside the Northern Bank robbery plus a series of brutal murders, there is good reason to believe that the IRA cessation of violence will ultimately result in the gun being taken out of Irish politics for once and for all.

Hopefully, this report will generate a climate of trust so that when the political parties come together at Stormont on May 15 next, some real progress can be made towards returning to full devolution.

If, however, as widely expected, next month’s bid fails, another attempt will be made in November to get self-government up and running again.

The long-suffering people of the North are crying out for political stability, economic progress and lasting peace. It’s time their politicians delivered.