Day full of promise fails to deliver

PROTAGONISTS in the Northern Ireland peace process have often quoted the poet Seamus Heaney’s desire that some day hope and history might rhyme.

Yet on yesterday's evidence the parties seem more intent on hype than history.

The announcement that Assembly elections are to be held in Northern Ireland next month has not proved to be the magic wand which was to make most of the problems disappear.

Once again hope had been rekindled that we were on the threshold of another historic milestone, but unfortunately it seems to be an example of massive spin doctoring. Despite all the choreography and mood music, the parties are once again out of step.

What the people of Ireland, north and south, want, as clearly expressed in the Good Friday Agreement, is real action by all the parties. It is time for the semantics and posturing of all sides to give way to practical measures to harness the benefits of peace that have been so clearly evident in our society since 1998.

The events which unfolded yesterday were billed, especially by the British Government, as potentially the most significant day in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement.

A more realistic element of reserve was apparent from Dublin, but still the euphoric expectations which the public were led to anticipate were not wholly dampened down.

The pre-announcement build up was charged with the expectation that the North was finally embarking on an era of peaceful co-existence, underscored by the optimism of both Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The recent history of the North has taught us that "historic" occasions failed to deliver the hope they promised, and it is to be sincerely wished that this will not transpire to be another. As Mr Blair said, he was confident they would find a way through this "glitch," and hopefully they will.

The portents were better, without a doubt, that the groundswell of goodwill that had emanated from negotiations between Sinn Féin and the Ulster Unionist Party, and carrying the imprimatur of the two governments, would engender a genuine spirit of co-operation.

Once again the leadership of the IRA confirmed that an act of weapons decommissioning has taken place. They also said that they welcomed a speech by SF president Gerry Adams in which he re-stated his party's opposition to the use of force and encouraged all republicans to support the peace process.

Mr Trimble, however, did not follow the choreography, despite intimating his approval in advance.

At his party's annual conference Mr Trimble, while he set out the terms on which political progress could be made, also accepted it could be achieved without IRA decommissioning being completed immediately.

What was needed, he insisted, was that a sense that paramilitarism was coming to an end.

Without any doubt, that was apparent yesterday from the demeanour of the IRA in word and deed, and should have satisfied Mr Trimble's concern that they are committed to peaceful means.

General John de Chastelain said that "considerably" more weapons had been put beyond use than on previous occasions, and, as already pointed out, this was done under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

As something which people were led to believe would be a momentous day, it turned out to be more of a debacle again.