Unionists lukewarm to IRA offer

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, AUG 7. The IRA's ``historic'' move on decommissioning has been shot down by Unionists pouring cold water on hopes of an early breakthrough in Northern Ireland's deadlocked peace process.

Expectations were raised after the IRA on Monday announced that it was prepared to start a ``process'' leading to the destruction of its weapons - a move welcomed by the British and Irish Governments and grudgingly greeted even by sceptics. But the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) chief, Mr. David Trimble, whose party holds the key to a settlement, today ruled out any compromise with Republicans in the absence of a firm time-table for decommissioning. He said he wanted to see decommissioning actually start in order to be convinced that the IRA was serious about it. ``We are glad to see that the IRA has taken a significant step towards decommissioning, but it hasn't begun decommissioning. We want to see that happen,'' he said.

Mr. Trimble, who is under pressure from his own party hawks to take a hardline, told the BBC that similar assurances by the IRA in the past had led to nothing. Twice, his party had gone into government with Sinn Fein on the basis of expectations that the IRA would start decommissioning but ``on both occasions we were let down''. His statement came ahead of a crucial meeting of his party legislators at which he was expected to face some tough questions. The party is believed to be evenly divided between moderates and hardliners with the latter often ending up pushing the agenda.

Mr. Jeffrey Donaldson, a leading party hawk, dismissed the IRA move as a ``pre-cooked deal'' between the British Government and Republicans. He said the main issue was whether the IRA was going to start decommissioning and when. Mr. Donaldson, who is seen as a challenger to Mr. Trimble in the leadership struggle, has enough clout in the party to swing opinion and it was he and his fellow hawks who forced Mr. Trimble to resign as head of the provincial Government last month plunging the peace process into a crisis.

Republicans were predictably dismayed by the Unionists' reaction, and the Sinn Fein leader, Mr. Gerry Adams mocked Mr. Trimble for ``pocketing'' what he termed as the IRA's ``historic initiative''. Among those who accused the Unionists of looking the gift horse in the mouth was Mr. Albert Reynolds, a former Irish Prime Minister and one of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement. He told the BBC's Newsnight that under the Agreement, the issue of decommissioning was to be sorted out between the IRA and the international weapons inspection body headed by Gen. John de Chastelain and now that Gen. de Chastelain had confirmed the authenticity of the IRA move, there was no reason to doubt it. How decommissioning was to be done should be left to be decided by the General in consultation with the IRA and political parties should stay out of it. He also pointed out that handing over weapons or their destruction in the presence of Unionists was never envisaged in the Good Friday Agreement. The decommissioning was to be a process - and it was to be left to the de Chastelain commission to handle it. Gen. de Chastelain said he believed that the IRA's proposal ``initiates a process that will put IRA arms completely and verifiably beyond use''.

The Guardian, meanwhile, claimed that decommissioning could start ``within the next month'' and that international arms inspectors would testify to having been present while IRA weapons were ``destroyed before their very eyes''. It said these two moves should answer Unionists' ``anxieties'' on the timing and method of decommissioning and if they still remained dissatisfied, then there would be a question mark over their commitment to ``the very idea of power-sharing, as enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement.'' The Times was less enthusiastic saying that Unionists were justified in demanding a ``reliable timetable'' for decommissioning. What the Republicans had offered was a ``route map'' but ``buying a map does not mean one has set out on a journey''.

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