Emotive issues have hit hard at the unionist section of our community

The public euphoria which followed the signing of the Good Friday Agreement was, at least within the unionist section of our community, short-lived indeed.

The emotive issues of early prisoner release, no immediate decommissioning of paramilitary weaponry and proposed RUC reform, hit hard at a community which, with justification, sees itself as the innocent victim of a 30-year terrorist onslaught. Of all these issues, however, it soon became clear that accelerated prisoner release was causing the greatest difficulty.

Those opposed to the agreement or, more accurately, opposed to any agreement, hyped and exploited the fears and concerns within unionism to such an extent that at one point during the referendum campaign there was a possibility of the Yes campaigners attaining little more than a 60 per cent endorsement. In such a circumstance, where a majority within unionism would have clearly indicated their opposition, the agreement would have been dead in the water.

Of course, it didn't necessarily have to be this way. From the beginning of this process the unionist electorate was allowed, indeed encouraged, by its mainstream representatives to believe the multi-party negotiations were merely some form of benign political convention whereby broad nationalism and broad unionism would seek to agree on political structures for Northern Ireland. They were totally unprepared for the wider-ranging implications of what the process was and is really about - resolving conflict.

Of course, agreed political arrangements and institutions are an essential part of conflict-resolution, but they are only one element. Political arrangements, no matter how ingenious, could not hope to survive against a backdrop of sustained conflict such as Northern Ireland has known in the past.

If we are to successfully consign to the dustbin of history a culture of difference manifesting itself in violence, then it is essential that, as far as is possible, all factors relating to the conflict be addressed. This includes the issue of politically motivated prisoners.

There is no successful example of conflict resolution anywhere in the world that did not include the release of political prisoners. In our own process, it is an accepted fact that without the support of their prisoners none of the paramilitaries could have declared and sustained ceasefires. The release of these prisoners will put further pressure on the paramilitary groups to maintain those ceasefires. Further, statistics show the risk of re-offence by political prisoners is negligible in comparison to so-called ordinary prisoners, so the scare tactic employed by those who talk of the danger inherent in the release of political prisoners does not bear any relationship to previous experience.

Fundamentally, those who wish to see the demise of paramilitary groups must surely realise that while a single political prisoner remains behind bars his or her organisation will remain intact. Neither can it be argued that government has rushed blindly into prisoner release.

Loyalism has held a ceasefire for 3 1/2 years which, in addition to a further two years before the release of many prisoners is (taking into account the current 50 per cent remission rate) the equivalent of an 11year sentence. This could hardly be described as an undue rush to throw open the prison gates.

Those opposed to prisoner release have traditionally argued that Northern Ireland does not have political prisoners and have sought to criminalise those who would describe themselves as such. The logic of their argument, if taken to its natural conclusions, is that Northern Ireland has either suffered a massive crime wave during the past 30 years or has bred a generation containing an unusually high percentage of psychopathic killers.

Until recently, successive British governments put forward the "ordinary" criminal argument on one hand while simultaneously disproving the same argument by the use of all manner of special measures to deal with political prisoners. These included special powers of search, arrest, detention and interrogation. And all of this in conjunction with a special court system, form of imprisonment and, until recently, different remission rates for political prisoners as opposed to so-called ordinary decent criminals.

Of course, hypocrisy hasn't only been the preserve of the British government. Some unionist figures have not always been unequivocal in their opposition to early releases. To his credit, this does not include David Trimble and those of his colleagues who have stayed loyal to the Ulster Unionist leadership.

That Northern Ireland houses a substantial number of political prisoners is beyond argument and, that being the case, this should be addressed and resolved within the negotiations if we are to move further in the direction of conflict-resolution. It was agreed that all political prisoners convicted of a scheduled offence would have their sentences reviewed.

This review will be conducted on an individual basis. Only prisoners whose organisation has declared and maintained a genuine ceasefire is eligible for accelerated release. In essence, the agreement allows for all qualifying prisoners to be released within two years on individual licence.

It was hardly surprising that many within the unionist community, totally unprepared for such measures, recoiled from the agreement. The situation was not helped by the obvious dual standards of the Irish Government in regard to prisoner release. While it openly advocated the accelerated release of political prisoners in Northern Ireland - many of whom had been convicted of killing RUC personnel - it signalled that different standards could apply to the alleged killers of Garda Jerry McCabe if there are convictions.

But the basic problem lies with the unwillingness of mainstream unionism, at an early stage of the negotiations, to set about preparing the unionist community for the realities of conflict-resolution.

This left Trimble and his colleagues vulnerable to attack from those opposed to any form of agreement between nationalism and unionism. Those opposed to the basic idea of unionists sharing power and responsibility with Catholics and those who harboured ambitious political notions could hide their true motivation for opposing the agreement behind the smokescreen of opposition to accelerated prisoner release.

Councillor David Adams is a senior spokesman for the Ulster Democratic Party