SIR Patrick Mayhew has written to Mr George Mitchell and the other members of the Intern national Body on Decommissioning about the recent spate of "drug related" killings in Northern Ireland.
The Secretary of State announced his move a clear signal of no shift in the British government's position as MPs last night approved the renewal of the Northern Ireland Emergency Provisions Act for a further two years. Sir Patrick and the British Prime Minister, Mr John Major, are due to meet the International Body in London tomorrow.
During the debate on the renewal of the Act, the Ulster Unionist MP, Mr Ken Maginnis, claimed he and the Secretary of State had been advised of who had assumed the Northern Command of the IRA, and asked if that person would be arrested and questioned.
Attacking the Sinn Fein leadership, Mr Maginnis said "Martini McGuinness may nominally no longer be head of Northern Command of the IRA but we know that in practice he's still the same powerful, ruthless killer that he always was."
The Labour Party opposed the renewal of the emergency powers, despite Sir Patrick's announcement of a review of all United Kingdom anti terrorist legislation and the introduction of silent video recording of interviews with terrorist suspects in the North.
The review will be led by Lord Lloyd of Berwick (who also heads the recently appointed security commission) and the Northern Ireland High Court judge, Mr Justice Kerr.
A Labour amendment criticised the government's failure to implement the main recommendations of Mr John Rowe's review of the current legislation by removing powers of internment, and by failing to introduce audio tape recording of interviews with terrorist suspects.
However, the shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, made it clear that if Labour fails to obtain the amendments it seeks during the Bill's committee stage, the party will not oppose the measure when it returns to the Commons for its Third Reading.
Dr Mowlam reminded the House that the emergency measures were first introduced in 1973, and that Labour had always urged vigilance lest they assume permanence.
However Sir Patrick said the Bill was made necessary, by the continuing character and level of cruel and criminal terrorist activity" in the North and because the existing provisions would expire next August.
He told MPs the British government reacted to the recent killings with "the deepest anger and concern". Echoing last week's statement by the RUC Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Annesley, Sir Patrick said "The very dogs in the street in the communities involved know it is the work of the IRA ... Those murders were procured by the IRA."
Church leaders and the Irish Government had condemned the murders in forthright terms, said Sir Patrick, but not Sinn Fein.
"While the murders themselves are revolting, almost as sickening has been the evasion of leading Sinn Fein people when they too have been called upon to condemn them," he declared.
Sir Patrick said Northern Ireland presently enjoyed only "a partial peace... and it is no more than that". And he continued "It is sometimes referred to as peace only because of the horrors of what for so long preceded it." As he had said in a previous debate "What is really needed to move the peace process forward is the ending of actions that rupture or menace the peace."
Since then, he claimed, "the opportunity to end those actions has not been taken. On the contrary, the murders . . illustrate how it has been cynically spurned". There was therefore, in the British government's opinion, little room for debate as to whether the need for the emergency Act had gone altogether.
Sir Patrick said he looked forward to the eventual demise of the "holding centres" in the North but he accepted the Chief Constable's advice that it was not yet time for that.
And while there had been calls, for audio recording of interviews, Sir Patrick said, "in the light of the very firm advice of Sir Hugh as to the security connotations that this proposal would present, I am not able at present to recommend to the House that it would be prudent to adopt it."