ON MONDAY evening Gerry Adams responded to the attempted slaughter at Lisburn some hours earlier. He said it was "regrettable". Later on that evening Mitchel McLaughlin, chairman of Sinn Fein, said he couldn't condemn the bombing until it was known who was responsible. The equivocations over condemnation were a giveaway. Gerry Adams and Mitchell McLaughlin believed or suspected that the bombings at Lisburn were perpetrated by the IRA.
Gerry Adams also said he was "shocked". It is surprising if he was for, if the IRA shared his very, pessimistic analysis of where the "peace process was going, what reason would they have had within the ambit of their ideology and their expectations for not resuming their military campaign?
The IRA ideology is well known less attention has been paid to their expectations. On August 31st, 1994, they expected that there would be a relatively smooth passage into talks, at least with the British government, on a settlement to the Northern Ireland problem. That expectation was unreal, irrespective of whatever may have been said to them privately. But they were not alone in having unreal expectations.
The widespread confidence two years ago that there would be an untroubled transition towards a peaceful settlement was also unreal. There was never going to be a quick fix to the intractabilities which had hardened during the 25 years of violence and which dated back centuries. But equally, the despondency that now prevails because of Monday's atrocity and the general impasse in the peace process is misplaced.
But let me first address the unreality of the Sinn Fein/IRA expectations of two years ago.
How was it surprising that the unionist community would be suspicious of, and hostile to, their peace initiative, given the carnage, injury, destruction, grief and terror that the IRA had inflicted upon that community for 25 years? Yes, we know that carnage, injury etc was also inflicted by the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries on the nationalist community, and we know of the decades of repression and disrespect the nationalist community had to endure and I do not make this acknowledgement dismissively. But, from the unionists' perspective, was it not thoroughly predictable and reasonable that there would be caution, suspicion and reluctance to engage with those who had inflicted such hurt upon them?
For that, essentially, is what the impasse over decommissioning is about the issue that has barred progress towards talks on a settlement. The demand for a start to decommissioning prior to engagement in substantive talks is not just a ruse to humiliate the republican movement although that may be part of the motivation for some unionists. It is also a plea for reassurance. The failure of republicans generally to acknowledge this is part of the cause for the prevailing impasse. Their expectation that such an acknowledgement would be unnecessary was unrealistic.
But the general expectation of an enduring and uninterrupted peace in our time was also misplaced. Conflicts as complex as the one in Northern Ireland do not resolve themselves easily or quickly, if at all. There were bound to be setbacks, further intractabilities and sporadic reversions to violence I can write this with some confidence, for I made such predications in the immediate aftermath of the ceasefire.
But, fundamentally, there were then and there remain grounds for long term optimism. Certain fundamentals have changed in Northern Ireland and these permit a settlement that will be at least workable.
ONE of the fundamental changes has occurred within the republican movement. There is now widespread conviction within the movement that the "armed struggle" can have only a very limited influence in events and that any real change in Northern Ireland has to come about through an "unarmed struggle".
The conviction that the "armed struggle" can still have some influence was unfortunately confirmed by the swift response of the British and Irish governments in setting a definite date for all Party talks in the immediate aftermath of the Canary Wharf killings. Monday's bombing, which was the work of the IRA, almost certainly was intended to "nudge" along the peace process.
It does not represent a deflection from the perception that only through a broadly based political alliance can real political progress be made and that such an alliance cannot come about in the context of republican violence.
The extension to this is a tacit acceptance by she nationalist community generally (and encompassing the republican movement) that there will be no fundamental change to the constitutional position of Northern Ireland. Basically, nationalists (and republicans) are now prepared to live with the Northern state, provided it is reformed. And the main problem now is in convincing unionists that nationalists are prepared to accept this modest objective and that there is no covert agenda to hijack them into a united Ireland.
That sounds simple, but it is not going to be, because of the levels of suspicion and mistrust on both sides, because of bloody mindedness on the part of some of the "players", and because of vacillation and trepidation on the part of the British government. But there is a way ahead.
Almost certainly there will be a new British government within a few months and it seems that a Blair government might not be quite as bad as was feared. In an interview last week, Marjorie Mowlam, the Labour "shadow" Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, made it plain that the only precondition for Sinn Fein's entry to talks would be a resumption of the ceasefire there would be no demands for reassurances on the permanence of a renewed ceasefire, nor for any undertakings on decommissioning, apart from acceptance of the six Mitchell principles (Sinn Fein say they have no problems with these). She is also at pains to give reassurance that the decommissioning issue would not be an obstacle to progress into substantive talks.
In that interview on Monday night, Mitchel McLaughlin said it was his understanding that there would be a resumption of the IRA ceasefire on three conditions that Sinn Fein would be involved in substantive all party talks without further preconditions (Marjorie Mowlam is indicating this is acceptable) that a time limit is put on the talks (John Bruton has already suggested this) and that issues such as the repatriation of prisoners and respect for the Irish language be addressed (this can hardly be a problem).
Thus, it seems that there is the basis for a resumption of the IRA ceasefire. John Bruton's recent confidence on that score was not misplaced in spite of Monday's atrocity. And, because there is not an incompatibility between unionist, insistence on the maintenance of the "union" and what nationalists and republicans will live with, there is the basis for a settlement although getting there will prove protracted and difficult.