ANALYSIS:Though prison protests and violence stir up memories of the Troubles, echoes of the early peace process can also be heard, writes DAN KEENAN
PRISON PROTESTS by republicans and politics can be a potent mix as anyone old enough to have lived through the hunger strikes of 1980-81 can confirm.
Thirty years after the H Block protests and the political mayhem which followed, it looks as if at least some of the ingredients of that explosive mix may be mingling again. However, a critical one is missing: the public support that made it possible for IRA members in prison to stand for election and win.
“Dissident” republican prisoners in Maghaberry jail are protesting over conditionsin the prison. Negotiations broke down last night and a resolution to the grievances of the 25 republican prisoners held there appears as elusive as ever. The issue retains its potential to divide the British and Irish governments and, by implication, the framework which holds the new political dispensation together.
It further challenges the PSNI, especially its ability to reach into the farthest corners of the republican and nationalist community for the levels of support needed to underpin it.
Not least it poses very real political difficulties for Sinn Féin, leaving it open to dissident republican charges that it has sold out.
Looking to Maghaberry, Republican Sinn Féin claims that “the struggle now is the same as the struggle then” and its charge that Gerry Adams and colleagues are “absorbed into the apparatus of British rule” is well-aimed. Few charges carry a more sinister tone within republicanism than that of treachery, which is probably why Martin McGuinness chose it to describe the killers of British soldiers and a PSNI officer in March last year.
The Deputy First Minister stood by that claim in an RTÉ interview at the weekend, adding that dissident republican groups engaged in the spate of recent violence are philosophically opposed to the current peace process and are either using their campaign of violence as cover for “ordinary” criminal purposes or simply to highlight their opposition to policing reforms and Sinn Féin’s backing of the PSNI.
Government sources last night insisted that, despite reports to the contrary, there is no difference between Dublin and London over the political and security response to the rise in dissident attacks, in particular over talks with dissidents.
For his part PSNI chief constable Matt Baggott, speaking at the scene of last week’s bomb blast at Strand Road police station in Derry, backed this point, saying there is no division whatever between the police service he leads and the Garda.
Northern secretary Owen Paterson said yesterday there is no point in talking to those “who are not committed to peaceful means of pursuing their goals”. Paterson’s remarks may be honestly made, but they are not a blanket ban on contacts between government and subversive that some may interpret them to mean.
All must know, as Sinn Féin’s delegation head in any talks that take place with dissidents has pointed out, that talking is sooner or later inevitable.
Gerry Kelly has said that there cannot be a security-only response to dissident violence, there has also to be a political effort. Echoes of the early years of the peace process are heard again.
Obstacles remain, however. One source has suggested that, politically speaking, some dissidents are yet to be convinced of the point of talking to anyone about anything. “It’s a bit like the Provisionals in the early 1970s who didn’t want to know about politics. Let’s free Ireland first and then we’ll talk.”
The SDLP has found an opportunity in the current exchanges to return to its criticisms of Sinn Féin and of the decision to transfer intelligence responsibility from the PSNI to British military intelligence.
Writing in this newspaper, Margaret Ritchie has held up as a triumph the creation of a democratically controlled police service which is winning public support and she laments the absence of a similar and parallel structure for intelligence gathering.
Saturday’s Apprentice Boys’ demonstrations across Northern Ireland will highlight the tensions in the current political and security situation. A contentious march by Apprentice Boys past Ardoyne in Belfast will take place on Saturday, just one month after days of serious violence scarred the area in the wake of the Twelfth of July parades. Nationalist protesters will again take to the same road to protest against them.
Yet for all the risks posed by dissidents, marches and political battles, the Belfast Agreement and the new political dispensation that has come with it, is a formidable bulwark that only the most hardline are resisting. In that context, Gerry Adams has voiced his confidence in the wider picture.
“People should not be afraid,” he said. “The peace process is not going to be set off course.”
Dan Keenan is Northern News Editor of The Irish Times