Sir, As hopes for a new IRA ceasefire return with the election of a Labour government in Britain, so too have words of warning from those who believed that the last ceasefire had a hidden agenda behind it. Over the weekend David Trimble referred to the 1994 ceasefire as a "cruel deception". And throughout the peace process a number of Dublin journalists as well as large sections of the British media also argued it was a fraud.
It was asserted that the IRA had no real interest in peace, only in ultimate victory through armed struggle. The peace process was merely a device to fool nationalist Ireland, to conceal the IRA's true intentions, and to buy political credibility in the short term. Mo Mowlam's apparent softening of stance towards Sinn Fein has led to a reappearance of these views. It is therefore important, that as the peace process seems to be entering a new phase, that the central argument coming from its critics be conclusively demolished.
As a former member of Sinn Fein I was part of a tendency critical of the armed strategy, and took part in many of the party's debates. I do not recollect any conspiracies being discussed. I certainly do not recall supporters of armed struggle arguing the case for a ceasefire - as part of a cunning new strategy. Yet this is what we are being asked to believe. The theory that the ceasefire was a "cynical tactic" rests on a total absurdity.
The military minded people were dead against the ceasefire, or even any talk of ceasefires. The impetus for it came from the opposite pole of the movement. Over the years a politicised leadership had emerged which could see the limitations of armed struggle, and which wished for a new political direction.
The collapse of the ceasefire is claimed by its critics as vindication of what they imagine to have been their penetrating insight into the republican psychology, and "proof" of its fraudulent nature. It proves nothing of the sort. It proves that those in favour of peace within the movement lost the argument. And they lost it precisely because the British government followed the sort of policies advocated by the cynics.
Throughout the ceasefire the moderate element in the republican movement were undermined by the British policy of refusing to take the ceasefire as genuine. Since the collapse of the ceasefire, security sources have been quoted detailing the swing within the IRA. Senior positions, it is claimed, have been taken over by "hardliners" - all of whom opposed the ceasefire from the very start. British policy undoubtedly created this situation, making the quest for peace even more difficult.
Considering the tradition of armed struggle within the republican movement, the leadership had a considerable task in leading it towards a political course. Yet the British could see nothing in this developing situation except the opportunity to make mischief. It was the British government, not the republicans, who had a secret agenda throughout the peace process. Its objectives were to create divisions within the republican movement, as well as within the nationalist consensus upon which the peace process was built.
They pursued this policy with reckless disregard for the wishes and welfare of the Irish people, treating the simple aspiration for peace with contempt. Thank God they are gone.
The new Labour government is under no obligation to continue the shameful secret agenda of the previous administration. Mo Mowlam has a tough job on her hands. She would get off to a good start by ignoring the "advice" of those critics of the peace process whose view of reality is befriddled by their own private hate fantasies. - Yours, etc.,
Dean Swift Square,
Dublin 8.