There still remains a significant gap between the thinking of the IRA andthat of democrats, writes Sir Reg Empey
Are unionists being pedantic whey-faced puritans in asking for precise language from the IRA at the moment? I suggest not.
One event above all others is tattooed into the consciousness in Northern Ireland. In August 1994 the IRA offered a "complete cessation of military operations". Unionists were widely adjured by nationalists to take this on trust on the basis that "complete" meant "permanent". But when the IRA relaunched its murder campaign at Canary Wharf in February, 1996, IRA spokesmen were all too happy to tell us that they had never offered a permanent cessation of violence and that "complete" did not mean "permanent" at all.
This time we have to have language from the IRA that has no obvious loophole or let-out clause. So far, as both the UK and Irish governments have acknowledged, this is not the case. Mr Ahern's recent criticism of the Ulster Unionist Party is a source of regret. The fact is, as Mr Blair has made absolutely clear, the leadership of the party is deeply committed still to making a success of the Belfast Agreement if that is possible.
There is a certain pro forma quality to Mr Ahern's remarks. There is an element also of displacement: he cannot afford to attack Mr Blair in public on the issue of postponing the Assembly elections. But there is a danger in a language that appears to create a moral equivalence between those who have sought to undermine the agreement through paramilitary activity - gunrunning, targeting, espionage and so on - and those who had a moral duty to respond politically to the crisis this created.
Does Mr Ahern really not understand that the agreement would be in the dustbin by now if the UUP had turned a blind eye and attempted to keep the executive going in the face of blatant anti-democratic dirty tricks? Our actions have created the context in which there is one last chance to get the agreement and its institutions re-established on a credible basis.
But what are we to make of the republican movement's recent statements? It is important to remember that implementing the Belfast Agreement since 1998 has been bedevilled by one fact above all: the IRA does not consider itself to be a party to the agreement and its obligations to completely peaceful methods and complete decommissioning. There is a Janus-faced attitude here. The republican movement insists for public consumption that Sinn Féin and the IRA are separate entities. The other parties to the agreement - notably the UK government and ourselves - have never accepted this transparent fiction, nor indeed does Mary Harney.
As, the IRA statement makes clear, it still does not regard itself as a party to the agreement, even if Mr Adams is given a certain latitude to speak for it. And what is Mr Adams saying? He seems to be saying that targeting and intelligence gathering are problems that bedevilled the process and should cease.
Even then he may be saying that it is the allegations of these actions, rather than the actuality, which is the problem. There is absolutely no hint that other anti-democratic activity - paramilitary mutilations, weapons procurement and recruitment - explicitly outlawed by both governments in their Joint Declaration, will definitely cease. Nor is there any acceptance that this is still happening on the ground, as prominent SDLP figures have been pointing out.
The worrying impression is left that the republican movement considers violence to be a necessary part of its armoury and means of subjugating local communities. To dispel this impression and to create the conditions for a political breakthrough the IRA is going to have to use clear-cut language and then follow through.
We need to understand too what the elements of conditionality actually are. When Mr Adams in his recent key statement defined the agreement as meaning constitutional change, did he mean, as he has said elsewhere, that the agreement is incompatible with British sovereignty over Northern Ireland? In short, is the IRA offering to move, say, on decommissioning in the context of the normal and effective operation of the institutions of the agreement such as we experienced during 2000-1? Or do they mean, as their language heavily implies, that the IRA's offer is conditional on progress towards, and the achievement of a United Ireland?
To raise these issues, as Senator Martin Mansergh, the Taoiseach's former special adviser, put it recently, is to speak the language of democrats on both sides of the Border.
We cannot accept that the IRA army council has a right to communicate with the rest of us in a cryptic and uncertain fashion. This self-appointed political elite is in no position to lay down prescriptions that the common man and woman on both sides of the Border find hard to fathom. It would be nice to believe that we were close to a genuine breakthrough but there still remains a significant gap between the thinking of the IRA and of democrats. To have held an election in such circumstances would have maximised negativism and cynicism in Northern Ireland. With the IRA in its current mode no executive could have been formed and the crisis would merely have deepened to the point where the agreement was destroyed.
We now have time out, a chance to begin the political work - a substantial task indeed - which is necessary to rebuild public confidence. We have to have a clear answer from the IRA as to whether it regards any sanctions regime - as envisaged by both governments - as being in breach of the obligations under the agreement and, therefore, an excuse for the IRA not to fulfil any undertakings it might give.
The recent "Stakeknife" allegations are no doubt an embarrassment for the IRA but they also create an opportunity. The whole seedy, ghastly world of paramilitarism has been exposed as never before. The fact that it may be that British Intelligence had a remarkably high level of penetration not only disposes of all the fatuous glamour of the infamous cell structure but raises the question why any sane person, let alone one with any misguided idealism, would want to play a part in this deadly game any more.
It makes the moment for the final breach with paramilitarism all the more pressing. It would free a generation of young men and women from involvement in a world now so decisively revealed as corrupt and corrupted. The same point can be made about the depraved world of paramilitary loyalism.
The UUP is determined that every effort will be made to bring about the conditions in which the institutions of the agreement can be revived on a viable basis. There are still substantial difficulties to be resolved. But for our part, we are determined to vindicate the vision that inspired the negotiation of the agreement itself. The fundamental principles were sound but now everyone must take them on board, not least the IRA.
Sir Reg Empey was minister for enterprise, trade and investment in the former Northern Ireland Executive