OF all the revelations concerning Mr David Trimble's conduct over these last 10 days, the revelation that he met the former UVF prisoner, Mr Billy Wright, at the height of the Drumcree crisis, is by far the most serious. This is an illustration of inconsistency in meeting members of one paramilitary organisation while refusing to meet mere associates (Sinn Fein) of another paramilitary organisation.
Mr Trimble claims the purpose of the Wright meeting was to urge the continuance of the loyalist ceasefire and that this was in line with his concern to ensure calm and restraint through the siege of Drumcree. That claim of concern for calm and restraint is questionable.
According to himself, David Trimble repeatedly warned Sir Hugh Annesley, the RUC chief constable, and others, that if the Drumcree Orange march were re routed to avoid the Garvaghy Road there would be a major confrontation with members of the Orange Order, leading, perhaps, to wide scale violence. As a concerned political leader and citizen, Mr Trimble believed it incumbent upon him to issue such warnings.
The decision having been taken to re-route the march, David Trimble might have been expected to deplore the decision, perhaps to advise a token protest at Drumcree and promise that he and his party vigorously would seek to secure through political means the civil and religious liberties which were stated to be at issue in Drumcree. He might also have been expected to call for a dispersal of the Orange marchers at Drumcree, lest any stand off there would lead to the conflagration that he had fearfully predicted.
WHAT he did was precisely the reverse. Believing that the decision was likely to cause a major confrontation, far from seeking to avert it he sought to hasten it by calling on members of the Orange Order throughout Northern Ireland to muster" at Drumcree. And, in language certain to inflame passions, he said Dublin are giving the orders" (about the re-routing of the march). In a few hours time, the rest of the province will show their support."
He then went on to identify himself with statements that could hardly have been more inflammatory.
Rev Martin Smyth MP, head of the Orange Order and his fellow Unionist MP, said it was sometimes necessary to break the law, indicating that it was then necessary to break the law. He said, "There can be no compromise," echoing what David Trimble proclaimed after an honourable compromise a year previously. Mr Harold Gracie, the District Orange Master, with whom David Trimble stood shoulder to shoulder throughout the siege, said Drumcree was "Ulster's Alamo". We will not be giving into John Bruton, Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness or any other spokesperson for Jesuit priests."
Mr Trimble evinced not a twitch of embarrassment.
Throughout the confrontation, as was the case the previous year, David Trimble acted in concert with Rev Ian Paisley. Mr Paisley said. "This is not just the siege of Drumcree, but the siege of the province and of the whole of the United Kingdom
We're fighting for the promise of the life to come and that's worth fighting for and 5 worth dying for."
David Trimble is the MP for the area where this "siege" took place. He was centrally involved in the confrontation that occurred the previous year. He therefore had a special responsibility especially as he had become leader of the main political party in Northern Ireland in the mean time of attempting to defuse any such conflict this year.
Mr Trimble claims that his self imposed ordinance against trucking with paramilitaries had to be suspended in the instance of his meeting with members of the UVF on Wednesday night last because of the "exceptional circumstances" then obtaining. This would be plausible and perhaps even laudable were it believable.
If the exceptional circumstances permitted his hour long meeting with Mr Wright and his cohorts, how is it that the same "exceptional circumstances" did not permit him to meet with another group (the Garvaghy Road Residents Association) of which only one member had any paramilitary connections and that in the past tense? This question is all the more pertinent given David Trimble's special responsibility in those circumstances.
QUESTIONS concerning David Trimble should now not be directed just at David Trimble but at John Major and Sir Patrick Mayhew as well. How is it that throughout the period when David Trimble was seen so brazenly to identify himself with the threat of the use of force they did not utter a single word of rebuke?
How is it that now David Trimble can participate in the multi party talks when participation in such talks is declared to be conditional on acceptance of the principle that all parties disavow the use of force or the threatened use of force? How is it that the British government does not even ask him to explain him sell?
There are two other points now to be made to the British government, quite aside from the issue of whether the capitulation to the Orange marchers was the lesser of two evils.
Why did both John Major and Sir Patrick Mayhew cut the ground from under the feet of Sir Hugh Annesley by signalling at meetings with David Trimble and others early last week that the RUC chief constable's re-routing of the Orange march was negotiable this was the only inference from their calls for "compromise" and "dialogue"?
And finally, if the removal of the threat or possibility of violence is essential to equality within the multi party talks (the argument for IRA decommissioning) how can such talks ever be equal given that they themselves (Major and Mayhew) have acknowledged that loyalist violence and the threat of loyalist violence is the ultimate determinant of official policy?