Unity

From Unity, 3 February 2007

Welcome move by republicans

by Eugene McCartan

The decision by the overwhelming majority of delegates at the special Sinn Féin ard-fheis on 28 January convened to debate a motion calling for support for policing and the PSNI in Northern Ireland has once again put pressure on the DUP with regard to re-establishing a power-sharing Executive. The outcome has been welcomed right across the board, but the reaction of the DUP to the decision to support policing and to encourage people both to support and join the PSNI has been muted.
     The decision comes against the backdrop of the report published by the Police Ombudsman, Nuala O’Loan, into collusion between both the RUC and PSNI and loyalist paramilitaries—a report that Ian Paisley and others have dismissed and rubbished. They have questioned the contents of the report and also made hints about Nuala O’Loan’s background.
     Paisley Junior expressed a cautious welcome at the decision taken at the ard-fheis but was looking for republicans to do more than express words: he wants “deeds” as well. The day following the ard-fheis the president of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, urged all citizens to co-operate with the PSNI. He also stated: “There is no equivocation or qualification on this.” Peter Robinson, while welcoming Adams’s statement, said: “I think people will watch over the next number of days [to see] if what is implicit becomes explicit.”
     The announcement by the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, of elections to a new Assembly to take place on 7 March and the election of a new Executive on the 26 March is to be welcomed. They have also hinted that if a new Executive is not formed they will implement their alternative plan, which will be some form of joint authority shared between Dublin and London.
     It is clear that the forthcoming election campaign will be a battle between the different political forces along the traditional political fault-line. No doubt elements at all levels within the DUP will be busy working to draw up new tests and new hurdles for republicans to jump over. Not that the DUP itself is clean in regard to its own role of encouraging violence over the decades, albeit their fingerprints have not been found at the scene of this or that crime.
     Willie Frazer, spokesperson for Families Acting for Innocent Relatives, protested outside the ard-fheis. He also dismissed the Police Ombudsman’s report on collusion. One would have thought this particular person would be welcoming this major change in republican thinking. Not a bit.
     Clearly unionism is having great difficulty in coming to terms with political developments and the changing political relationships on this island. Unionism, despite the appearance of unity behind the DUP, is deeply divided. It is highly unlikely that Paisley and the DUP will make any significant move in relation to sharing government with Sinn Féin this side of the elections on 7 March. Paisley in particular will be hoping to hold up progress and to exploit any potential resulting from the election of a new Prime Minister and leader of the British Labour Party.
     Paisley and the DUP will head into the elections taking credit for pushing Sinn Féin on policing and justice. The DUP will present itself as the only party capable of holding the line, keeping republicans in check and securing the union. There is every danger that during the election campaign the unionist parties will attempt to outdo each other with preconditions in relation to any future governmental arrangements and with demands on republicans to do this, that and the other before they will sit in government.
     What Willie Frazer, Willie McCrea, Nigel Dodd and others within the DUP have in common is that they are terrified of a political settlement. They still hanker after a political defeat of republicanism; they would like a return to single-party government, and if that is not possible then the SDLP would be their preferred partner in any new arrangement. History shows that unionism has great difficulty with such concepts as democracy and equality.
     The potential now exists to move towards the establishing of devolved government, which can provide a platform for addressing the many social and economic problems facing working people in the North. While the elections will be fought in polarised conditions, that should not prevent progressive intervention in the political debate and attempts to shape the outcome.
     We now need to be looking at a more medium and long-term strategy to make democracy a reality—democracy not just confined to the election of Assembly members but concerned with building structures that involve and engage working people. We need to look at ways and means of building political structures and alliances, which are not directly linked, that both influence and challenge the state itself.

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