Marchers carried crosses Sunday in Londonderry in memory of the victims of the 1972 Bloody Sunday shootings

January 30, 2000
Web posted at: 9:37 p.m. EST (0237 GMT)

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BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- With a report due on Monday widely expected to say that the Irish Republican Army is not ready to disarm, the Northern Ireland peace process appears headed for a fresh crisis.

The report by Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, head of the province's independent commission overseeing the handing in of weapons, is expected to confirm that no arms have been turned in.

The Ireland on Sunday newspaper said de Chastelain would tell the British and Irish governments that the IRA had put most of its weapons into secret, sealed dumps in the Irish Republic.

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Such disclosures would put enormous pressure on Gerry Adams, the leader of the IRA's political wing, Sinn Fein.

The province's main Protestant political group, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), has already threatened to pull out of Northern Ireland's fledgling power-sharing government if the IRA does not start disarming.

The UUP has called a top-level party meeting for February 12. A negative report from the decommissioning body would heighten fears that UUP leader David Trimble would make good on his threat to resign as leader of the new government, effectively allowing his party to shut down the province's first government in 25 years.

Sinn Fein leader Adams was among the Londonderry marchers

Of Adams's role in the disarmament process, Trimble said, "He asked us to create the circumstances to help him ... we did that ... we took the risk and created the situation he asked us to create.

"Now we hope he now is able to demonstrate his good faith by responding."

Adams said, "I am concerned at what appears to be an attempt by unionists to hijack the entire process, put up unilateral demands, perhaps in the course of that, tear down the institutions that are only two months in being.

"I understand why unionists want decommissioning. It is just not within my grasp to deliver it on their terms, and neither is it my responsibility."

Adams said he could give no assurances that the IRA would hand over its weapons by May 22, the date set by the 1998 accord for the completion of disarmament, although he stressed he was committed to decommissioning.

"No, I can't and it isn't up to me," Adams told BBC television when asked if he could guarantee disarmament by May.

Political insiders have hinted that the report will not be published until Monday afternoon, suggesting the highly sensitive document is still being worked on by de Chastelain.

Any unionist pullout from the home-rule government on February 12 would create a political vacuum. Britain may intervene before that to suspend the fledgling executive, in the hope that it could be resurrected quickly if progress eventually is made on disarmament.

Sinn Fein has warned that either course of action could lead to the IRA breaking off contact with de Chastelain and the ending of disarmament prospects.

The issue of disarmament is once again threatening the fragile peace in Northern Ireland as marchers took to the streets of Londonderry to mark Bloody Sunday

Meanwhile, on the eve of the report, thousands of Roman Catholics marked an event and day that symbolized the province's past troubles -- Bloody Sunday.

Waving Irish flags, some 5,000 protesters retraced the steps of a civil rights march in Londonderry in 1972 that ended in bloodshed when British troops fired on unarmed protesters and killed 13 people, mostly teen-agers. A fourteenth man died later from his wounds.

Victims' relatives and local children carried 14 white crosses, photos of the dead and a banner that read, "Bloody Sunday, the day innocence died."

The Bloody Sunday march passed the scene of the killings and ended in front of Londonderry's city hall -- a spot where the 1972 march was supposed to have finished.

Organizers issued a message to British Prime Minister Tony Blair that they wanted a forthcoming inquiry not to end in the same way as a probe held within months of the killings.

That probe exonerated the British soldiers by suggesting that some of the victims had handled weapons that day.

"Twenty-eight years on from Bloody Sunday, there is still no recognition of the role the British government played in the premeditated attack on unarmed demonstrators," Barbara de Brun, a top IRA official, told the crowd.

Relatives of those killed were upset that soldiers who took part in the shootings would be allowed to remain anonymous during the new probe.

They were also concerned about a newspaper report that the army recently destroyed 13 of the rifles used by the soldiers, complicating any ballistic tests at the inquiry.

"Once again, the political and military establishment are up to their old tricks. We won't accept a public relations exercise," Alana Burke, who was injured by an armored car during the Bloody Sunday march, told the crowd.

Correspondent Nic Robertson and Reuters contributed to this report.

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