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Can British Offer of Troop Withdrawal Coax the IRA?

February 11, 2000
Web posted at: 12:15 PM EST (1715 GMT)

By Tony Karon

(TIME.com) -- Britain is the root of all evil in the nationalist theology of Northern Ireland's Republicans -- and London may be trying to use that to save the peace process. With the immediate future of the Good Friday Agreement hinging on the IRA's making a "credible commitment" to disarm, Tony Blair's government stood poised Friday to suspend Northern Ireland's historic joint assembly and executive. But it also sought to coax cooperation from the IRA by offering to begin withdrawing British troops from the territory in exchange.

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Suspending Northern Ireland's self-rule would flash-freeze the peace process, which London considers preferable to allowing the total collapse that would result if Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble carries out his threat to resign by February 12 in the absence of any disarmament. The crisis reflects the mood of the hard-liners among both Republicans and loyalists unconvinced by the compromises negotiated by their leaders. "For a long time Adams complained that Trimble hadn't prepared his followers to sit in an assembly with the very people they'd decried as terrorists," says former TIME London bureau chief Barry Hillenbrand. "But now the tables are turned, and it's Adams who's failed to deliver the 'hard men.'"

Although the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 requires that disarmament be completed only by May 22 of this year, Trimble has come under intense pressure to accelerate the timetable. The Unionist leader faced down an internal revolt last October by a narrow margin, managing to stay in the process only by vowing to walk out in the absence of any IRA disarmament by the end of January. But despite his best efforts, Adams has been unable to sell early disarmament to a movement that sees its weapons as the only reason Britain and the Unionists ever bothered to negotiate with Republicans. "Pressure from Trimble and London had made it harder for Adams to persuade the IRA's hard men that decommissioning now would be a voluntary gesture from a position of strength rather than a humiliation extracted by the enemy," says TIME London bureau chief Jef McAllister. Britain's offer to begin withdrawing troops in exchange for the IRA's turning in weapons may be designed to make disarmament more palatable to the nationalist militants. But even that may not be enough to keep peace out of the deep freeze.

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