| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Mallon: We would find out.
Mr. McCartney: With respect, democrats do not need to find out what the objectives of Sinn Fein-IRA are. It has been amply demonstrated not only that Sinn Fein cannot be trusted, but that it does not intend ever to use any methodology other than violence to attain its objectives.
If paragraph 35 of Mitchell means--as I submit that it does--that there will be modest decommissioning in return for political concessions, it poses two questions. First, who will be the judge of whether sufficient political concessions have been made? Secondly, who will assess the worth of those concessions in terms of the guns and Semtex with which they are to be won? The answer is that the terrorists of both sides will determine whether the concessions they have obtained are sufficient to warrant some small or modest handing over of weaponry.
It is possible to have a permanent cessation if we accept the IRA's price for a permanent cessation of violence. The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh asked how we can talk guns out of the Northern Ireland context. Presumably, it will happen when those who employ bombs and weapons to secure their objectives decide that those objectives have been secured.
9 Dec 1996 : Column 61
Peace can always be obtained at a price. Peace could have been obtained in 1939 or in 1940 by meeting Adolph Hitler's modest requirements. The principle is exactly the same in both cases, albeit Adolf Hitler was operating on a rather grander scale and had many more munitions than Sinn Fein-IRA. He had political demands in middle Europe, and he wanted them satisfied. When he failed to achieve them by negotiation, he went to war. But he did so only after negotiation failed. He got what he wanted through negotiation in Czechoslovakia, but he failed to do so in Poland. We are witnessing exactly the same type of anti-democratic and fascist activities by Sinn Fein-IRA.
We can examine the principles of decommissioning only by considering the terms upon which decommissioning may be achieved, and by considering the relationship between the terms of any new ceasefire and the issue of decommissioning. The permanence of a cessation of IRA violence has a direct bearing on the issue of decommissioning and the modalities for its implementation--which is the subject of this Bill. The language used to describe any new cessation of violence must deal not only with the ceasefire's nature but with its duration.
If a ceasefire is declared to be both complete and permanent, it would be difficult to discover any logical basis either for the retention of weapons or for objections to agreements providing for an immediate commencement of the decommissioning process. Conversely, a failure to declare that a ceasefire is permanent, coupled with a reluctance to decommission--either before, during or after negotiation--must be construed as a very strong indication of rejection of an absolute commitment to democratic procedure, and as a reservation that, if such procedure does not afford an acceptable outcome, there will be a return to violence.
Those concepts were precisely encapsulated by Mr. Dick Spring's statement to the Dail Eireann on the day after the joint declaration. He said precisely that one cannot walk in, have a look at what is on offer within the democratic process and then reject it and return to the bomb and the bullet if it fails to measure up to one's expectations. The Irish Government and the Social Democratic and Labour party would expect pro-Union people to accept exactly that position. I believe that such conditions are wholly and totally unacceptable, and I think that the overwhelming majority of pro-Union people in Ulster feel the same way.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) made some very perceptive comments, and he has grasped the essence of the position held by Sinn Fein-IRA. He said that the IRA was humiliated by the British Government's attitude after the ceasefire, which caused it to feel that it was being required to surrender, whereas the IRA's position was that it was a combatant and, in one sense, of equal status with the British state. He said that the IRA's attitude was that it would not surrender to anyone, that it held its arms legitimately and that it was a lawful force. I accept entirely his analysis of the situation.
Those factors bear very heavily on the IRA's attitude to what is euphemistically called the peace process. If viewed from a pro-Union and democratic position, the peace process is about democrats negotiating together, on democratic principles and with democratic procedures, to discover a solution to a problem. That is how we on the pro-Union side regard the peace process. It is not regarded
9 Dec 1996 : Column 62
In one sense, Sinn Fein-IRA does not even acknowledge as lawful the Government of the Republic of Ireland. It regards the course on which it is set as a national war, on behalf of the only people who really matter: those who truly know and hold the essential spirit of Irish nationalism. Therefore, in engaging the British Government, Sinn Fein-IRA does not wish to sit down and negotiate with lesser mortals and lesser parties--from the Ulster Democratic Unionist party and the Ulster Unionist party, right down to the humble United Kingdom Unionist party, not to mention the women's coalition and the Social Democratic and Labour party.
Those parties and individuals are irrelevant to Sinn Fein-IRA. At best, they form part of the democratic window-dressing or backdrop against which Sinn Fein-IRA, as a combatant, will conduct not political negotiations but conflict resolution, or a peace conference, between itself and the British state, in which the two sides hold their weapons lawfully and legitimately. If it starts from the basic premise that it holds its weapons lawfully and legitimately, not only will it not hand over a significant amount of weaponry or engage in a process in which weapons are taken out of the political context, it will not hand over a single rusty revolver or a pound of sweating Semtex. The reason it cannot do so is ideological--[Interruption.] Those who have a more profound knowledge of weaponry are perhaps signifying that Semtex does not sweat, unlike dynamite or gelignite. I bow to their superior knowledge. I was aware of that difference, but I did not think it one of great substance. I know that there are those who turn their microscopic diligence to particularities, but I think that we should concern ourselves with broader principles of rather more importance.
As I was saying, there is no way in which Sinn Fein-IRA will ever--before, during or after the negotiations--hand over any weaponry unless it is convinced of one of two things: first, that there is an immediate concession to its demands, which can be crystallised as "Brits out" and self-determination on an all-Ireland basis--that is unlikely to occur--or, secondly, that it is offered a political framework that might just, positively and without there being much doubt about it, offer to it within a span of perhaps less than 15 or 20 years the prospect that its objectives will be achieved. They are the only two possibilities, but there is no possibility whatever that it will throw away the only weapon--violence--which has ever succeeded in advancing its cause.
In what other political or democratic setting would a party that can conjure up what was for it a very good election result of only 15 per cent. of the vote--obtained, I believe, by conning the electorate, or a sizeable proportion of it, into voting for it on the basis that it might engage in peace talks--have the clout and political influence with two sovereign Governments that Sinn Fein has demonstrated? No one is going to convince me--or, I hope, any other hon. Member--that the influence that Sinn Fein has had on Governments has been a product of rational thought or of powerful argument or analysis; it has been founded on nothing other than the bomb and the bullet. When I hear it being suggested that such people
9 Dec 1996 : Column 63
I shall now comment on matters raised by the hon. Member for Redcar (Ms Mowlam). She made a number of references to Drumcree, mark 1, mark 2 and the possibility of turning our thoughts to mark 3. We should all understand that the events at Drumcree and Harryville are not conditions, but symptoms. They are symptoms of a majority who have lost confidence in the capacity of their Government to protect their citizenship and the value of that citizenship and to give them a sense that they are cared for and cherished equally with all other British citizens.
There is a growing feeling, which is not lessened by terminology such as that used in the joint declaration, that the United Kingdom has no selfish, economic or strategic interest in remaining in Northern Ireland. When I recently had discussions with the Prime Minister and pointed out just how powerful that statement had been in knocking the confidence of the pro-Union people and of raising their anxiety about their constitutional position almost to the level of paranoia, he remarked that it was not a new statement; that it had been said before. Lest he was under any illusion that I was not aware that it had been said before, I told him that yes, it had been used before--by the right hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke) in a speech at Coleraine in, I believe, 1991--but I was able to enlighten the Prime Minister that that was not the real fons et origo: it was first used by Mr. John Hume on 19 September 1988 in The Irish Times when he was reporting the conclusions of his first series of meetings with Gerry Adams. That is the source of the statement.
What we see manifested at Drumcree, and to some extent at Harryville, is a situation that has enabled the head of the community relations agency to state recently that there has never, since the agency was formed, been a worse, or more divided, or more bitter, difference between the two communities in Northern Ireland. It is something of a paradox that the two Governments should be striving for peace and telling the world that they are involved in a peace process when the main outcome of that process is the utter destruction of community relations in Northern Ireland. That tells us something.
The hon. Members for Kingston upon Hull, North and for Redcar and others made powerful comments on how the rule of law had been flouted and breached at Drumcree. It was taken to be a dreadful thing. The people who assembled at Drumcree--I speak for perhaps 97 or 98 per cent. of those who were there--were not National Front louts or agents provocateurs out to stir up those called from every airt and part. They were solid.
I went as an observer. I am not an Orangeman; I am not in the Black or in any of the Orange institutions, and I do not march on any occasion, so I went as an observer. I can tell hon. Members that 99 per cent. of the people assembled there were in employment. They were farmers, artisans, labourers and small shopkeepers--people who pay their rates and have no criminal record. They were the same sort of people as those who numbered nearly 250,000 and who, on 15 or 16 November 1985, protested on the streets of Belfast about the Anglo-Irish agreement.
9 Dec 1996 : Column 64
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |