Adams on the process and future

Gerry Adams provides the most comprehensive insight into current Republican thinking re the health of the peace process in his Sunday Business Post with Pat Leahy.

The outstanding issues from his point of view are:

TextPolicing is do-able in the short term because it has been reduced to a number of issues, including the need to transfer power on policing and justice back to a Northern administration. The Human Rights Commission is an absolute mess. There’s no confidence in the commission across nationalism in the North and that view is shared also by elements of unionism. Demilitarisation is still a concern, despite the television focus on one tower in South Armagh. We still have a huge amount to do.

He also wants some reassurance from David Trimble that the democratic institutions will not be suspended in future. In return he promises to do something on ending the IRA and continuing the process of decommissioning.

He gives his view of how the process has panned out:

The way the agreement has worked is slightly different, in my view, to what was anticipated by the strategists on the British side, and I don’t include the political leadership, Idon’t include Blair in that. I think the idea was you would get a coalition between middle-of-theroad unionists and the SDLP . . . I think the agreement was seen as something which would slightly reform the northern state to the satisfaction of more middle class nationalists. But the opposite has happened. Sinn F�in is now the largest party and continues to grow. . . Our ministers were good, the people in charge of the committees were good, our Assembly team performed well, we’d a breakthrough here in terms of the Leinster House elections.

Although he doesn’t avert to the possibility that middle ground unionism may similarly be eclipsed in any forthcoming elections. However he goes on to articulate the party’s approach towards Unionism. Looking to the future of the IRA he said:

I have said within republican circles that one of the objectives of this process is to see an IRA out of existence. When I say that we want to bring an end to physical force republicanism, that clearly means bringing an end to the organisation or the vehicle of physical force republicanism. It’s all a process, and it’s also very much dependent in its timing on those who are part of the alternative. This means the two governments and others within the broad body politic whether from the unionist or the nationalist side proving that politics works, proving that there is apeaceful way to bring about change.

Mick Fealty

Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty