Self-rule returns to N Ireland; spotlight on IRA

Self-rule returns to N Ireland; spotlight on IRA
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

BELFAST, DEC 3: Northern Ireland's political enemies sat down for the first meeting of the power-sharing executive on Thursday, with the unresolved questioned of paramilitary disarmament hanging over proceedings.

Ministers from the new 10-strong executive met for coffee and biscuits before getting down to the serious business of government, although the gathering was boycotted by the two ministers from the hardline Protestant Democratic Unionists (DUP).

They objected to the presence of two ministers from Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), in the executive. The DUP is particularly upset over the appointment of Sinn Fein chief negotiator Martin McGuinness, reputedly a former IRA chief-of-staff, as the new education minister.

DUP leader Ian Paisley, a firebrand preacher, staged a press conference to coincide exactly with the start of the executive meeting. "We are not liars like other politicians," Paisley thundered. "The die is cast. The law has been changed so there's noneed for decommissioning as far as the government of this country is concerned."

As ministers on the province's new executive began their first meeting at Stormont, outside Belfast, the IRA was due to appoint its go-between to an international body set up to oversee disarmament. It would be the latest crucial step in a rejuvenated peace process that is at last delivering devolved government and aims to achieve total paramilitary disarmament as well.

It is unique in the turbulent history of Northern Ireland, as it includes the IRA's political wing Sinn Fein in an enforced coalition representing all shades of Protestant and Roman Catholic opinion. "Today may prove to be historic, but that is for history to judge," First Minister David Trimble, the ever-cautious Ulster Unionist leader, said on BBC radio.

With formalities on course, the focus turned to the IRA, although it was unclear whether it would actually publish the name of its go-between. Protestant extremist groups face the same obligations todisarm, but the spotlight is on the IRA because the loyalists' political representatives are not in government, whereas Sinn Fein has two high-profile posts, with Bairbre de Brun in the health portfolio alongside McGuinness.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson insisted that if there was any "default" on weapons decommissioning, "I would have to step in to suspend the operations of the institutions very quickly indeed."

Ireland meanwhile fulfilled one of the most crucial but understated aspects of the historic April 1998 Good Friday peace accord - amending two articles in its constitution making territorial claims over Northern Ireland.

The Irish government's Justice department also announced it was to move its 22 remaining IRA prisoners from the top-security Portlaoise jail, outside Dublin to the recently-completed lower-security Castlerea prison complex.

In Belfast, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said it was only the start of the "loosening of the knot" with Britain, "the beginning of anotherphase of the struggle" towards a united Ireland.