The new opportunity for peace presented by the IRA's restoration of its cessation on 21 July must be seized and the peace process must be rebuilt on firm foundations. It took much courage for the IRA to declare this cessation and that courage has been widely recognised.
In stark contrast to the hope and expectation of reasonable people everywhere were the antics of the unionist parties at Stormont just three days after the cessation. They are now trying to wreck the framework for negotiations and undo the work which led to the latest cessation. They cannot be allowed to succeed.
Paisley's DUP and McCartney's DUP have walked out and declared the talks process dead. Paisley said the talks had been ``taken over by gunmen''. But the door remains open for these unionists to return. David Trimble's UUP remains in but seems determined to keep in place the decommissioning block to real and substantive negotiations.
These knee-jerk unionist reactions must be put in context. Unionists clearly fear real negotiations. Republicans understand those fears. But unionists leaders are out of step with the mass of tbeir own people if they continue to refuse to sit down with the elected representatives of their nationalist neighbours. In the words of Gerry Adams this week unionists need to ``declare a cessation in their heads''.
For their part nationalists and republicans are going to these talks demanding their rights and determined to see equality enshrined in a new Ireland. Their vision is one of unity and peace. On the second day of the cessation Sinn Féin's chief negotiator Martin McGuinness said:
``Our task is to turn this vision into a reality. We must not lower our expectations or be conditioned into accepting anything less than full freedom, equality and democracy. We must have credible, inclusive and meaningful negotiations.''
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