Unionists fear power sharing
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The next few weeks will tell us whether or not forward movement is possible, but no progress can be made if unionists cointinue to refuse to envisage sharing power with Catholics and if the British government continues to appease that untenable position.
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As the sorry face of Unionism shuffles in and out of meetings with Mo Mowlam, Ronnie Flanagan, and the GOC of the British Army in the Six Counties, muttering ever louder that the British must do something very very bad to Sinn Féin, their naked fear of sharing power with nationalists and republicans is increasingly exposed.
They managed, or more correctly were allowed, to block the Good Friday Agreement when it came to putting their money on the table and they now seem intent on completely rejecting probably its single greatest principle - inclusivity.
Let's put aside recent evidence that the unemployment differential for Catholics has increased dramatically or that unionist domination of the Housing Executive has again been shown as an electoral weapon. Let's even put aside the brutal RUC violence on the Ormeau Road, where peaceful protesters where batoned out of the path of a sectarian march.
Perhaps, and with a review of the Agreement around the corner, we should ask what is an Agreement.
Is it something that once made to allow a coat-trailing exercise down the Garvaghy Road has its very existence denied?
Is it something that is then blocked, stymied and vetoed at every twist and turn by one of its signatories, a refusal to engage tacitly approved by inaction on the part of the British government?
Or is it something that agreed between parties and both governments and then endorsed by the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland?
Certainly, following a frank meeting between a Martin McGuinness-led Sinn Féin delegation and Mo Mowlam on Tuesday, it was made clear to the British that the ill-conceived Parades Commission decisions over the last two weeks have shown scant understanding that the ritual humiliation of nationalists is unacceptable.
The British government can also be in no doubt - lest we forget Trimble's smug face on the steps of his Glengall Street party HQ on the day he was supposed to be demonstrating leadership of the Assembly, not just of Unionism plc - that the cold war against nationalists must be stopped and become a thing of the past.
The British government, and for its part the Dublin government, must now weigh in as equal partners and must implement the Good Friday Agreement.
It is the responsibility of all the political parties involved to look to build on the principle of inclusivity that actually led to the Good Friday Agreement. They must remember that the Agreement does not `belong' to anyone other than the ordinary men and women up and down the country who voted for it.
The current attempts by Unionists to throw doubt on the definitive statement that the IRA cessation is fully intact also need to be challenged. The IRA has made it clear that its cessation is intact.
Unionists, however, now are attempting to say that they have never accepted the validity of the IRA cessation, despite accepting it as a basis for negotiation over the last 18 or so months. The recent RUC violence in Belfast and in Lurgan and the public admission by a South Armagh man that he has been helping in the planning of murder of nationalists for the last ten years, demonstrates the need to take all the guns out of Irish politics.
It's a cliché, but, unless the causes of the 30 years of war in the Six Counties are seriously addressed, there will always be violence. Look on the streets of any town or city in the world and you will see that discrimination, bigotry, violence, and partisan military and police will always spawn resistance. Where power is not equally distributed, those in power will meet resistance.
As Martin McGuinness said on Monday when he commented on the continuing crisis in the peace process: What is evident is the political vacuum created by the failure of politics to deliver the changes promised in the Good Friday Agreement. The British government is ultimately responsible for the political mess we are in because they have failed to implement the Agreement.
``The core of this process is to establish the primacy of politics and to show that politics can and do deliver.''
The next few weeks will tell us whether or not forward movement is possible, but no progress can be made if unionists cointinue to refuse to envisage sharing power with Catholics and if the British government continues to appease that untenable position.
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