Unionists have withdrawn from process
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The Ulster Unionist strategy is to maintain the status quo at all costs and to hollow out the Good Friday Agreement until it is meaningless
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BY SEAN BRADY
The crystal ball expresses hope for a future without the RUC in this mural from the Markets area of Belfast
It must now be clear even to the most pro-unionist elements in Dublin and London that the Ulster Unionist Party's approach to the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement is entirely tactical. Their strategy is to maintain the status quo at all costs and to hollow out the Good Friday Agreement until it is meaningless.
In the short term, the UUP's approach is one of sitting on its hands in an attempt to divide the Irish nationalist consensus and eventually co-opt the SDLP within a new political arrangement to the exclusion of Sinn Féin and the republican electorate. Alternatively, they hope to drive the entire process into the sand in the hope of forcing the IRA to resume military operations.
Sinn Féin has contended for a very long time that this has been the Unionist strategy but republicans have before and since Good Friday 1998 continually been exhorted from the same predictable quarters to pull David Trimble out of holes which he insists on digging for himself. Such exhortations now ring extremely hollow since the UUP deputy leader John Taylor's disengagement from the Mitchell review and rejection of the Good Friday Agreement. This is compounded by the comments of Ken Maginnis to the effect that the UUP has no faith in either the Good Friday Agreement nor the Mitchell Revew but that an aversion to shouldering blame for collapsing the process was the only thing preventing the party from walking away.
Commenting on John Taylor's actions, Sinn Féin Vice President Pat Doherty said: ``The recent signals from within the UUP can only strengthen the view that the UUP as a whole have rejected the fundamental changes which they signed up to under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
``It was the UUP which wanted this review. Their attitude in recent days towards it is causing growing concern.''
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Like everything else, the Patten proposals have to be viewed in the context of the continued non-implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. The whole issue of policing is made more difficult by the failure to implement any of the other aspects of that Agreement
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Despite commentary that the increasingly obvious rejectionist instincts of the UUP correllated with a mounting challenge of David Trimble's party leadership, this was once again shown to be false as Trimble received overwhelming support from the 120-member ruling Executive at its meeting on Monday.
Following the meeting, Trimble said his position was ``rock solid''. The support he received and the security of his position shows that his stance is entirely in line with the rest of his party in seeking to obstruct the Agreement and all change flowing from it. That support also gives the lie to unionist allies in political and media circles who seek to portray Trimble as a leader in a vulnerable position who, despite a wish to move forward, cannot do so without further concessions from republicans.
Speaking on Tuesday, 14 September, before a meeting with Senator George Mitchell, Sinn Féin Vice President Pat Doherty said his party was approaching the review process in a postive and constructive manner. But this is set against a background of growing concerns about the UUP committment to implementing the Good Friday Agreement.
Doherty said: ``Last week Sinn Féin gave Senator Mitchell a commitment that we would approach the review process in a positive and constructive manner. This is still our intention despite growing concerns that the UUP as a whole have rejected the fundamental changes which they signed up to under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
``This review, as stated by Senator Mitchell last week, is not a renegotiation of the Good Friday Agreement. The political institutions envisaged under the Good Friday Agreement have not been established. We will again express our belief that this should now happen.
``The Good Friday Agreement was endorsed by the overwhelming majority of the people on the island. There is a democratic imperative to implement it fully. In the absence of a positive approach from the UUP there is an onus on the two governments and in particular the British government to create the conditions where necessary changes can happen.''
On Monday the UUP rejected outright the recommendations of the Patten Commission on policing. In particular, the party rejected proposals to remove existing royalist RUC symbols and the inolvement of international observers to oversee the implementation of Patten.
On behalf of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams said that the party was taking ``a measured and thoughtful attitude'' to the report but that this would not mean Sinn Féin would accept anything less than the total disbandment of the RUC. ``A repackaged RUC will not attract any measure of support. Changes must therefore include both symbols and substance,'' he said.
Within 24 hours of the publication of the Patten proposals, RUC Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan was all of a sudden trotting out a line about a ``renewed terrorist threat from republican dissidents''. Even among the usually compliant security correspondents, there was not much credence given to Flanagan's transparent propaganda attempt to justify the continuance of the RUC.
Like everything else, the Patten proposals have to be viewed in the context of the continued non-implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. The whole issue of policing is made more difficult by the failure to implement any of the other aspects of that Agreement.
At this stage, the British government has no reason to misunderstand where unionists are coming from. It is clear to all and sundry that they have effectively withdrawn from the process. It is now up to Tony Blair to grasp the nettle and force the pace of political momentum.
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