Republican News · Thursday 4 July 2002

Déjà vu at the Castle

BY MICHAEL PIERSE

Today, Thursday 4 July's negotiations at Hillsborough Castle, called at the behest of UUP leader David Trimble, have a great deal more to do with the Six-County Assembly elections next year than with current sectarian violence on the streets of Belfast.

Mirroring the Weston Park negotiations of exactly one year ago, the UUP leader, in a bid to outflank the DUP, will be yet again attempting to create a crisis around the IRA, this time in relation to unfounded allegations of republican involvement in the Castlereagh RUC barracks raid on St Patrick's Day; and about Colombia.

Gerry Adams told the inaugural dinner for Alex Maskey's mayoralty, on Saturday 29 June, that the response from republicans will be the same:

"I want to repeat again tonight what I said last July in London, that I am totally committed to playing a leadership role in bringing a permanent end to political conflict on our island, including the end of physical force republicanism."

Trimble was advised at a recent internal UUP meeting to avoid the antics that marginalised the UUP at last year's Weston Park Summit. At the time he insisted only one issue - IRA decommissioning - was up for discussion. All the other parties disagreed and Trimble's demands were unceremoniously dropped.

Meanwhile, following the banning by the Parades Commission of yet another parade from the Garvaghy Road, the British Secretary of State, John Reid, held talks with the UDA's Johnny Adair, John White and 18 other representatives of the Loyalist Commission, an umbrella group for loyalist death squads, unionist politicians and church leaders. The same organisation launched the much derided "no first strike" policy recently.

As we enter the height of the Orange Order marching season, many nationalists are bracing themselves for an escalation of loyalist sectarian violence.