30/7/01
9:12 pm GMT

A ceasefire, but no peace

The IRA has surrendered unconditionally but the British government has not won an unqualified victory, reports Mark Ryan

Hopes that the IRA ceasefire announced on 1 September will bring peace to Northern Ireland after 25 years of war are destined to be shortlived. There will be no peace, even if the Loyalist paramilitaries call a halt to their campaign, because the cause of the conflict - the British occupation - remains. The British Army and its paramilitary allies hold 98 per cent of the weapons in Northern Ireland. Until the British declare a ceasefire and withdraw from Ireland, there is no chance of peace. Unfortunately a British withdrawal is not in prospect.

All the talk of ceasefire and peace process has led to a rewriting of history. From recent commentaries it would appear that Northern Ireland was a peaceful place until the IRA appeared on the scene. The truth is different. The nationalist people of Northern Ireland experienced violent repression and sectarian discrimination for nearly 50 years before the outbreak of the Troubles in 1969. From the moment Northern Ireland came into existence in 1921, it has been in a permanent state of military mobilisation against almost half of its own population. It was the oppressive character of the Northern state which led to the emergence of the Provisional IRA in the early seventies, not the other way around.

If the plight of Catholics was bad before 1969, it is even worse now. Catholics are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as Protestants, and the overall level of joblessness has rocketed. As a result of sectarian attacks, security policies, housing and road developments, Catholic and Protestant communities are more segregated today than at any time in history.

Catholics today face a bigger and tougher military force than they did in 1968. In the late sixties the civil rights movement campaigned against the B-Specials, a Protestant militia of fewer than 4000 poorly trained and equipped volunteer farmers. In the course of the war, the Specials became the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR); after numerous cases of UDR involvement in Loyalist terror groups, the name was changed again, to the Royal Irish Regiment. It is now twice the size of the old Specials, and a fully integrated regiment of the British Army, with access to all the hi-tech paraphernalia of modern counter-insurgency. Meanwhile, the Royal Ulster Constabulary has more than trebled in size and has become a paramilitary force.

Under siege

By the end of 1969 there were 8000 British soldiers in Northern Ireland; today there are around 12 000. Troops and police patrol Catholic areas incessantly, enforcing British rule from a network of barracks, control centres and listening towers. In the Border areas, Army bases have been fortified to the extent that villages resemble open prisons. To show that they were planning to stay, British troops at Newtownhamilton in South Armagh passed the week leading up to the IRA ceasefire in refortifying their base. With its watchtowers, observation posts and concrete barricades, the Border itself is coming to resemble the now demolished Berlin Wall.

The message from the British armed forces is clear: the IRA may have given up its military campaign, but Britain's military machine remains in place. The immediate result of the ceasefire is that, for the first time in 25 years, the British Army is in full control of Northern Ireland. In nationalist areas where they once feared to tread, soldiers stroll unchallenged, still treating all Catholics as the enemy. The ceasefire has led to an increase in cases of physical and verbal abuse of nationalists by troops and police. These are the familiar actions of a victorious army.

Those committed to the cause of Irish freedom have to face the grim reality that 25 years of resistance has ended in defeat. The worst possible reaction now is to pretend that the ceasefire represents a step forward on the road to a united Ireland. Yet, this is what Sinn Fein is doing.

The problem is not the ceasefire as such. Given the unfavourable balance of forces facing the republican movement in recent years, it is fair enough to conclude that it would be foolhardy to continue the military campaign. Under such circumstances, nobody could criticise the IRA for calling a halt, regrouping its forces and explaining to its supporters the need for a defensive posture.

But Sinn Fein's 'peace process' has obscured the issues and created confusion among nationalists. From the beginning, the 'peace process' pursued by Sinn Fein was a myth. It sought to persuade nationalists that the movement was now strong enough to achieve through diplomacy what it had failed to achieve by force. While the IRA laid down its arms without the slightest concession from the British, Sinn Fein urged its supporters to take to the streets in celebration. But what is there to celebrate?

Respecting the Union

Sinn Fein argues that the IRA ceasefire is a step forward in the 'peace process'. This argument undermines everything the movement has struggled for, destroys the morale of the nationalist people, and retrospectively vindicates British propaganda. If an IRA ceasefire can bring peace, then the implication is that IRA violence is the cause of the conflict. Not only is the republican movement accepting the burden of guilt for the bloodshed now, it is putting in question the legitimacy of 25 years of resistance. Worst of all, it confirms British propaganda that the violence was caused by 'mindless terrorism', and that British troops are in Ireland to keep the peace. The constant appeals from Sinn Fein leaders for the British government to be 'bold and imaginative' in response to the ceasefire only confirms the common prejudice that Britain is a force for peace in Ireland.

In his attempt to justify the ceasefire, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams argued that Irish nationalism was now strong enough to pursue the goal of a united Ireland without recourse to violence. But, far from being stronger, Irish nationalism is effectively dead. The Dublin government led by Albert Reynolds, leader of the Fianna Fail 'republican' party, has effectively abandoned its constitutional claim to sovereignty over the whole island. John Hume, the leading Northern Catholic nationalist politician, talks incessantly about the need to respect the Unionist heritage. When every leading mainstream nationalist has renounced the key features of Irish nationalism, Adams discovers life in this corpse.

The opportunism of the Sinn Fein leadership may reap some rewards for Adams and his colleagues. Leading republicans have already been welcomed into the mainstream of Irish politics. Within a week of the ceasefire, Adams was treated to a handshake with Reynolds on the steps of Leinster House in Dublin.

Adams has been accepted as a legitimate politician, because like Reynolds and Hume, he too has made the decisive break from old-style Irish nationalism. Sinn Fein's desire for an 'inclusive dialogue' among all the Irish parties and the British government with a view to achieving a political settlement signals its repudiation of two centuries of republican tradition.

Sinn Fein has abandoned its historic aspiration to represent the Irish people as a whole in their quest for freedom, in favour of becoming just another party at the negotiating table. Even in the darkest moments of past defeats, republicans always asserted their commitment to the goal proclaimed by Theobald Wolfe Tone, leader of the 1798 revolt of the United Irishmen - that of overcoming 'the divisions of the past, and to unite Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter under the common name of Irishman'. Now, instead of striving to overcome sectarian divisions by overthrowing the force that sustains them - Britain - republican leaders have accepted both the divisions and British rule. Now they ask only to be included as representatives of a section of Northern Catholics in negotiations within the framework of the United Kingdom.

No British solution

Although the Irish republican movement has been defeated, the British government has little cause for celebration. Throughout the 'peace process', the British government has been reacting to events rather than initiating them.

The conditions for the settlement in Northern Ireland emerged as a consequence of the end of the Cold War and the new international balance of forces resulting from the defeat of national liberation movements around the world. The global demise of popular nationalist movements left Irish republicans isolated and more disposed to come to terms with the British government.

Ironically, the IRA's surrender has also exposed Britain's diminished status in the New World Order. The high-profile involvement of the US government in the diplomatic game is particularly demeaning for Britain. Successive British governments have repudiated American interference in the Irish question. Now Bill Clinton is using a domestic British issue as a vehicle for diplomatic advancement.

The comparisons made between the Irish 'peace process' and those in South Africa and Israel inevitably place Britain on a par with these third-rate powers. Like these countries, Britain seems too weak to be able to sort out its domestic opponents without assistance from other, more powerful states.

Fuelling sectarianism

Even more galling for Britain is the way the Downing Street declaration elevated Albert Reynolds as John Major's equal and raised the issue of an Irish share in British sovereignty. The shuttle diplomacy of Dublin foreign minister Dick Spring, who visited Washington and Bonn to brief the American and German governments, was another humiliation.

Major may have got a result in Northern Ireland, but it is one for which Britain has already had to pay a high diplomatic price. It is too early to say whether a higher price will be exacted in the future. A period of calm could follow the ceasefire, but the unravelling of the old arrangements could destabilise the framework of British rule in Northern Ireland, as well as society in the South and relations between Ireland and Britain.

Peace in Ireland is a more distant prospect now than it was 25 years ago. Even the repressive stability which prevailed from 1921 to 1969 is unlikely to return. The military is now so bound up with the economy and social fabric of the Northern state that demilitarisation will be limited. Any peace dividend would have a disastrous effect on Protestant employment, fuelling Loyalist fears of betrayal. Talk of shared sovereignty over the North between Britain and the Irish Republic, while not resolving the conflict, will perpetuate sectarian tensions.

It is difficult to accept that the world's oldest liberation struggle has ended in defeat. But we should remember that it was not for want of heroism on the part of ordinary nationalists that the struggle foundered. It was politics which failed them. As a new Ireland emerges, the challenge we face now is to make politics adequate to the aspirations of the next generation.

Mark Ryan's War and Peace in Ireland: Britain and the IRA in the New World Order is published by Pluto Press.

Reproduced from Living Marxism issue 72, October 1994

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