As the political process in Northern Ireland appears close to collapse, an Irish News columnist argues that it is in everyone?s interest for the IRA to stay intact. Sinn Fein?s political progress, he says, is the best hope of keeping IRA hardliners away from violence.

BRENDAN Behan famously said that when a new Irish political party is formed the first item on the agenda is The Split. Behan?s main experience of politics was as a member of the republican movement, the umbrella term covering both Sinn Fein and the IRA. The very fact the movement has two wings means there is always the possibility that one, or part of one, will break off. It has happened many times in the past, the first occasion being 1922, the most recent in1997.

The form a split usually takes is that a minority on the military side of the movement objects to the extent of political engagement which the leadership proposes and resolves instead to continue with a campaign of violence. It is never a clean break. In recent times splits have really been splinters. Nevertheless, since all the protagonists are armed, any division always has the potential to start internecine fighting within republicanism.

Being well aware of Behan?s dictum, the current leadership of the republican movement has been determined at all costs to avoid a split. That is why they have moved so agonisingly slowly in the past decade. That is why the first ceasefire collapsed in February 1996. Even so, senior figures broke away in 1997 after the second ceasefire and formed the Real IRA. Anxiety about another split is why republicans have in effect been camped on the same spot since May 2000.

To keep the movement intact, those who advocate exclusively peaceful and democratic means, in the words of the Good Friday Agreement, have to be able to keep demonstrating to the militarists that politics works, that there is an alternative to armed struggle. Showing that this is the case is called the peace process. It has been compared to a bicycle. A bicycle has to remain in motion, however slowly, otherwise the rider falls off. Part of the motion is Sinn Fein?s electoral advance which, since 1997, has given the party two ministers in the northern executive, three new MPs and one TD in the Republic of Ireland. This electoral advance is part of the parallel, but connected, political process in Ireland. For the purposes of the republican movement, one or other of the processes can stall, but not both.

At present, both processes are in a parlous state. The institutions of the Good Friday Agreement, namely the Northern Ireland assembly and the associated all-Ireland bodies, form an important element of the political process. On 22 September they were suspended for a day, for the second time since August. A full collapse is likely in a fortnight when Unionists have threatened to withdraw ministers if the IRA has not decommissioned.

Attention therefore switches to the implementation of other parts of the Agreement, a key demand of the IRA since May 2000. In their statement then, the IRA said the full implementation of the Agreement was the only context in which they would initiate a process of putting their weapons beyond use. Without this, their base, as they call their grassroots, would not countenance any movement on weapons.

By full implementation the IRA meant radical reform of the police and criminal justice system, human rights legislation, substantial scaling down of the British army presence and the continued functioning of the Agreement?s institutions. Only the latter depends on the political process. The others are matters for the British Government. None of that has happened to the satisfaction of the IRA. Therefore the IRA has not begun to put weapons beyond use. Therefore Unionists have brought the political process to a halt.

Will the IRA decommission? Not imminently. The IRA did agree in principle to put weapons beyond use, but they withdrew the offer in August when the institutions were suspended. They will restore the offer when it suits them. Concreting over a couple of dumps is no longer a matter of principle for the IRA, but tactics. Most people think they will do it in the run-up to the election in the Republic, which is likely to be in May next year.

Have the gains in the political process been sufficient to pacify IRA hardliners? Certainly this year they have. In June?s election Sinn Fein fulfilled a long-cherished aim by overtaking the SDLP, for thirty years the party the majority of northern nationalists voted for. Sinn Fein now has four MPs to the SDLP?s three, more votes and a bigger share of the vote. The leader and deputy leader of the SDLP have resigned. Republican politicos can therefore argue that the further away from violence the republican movement travels, the more successful it is electorally.

As an all-Ireland movement, republicans also have designs on the south of Ireland. Sinn Fein has one TD and opinion polls indicate they will win at least two more in Dublin?s next general election, due in 2002. Any resort to terror would halt that development instantly. Three TDs in the Republic?s parliament, the Dail, are usually enough to put an armlock on the government. That prospect has seriously alarmed the main party of government in Dublin, Fianna Fail. It has sent a shudder through Unionists in the north who are aghast at the thought of having to deal with such a government. By the same token, what appals Unionists makes it difficult for people in the republican movement to argue against the success of politics.

Leaving aside electoral success, the recent terrible events in the United States have left the militarists bereft of a case. Coming so soon after three suspected IRA men were arrested in Colombia, apparently in contact with a narcotics-funded terrorist group, the suicide attacks on New York and Washington have raised serious questions about IRA links to international terrorism. Richard Haas, President Bush?s special envoy to Ireland, met senior republicans including Gerry Adams, days after the slaughter in the USA. He told them in unmistakable terms to cut all links with terrorism.

Republicans put a brave face on Haas?s strictures, saying they always expected Bush?s White House to become hostile towards Irish republicans. Nevertheless, the message was stark. Politicos in the movement, who at present are in the ascendancy, do not want to be isolated and under pressure from London, Dublin and Washington. The result may have been the IRA statement of 20 September condemning the US attacks and denying links with Colombian guerillas.

Support and funding for the IRA in Irish bars in the US will go on, despite the terrorist attacks. But support on Capitol Hill is another matter. There will be no welcome in the White House for Gerry Adams now unless there is decommissioning.

The men wedded to politics are likely to seize the present extraordinary circumstances to drive home their advantage over the hard men. At present, three of the IRA?s seven- member ruling Army Council are elected representatives. One of the men tipped to be elected in the Republic next year is also a member. If he is successful, then four of the seven, a majority, would be elected in one or other part of Ireland. These four wholly support the peace process. The present chief of staff, a veteran from South Armagh, has been discredited in a libel action in the Republic and his deputy is the man who agreed with General de Chastelain?s decommissioning body to put weapons beyond use. In short, the men running the IRA are anxious to keep the peace process on the rails. They own it. There is no significant group in the movement working to undermine it.

The extraordinary position has now been reached where the republican movement is working to maintain a stable political arrangement in Northern Ireland, while elements in Unionism, in both Ian Paisley?s DUP and David Trimble?s UUP, are working to destabilise the political process in the north.

Nevertheless, the IRA remains intact. That means hundreds of men and women in Ireland regard themselves as members of an army. They have to be kept occupied. Therefore they still go through the motions of preparing to carry on an armed guerrilla campaign. They survey targets, do dummy runs, collect intelligence, carry out robberies to raise funds and inflict punishment shootings on people they call anti-social elements.

It is bizarre and paradoxical that it is in no one?s interest for the IRA to lose cohesion. The security forces believe that if the IRA began to fall apart the consequences would be very serious. For a start, freelance violence would begin in retaliation to random loyalist pipe-bombings of Catholics of which there have been 200 this year. Only IRA discipline at present can restrain its young men from launching attacks on loyalists.

The danger of division comes not from the top among the leaders committed to the peace process, who stand to make further gains in elections, but from young, impatient men frustrated by lack of progress and embittered, obstinate old men who resent compromise. That?s why full and rapid implementation of the Good Friday Agreement is vital. But then, that?s what 70 per cent of people in Northern Ireland voted for in 1998.

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