POLITICS
It wasn't Dublin or John Hume who made the concessions, it was David Trimble
BRUCE ANDERSON
AI write, the news from Ulster is more encouraging; the collapse of the peace process may have been averted. But for four or five days that process had been under threat as never before. It is both instructive and alarming to work out why. The Unionists' insistence that the IRA should decommission its weapons before its political wing, Sinn Fein, was allowed to join in all-party talks was both reasonable and moral. No one should be expected to enter into democratic negotiations with a party which reserves the right to murder its political opponents if the outcome of those negotiations is not to its liking. At the time of the Downing Street Declaration, that had been the Dublin Government's posi- tion, explicitly endorsed by Dick Spring, the Irish foreign minister.
There was only one problem. However justified the Unionists were in insisting on decommissioning, there was no prospect of Sinn Fein and the IRA agreeing. The Irish Government came to recognise this and lobbied hard to persuade Senator Mitchell and his colleagues to accept their view. They succeeded. The Mitchell report is based on a tough-minded recognition of Irish realities, and concludes that, though the decommissioning question would have to be resolved during the talks, it should not prevent them from starting.
Then the trouble started, from an unex- pected source, in an unworthy way. The Irish have a tendency to regard any dis- agreement with the British as a sporting contest, in which victory is to be celebrated in a triumphalist manner, irrespective of the issues under debate. Thus it was with Mitchell. The Irish were getting ready to gloat at the Brits' discomfiture, when John Major deftly changed the terms of the argu- ment. The Dublin government has taken a week to begin to forgive London for depriving it of a chance to gloat over the IRA's continued retention of its weaponry.
Switching the agenda to elections was a move of consummate subtlety on Mr Major's part, but its success depended on the statesmanlike response which it received from the Unionist leader, David Trimble. One point has been largely over- looked in the past week's recriminations. It was not Dublin or John Hume who made the concessions: it was the Unionists.
It might have been thought that any Unionist leader who abandoned the high ground of decommissioning would be tak- ing a huge risk with his own constituency. Mr Paisley is a declining political force, but in such circumstances he could still strike at Unionist raw nerves and make a charge of pusillanimity stick. It is not as if Mr Trim- ble has anything to gain from an election: he already has an impeccable democratic mandate. Moreover, by agreeing to the election, he is also committing himself to the talks which would follow on swiftly from that election. Some senior Unionist figures thought that he had given away too much. It is a sign of his prestige and authority that those doubts have not become public.
Mr Trimble is remarkable. No one has ever questioned his ability, but some observers had wondered whether he pos- sessed the breadth of mind or the generosi- ty of spirit to carry Unionism forward into a new era. Though he is in essence a sensitive and thoughtful man, he has also helped to carry a number of murdered friends' coffins; such funerals leave iron in the soul. Equally, like almost all Unionists, he felt betrayed by the Anglo-Irish Agreement. In the aftermath of that most bitter wrong, it would be only natural if he had found it almost impossible ever again to trust the word of any British Government.
But since he became the Unionists' lead- er he has put any narrownesses behind him and shown himself to be as gracious as he is clever. He has also delighted his own sup- porters by his ability to argue their case in a cogent manner and by the ease with which he deals with all other political leaders on equal terms. His predecessor, Jim Molyneaux, was a decent man, but his virtues were easier to appreciate in private than on the platform. Over the decades, Ulster Unionism has had many able adherents, but it has never found a leader who could vindi- cate its democratic legitimacy in world forums. Now at last it has one: Mr Trimble will be one of the foremost politicians in these islands for the foreseeable future.
Even so, his position was made easier by John Hume's bad behaviour. In the absence of Ian Paisley, Mr Hume seemed determined to take his chance to play the role of the unreasonable Ulsterman. In ret- rospect, that was helpful of him: it is about time that British opinion realised that nationalist bigotry can be every bit as unpleasant as the Unionist variety. But that is a retrospective judgment. At the time, Mr Hume's performance seemed much more sinister. He and the Dublin government appeared determined to dig themselves in so deep against the election proposal as to make compromise impossi- ble. Last weekend, it was impossible to dis- tinguish between the views of Mr Hume, Mr Spring and Mr Adams. The Unionist nightmare of a pan-nationalist front in sup- port of Sinn Fein seemed to have been realised.
Mr Trimble had made his concession on decommissioning. He could not be expect- ed to make another one on elections, and the British Government did not even con- sider the possibility of asking him to do so. For two or three days, everything was in the balance. The British ministers and officials whom I talked to were in a grim mood, as if they were beginning their psychological preparations for the breakdown of the ceasefire. One or two close friends in the Province, acute as always in their assess- ments, were speaking in despairing tones from chilled hearts.
Hardly anyone wants a resumption of violence, and that includes Gerry Adams and his associates. He is happy to carry on the struggle from the first-class cabin of a transatlantic aeroplane. But if the Dublin government and Mr Hume were to remain obdurate in their opposition to elections, thus provoking a boycott by the Nationalist parties, it is impossible to see how all-party talks could proceed. Without them, the peace process would be bereft of political momentum. Could it survive in such cir- cumstances and, if not, how long could peace itself survive the death of its process? As of Wednesday morning, when this article was written, matters had eased. But there will be crucial meetings over the next few days; great issues hang on their out- come. There is nothing predetermined about current events in Ulster. If Paddy Mayhew and Dick Spring have a fruitful meeting this Thursday, the prospects for peace will be signally enhanced. But if they break apart in incomprehension and dis- agreement, the likelihood of bombings and killings would be equally enhanced. Not for the first time in the past 25 years, this is a moment when those who care about the Province find themselves listen- ing to every news bulletin as they oscillate between anxiety and hope.
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