The “Peace Process” Fails To Deliver

The “Peace Process” Fatis to Deliver Introduction : A responsible analysis of the Republican Movement is necessary at the present time. A basic distinction needs to be drawn between the IRA Ceasefire and the “Peace Process”. Commenting on the row between the Sinn Féin and the British Government over “decommissioning” Gerry Foley observes : The British Minister for Northern Ireland, Patrick Mayhew chose Derry, the cockpit of republican militancy, for a speech on November 22 announcing that Britain had no intention of backing down on its demand that the IRA start handing in its weapons before the republicans could be included in any “all-party talks.”

A Reuters dispatch reported: “Initial reaction from Sinn Fein was one of bitter disappointment. There had been hopes Mayhew might set a date for all-party talks while an international panel discussed the timing and practicalities of disarming guerrillas.”

The greatest danger in this situation, and that is probably what prompted Adams to say that he felt “fear,” is that groups in the nationalist community may be provoked by the British into isolated armed actions that would provide an excuse for a massive military crackdown.

The British government seems to be preparing for that by letting it be known that its intelligence service thinks that there is an imminent danger of a breakdown of the ceasefire.

In this situation, however, nothing can undermine the authority of the republican leadership more quickly and give greater encouragement to desperate attacks on the British forces than Sinn Féin leaders like Gerry Adams relying on false friends like Clinton, to say nothing of British Prime Minister Major.

An attempt was made to develop a discussion within the ICMP on this issue with the publication of the document “Ceasefire Yes - Peace Process No” (CYPPN) last May. To date one documented reply has been made by comrade John McAnuity : “Factions Yes - Factionalism No” (FYFN). Ata National Meeting held last June a discussion took place around these two contributions. Since then the committee has not functioned internally - i.e., no further National Meetings. Most of the decisions taken at the June Meeting have not been implemented. The line described in CYPPN continues to be expressed in the Journal “For A Workers’ Republic”.

Referring back to CYPPN, it was argued that “small Marxist organisations......often use theory as a justification for their own total isolation. They tend not to analyse a political problem objectively, but instead target what rival organisations are doing and saying, and generously issue slanders.

A pristine pure example of this is the ICMP declaration that the Republican decision not to take armed action in the South means that “Republicans generally” have never had a strategy to bring down the Southern neo-colony and “have consistently rejected the demands of socialism” FYFN does not retract the declaration about the Republican decision not to take armed action in the South. It moans that the ICMP is “accused of outlandish calls for war in the South” and cannot even accurately report what I said [According to FYFN I said that ‘its sectarian to say that the Republicans don’t have a strategy to bring down the 26 county “neo-colony” ‘]. If comrade McAnulty and his supporters do not grasp that debating methods like this belong to the school of Stalinism ( if you lixe it is part and parcel of the Stalinists’ “historic programme”), people can easily predict the sort of “Marxist Programme” that might (eventually) emerge from their long drawn out deliberations.

There are many more examples of this political method within the committee, it would be tedious and time consuming to list them all. Asa genera! ruie this method is becoming part and parcel of the committee’s political line. That is why most of what the ICMP says is irrelevant to any serious discussion or activity. “Decommissioning” and the “Peace Process” The course the Sinn Féin leadership has chosen is gravely mistaken because it relies on the combined forces of the British and Irish States and the SDLP to secure a favourable political settlement. It must be emphasised over and over that the Republican Movement still claims to be fighting for an end to British Jurisdiction and everything that goes with it - in this respect they are still a good distance away from the evolution into hardened reformist politics we saw with the Officials in the mid to late 70’s. It is true that the course they are on will lead them to this type of end point if the process reaches its logical conclusion. That is the aim of the 26 County Establishment parties. This brings us to the row between the Dublin and London Governments over “decommissioning”.

a) It is not a real block to negotiations b) Decommissioning would be seen as surrender by many Republicans c) It increases the pressure for a republican split.

The Dublin Government (and especially the SDLP) oppose this strategy. They want to go straight for talks. They want to split the British Government from the Unionists, who remain hostile to any meaningful concession to the Catholic Minority in the 6 Counties. Fianna Fail has thrown its weight behind the SDLP on this issue. At the Fianna Fail Ard Fheis party leader Bertie Ahern ruled out an elected assembly in the 6 Counties saying “it would be neither sensible or acceptable”. Furthermore “the Northern situation was not amenable to any so-called “internal solution” “ (Zhe Irish Times, November 11 1995) Ahern and Dick Spring (the Labour Leader and Tanaiste) know that if an attempt was crudely made to return to a Unionist Assembly it would not be accepted by the entire Nationalist population. In Ahern’s words “it would inevitably revive and further embitter old antagonisms”.

These bourgeois politicians calculate that while initially there might be little response from the South, in the context of the Armed Campaign having been called off, the chances of the 26 County population being roused against the blatant injustice of such a settlement are extremely high.

There may be some wishful thinkers in the Dublin Government (especially John Bruton) who actually believe a broad internal agreement could be reached between all the Northern parties. Or it may be that Bruton simply wants to say “Yes Sir’ to anything at all the British propose. In the short term Bruton could not follow the London agenda because he knew his party would immediately lose office to a new FF/Labour Coalition.

The British Government knows the scenario of a lasting deal between the SDLP/SF bloc and the Unionists is unachievable under present conditions, so John Major sees no point in allowing all-party talks to begin. On the other hand if the British government can split the Republican Movement, and provoke a section of it back to an armed strategy, they have a chance of inflicting a demoralising defeat on the Northern Nationalist population, dispensing with (or fragmenting) the SDLP, and allov he natural collaborati ‘sm of the 26 County parties to rise up like vomit.

This is the context in which we approach the debate about the IRA Ceasefire and the “Peace Process”.

The SDLP is playing for a bourgeois selution to the Maiicna! Question, which involves accepting the right of seit-determination being applied to the 6 County Unit. However, ana this is a change from the 1970’s to early 1980’s, they oppose any return to a Stormont Assembly. This was the main reason Hume pulled the SDLP out of talks with the Unionists and the Dublin and London governments a couple of years ago and turned to a public dialogue with SF.

Privately Hume has put to Adams that if the 2 main Nationalist Parties sign up for an unsatisfactory solution now, but tie it into the Unionists accepting any majority decision reached within the 6 County area, the Nationalists will be able to punish the Unionists via an electoral majority anyway within ten years. In the short term they can sign up the Alliance Party, creating a single bloc worth almost 45% of the vote. If the Alliance Party does not play ball, their (mainly Catholic) voters will defect to the Nationalist Bloc.

This is not as implausible as it might have seemed ten or fifteen years ago. All population and electoral surveys suggest a steady rise above 40% in the Catholic share of the 6 County population.

It will not do to revert to abstract formulas - “the bourgeoisie cannot solve the national question” etc - remember the lessons of the bourgeois solution to the end of the apartheid dictatorship in South Africa, and the construction of a new government based on universal franchise.

The real problem with this kind of approach concerns the political dynamics. Unionism has nothing to do with the 6 county area, it is fundamentally about the maintenance of sectarian discrimination directed against the Catholic population. That after all is why they abandoned the rest of Ireland after the 1920’s, and settled for the 6 County bit. The dynamics of this society, faced with a possible electoral defeat are clear - a brutal form of re-partition. Those who say now they only want a United Ireland “by consent” look democratic. In such a debate we should say (subbing it down) : Is consent desirable - Yes Is consent necessary - No This “consent” principle in fact masks a very dangerous sectarian “counting by numbers” solution.

The basic principled reason for fighting for an end to partition - and on this we can go back to James Connolly - is that it gives us by far the best chance - a revolutionary chance - to destroy the sectarian partitioned states that shackle the Irish working class.

The Irish revolutionary nationalist movement, in the various forms it has taken since the early 1920’s, has directly addressed the nature of the states created by partition. This has meant that it has tended to play a more progressive role than reformist working class currents.

Historically the split in the workers’ movement between reformists and revolutionaries was created by the following questions e Was it possible to win greater reforms for the workers under capitalism and ultimately reform it out of existence? e Was it necessary to smash the capitalist state and establish a workers’ state (in Ireland a 32 County Workers’ Republic)?

The effect of this, especially when the class struggle reached a high level, was to place the reformist left (in both its social democratic and Stalinist varieties) on the right of the political spectrum so far as the main issue of the class struggle was concerned. The revolutionary nationalists placed the question directly on the agenda, usually by engaging in armed struggle.

When, for various reasons, the movement has not actively pursued an armed struggle, it has tended to fall back into reformist politics (the latest example being the retreat of the Official Republicans away from revolutionary nationalism to reformist Stziiaism, and since 1989 to social democratic reformism, in no way qualitatively different from the much bigger Labour Party).

It is not excluded that today’s Sinn Féin could also fail back into social democratic reformism, much of its practice in the 26 Counties falls into this pattern, although it tends to have a more activist and militant appeal than either Labour of the Democratic Left. Its membership and milieu still tend to be much more open to revolutionary politics than the people organised by the major social democratic machines.

From the outset of the debate within the ICMP I have argued that objectively an IRA Ceasefire was justified and necessary. For some time Republican Leaders (for example Mitchell McLaughlin at a Dublin Public Meeting in the summer of 1995) have reassured people doubtful about the “Peace process” that, if things did not work out, the option of going back to the IRA Campaign was always available. The huge turnout in Derry and Belfast for the visit of Clinton shows clearly this is not an option at all. The Dublin and London governments put together a ridiculous framework to look good for Bill Clinton’s visit. The British are still insisting on decommissioning, but they are putting off a final answer till February. In the meantime they say there can be no “decommissioning” of the RUC, British Army etc. But this is what SF continue to say.

The SF leadership continues to sow illusions in this “peace process” as an alternative to their armed strategy. This is absurd nonsense. But they now increasingly say “there is no peace process” etc.

They also say, repeatedly, that the ceasefire is in danger.

The real road out of this is going back to mass struggle, highlighting issues like the prisoners, loyalist triumphalist marches, etc. It means putting an end to the “Peace Process”. So far as the George Mitchell Commission is concerned, it means highlighting the military and repressive arsenal deployed by Imperialism and its allies and calling for it all to be decommissioned.

Such sentiments were touched on by the Andersonstown News in its October 28 Editorial : “The sight of protesters on the street carrying placards demanding all-party talks is one that for many nationalists has become a virtual irrelevance, because in real terms it means nothing to them in their daily lives. The phrase ‘all-party talks’ has become a cipher for cul-de-sac politics and spiritsapping mean-mindedness....

“We should all be out in search of the things that can be delivered, which are ours of right and which we haven’t yet got because we haven’t started to demand them. and as those things start to come our way, which they certainly will if we want them enough, the new found confidence and optimism thus engendered will prove more potent in the search for a new Ireland than a lifetime of sterile and hollow demands for talks.”

Slowly but surely a strategy built on that kind of activity would and could reverse the ruling class offensive, not just in the North but also in the South.

It is time to return to these traditional basic politics of PD and the Fourth International in Ireland, and sweep away the sterile dogmatic denunciations which have become the trademark of the ICMP John Meehan, December 4, 1995