IRA ENDGAME

Short of disbandment and an apology for the deaths and hurt caused, the IRA statement could not have gone further and is a huge personal and political achievement for Gerry Adams. By Vincent Browne

Gerry Adams was infuriated with the arrest and detention of Sean Kelly in June. It occurred right in the middle of IRA deliberations on Adams' call for – essentially – an end to the IRA itself. Those deliberations were not entirely amicable. There was strong opposition to the suggestion the IRA would disband. There was some unease with the leadership of Adams, who, some believed, had misled the movement on the prospects of advancing its objectives through political means alone.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) believed Adams had suffered a setback in December, at the time of the Northern Bank robbery. The PSNI believed the robbery was an act of internal defiance against Adams and McGuinness and, for a few weeks in the aftermath of that, it seemed Adams had lost control. But by April he was back in charge of events. He consulted widely within the movement on his initiative, which asked the IRA effectively to go out of business – an earlier draft of his speech, circulated within the movement, resulted in redrafting. When issued, the April speech made no reference to disbandment, but it was clear what Adams wanted: effectively the end of the IRA and with the commitment to exclusively peaceful and political means. That, in essence, is what has emerged.

But the arrest of Sean Kelly threatened to derail his initiative. Kelly was/is a figure of very considerable controversy within Northern Ireland. He and another IRA volunteer, Thomas Begley, had placed a huge bomb in Fritzell's fish shop on the Shankill Road, Belfast on 23 October 1993, killing nine Protestants and Thomas Begley himself. Kelly was badly injured in the explosion. Fifty-seven people were injured, including a 79-year-old woman and two babies.

The intention had been to "take out" the top leadership of the UDA, which was engaged in a sectarian campaign of assassinations of Catholics. The UDA had offices over the fish shop and the strategy was to give a short warning, enough to clear the shop, but sufficiently short to kill the UDA leaders upstairs, who would not have had time to leave the building. The bomb was wrongly primed and the carnage ensued.

Sean Kelly was sentenced to nine life terms of imprisonment in January 1995. The judge said when sentencing him: "This wanton slaughter of so many innocent people must rank as one of the most outrageous atrocities endured by the people of this province in the last quarter of a century".

Relatives of the deceased who attended the trial said Kelly had shown no remorse but in a letter published two weeks later in the Irish News he expressed regret for the loss of innocent lives. His release under the Belfast Agreement caused more outrage than the release of any other prisoner. His re-incarceration by the new Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter Hain, was bound to cause problems: problems within the IRA and also problems with the loyalist community were he to be released again.

On Monday (25 July) Tony Blair was handed a copy of the IRA statement announcing the formal end to the armed campaign. The statement seemed to Blair to be impressive, particularly the paragraph reading: "All Volunteers have been instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means. Volunteers must not engage in any other activities." And the follow up part, which reads: "Every Volunteer is aware of the import of the decisions we have taken and all Oglaigh are compelled to fully comply with these orders (ie to dump arms and engage in purely political activities)".

Sean Kelly was released two days later.

The Irish Government was given a copy of the statement on the day before its release (presumably they had already received a copy from the British government). There was no negotiation on the statement, no redrafting after the governments had seen it and responded.

In the background there had been negotiations on a number of issues, including policing, the issue of central importance to further progress in the peace process. At the Belfast "summit" of last December, which almost resulted in an agreement between the parties and the governments on the resumptions of the Good Friday institutions, Sinn Féin had given a commitment to call an Ard Fheis to ratify engagement in the PSNI, provided certain initiatives were taken by the British governments. Since then progress has been made but some issues remain outstanding. Recent talks between the British government and Sinn Féin have left Sinn Féin with the view that they are close to agreement.

The outstanding issues have to do with the transfer of responsibility for justice and policing to the Northern Ireland executive, when that is reconvened; some further elements of democratic control and accountability of the police force; and an end to the use of plastic bullets. There is also concern in Sinn Féin with the apparent cordiality between PSNI officers and members of the UVF who had taken over a loyalist estate outside Belfast, driven out families suspected of being associated with the LVF (a rival organisation) – Hugh Orde, the PSNI chief constable is understood also to be concerned by this camaraderie. And there is a further issue to do with the involvement of MI5 in Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin wants it ended and the British government has indicated this will not be a problem.

In the contacts with the governments in the days and weeks before the release of the IRA statement, there were no negotiations on reciprocal concessions. The IRA initiative was and is unconditional, as was Gerry Adams' call for an IRA initiative in April.

A unilateral initiative was politically necessary following the Northern Bank robbery and the murder of Robert McCartney. The pinning of blame on the IRA for the Northern Bank robbery in December unsettled Adams and for the first time in recent years took the political initiative from Sinn Féin. The campaign mounted by the sisters and fiancée of Robert McCartney, following his murder, caused further political embarrassment, which all Sinn Féin's guile in handling public relations could not contain.

There was no prospect of getting talks back on track, especially with a resurgent DUP – which had wiped out the Ulster Unionist Party in the May Westminster elections – without a dramatic initiative by the republican movement. This is it.

Short of disbandment and an apology for the deaths, injuries, grief and hurt they had caused, the IRA statement could not have gone further. The commitment to peaceful and political means and the assertion that "volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever" (especially the "whatsoever") is as categorical as it was reasonable to expect.

For Gerry Adams it is a huge personal and political achievement. In Bodenstown in 1977, as a young IRA volunteer, he had said there was no military solution to what was essentially a political problem. That speech caused outrage in the organisation, then led by Ruairi O Bradaigh. In the 28 years since that statement, he has had a controversial career, much of it involved in directing the IRA campaign, which included some of the most gruesome atrocities. He has also steered the movement slowly towards politics and now exclusively politics. He has done so through patient, incremental movement, determined throughout to bring with him a united republican movement. He seems to have achieved that. Although he says in the article published opposite that he doesn't know if there will be a split, in private he is confident there will not be.