A momentous initiative

Whether it is an election ploy or not, Gerry Adams's call to the IRA unconditionally to disband changes the North's political equation irrevocably. By Vincent Browne

The first draft of Gerry Adams's appeal to the IRA to disband was explicit. It was spelt out clearly: a call to the IRA to go out of existence. The removal of the explicit call was made after consultations within the republican movement but nobody was in any doubt about what he was asking the IRA to do: disband.

What is really significant is not that he is asking the IRA to commit itself to exclusively democratic and peaceful means in pursuance of its political objective (the IRA said several months ago that it agreed with that proposition) or even that he is asking the IRA to go out of existence. It is that he is asking the IRA to disband unconditionally. Not as part of a comprehensive agreement, not if the two governments finally implement the Good Friday Agreement, not if the unionists agree to participate in the Good Friday institutions. It is unconditional.

The IRA is being asked to disband in advance of the full implementation of the Belfast Agreement, without knowing whether the DUP will ever engage in power-sharing with Sinn Féin, without any final agreement on policing. And this has to be serious, for in even asking the IRA to disband unconditionally, Gerry Adams is divesting himself and Sinn Féin of the negotiating card vis-à-vis the two governments and the unionists. The negotiating card was always that the IRA would disband if certain reciprocal guarantees were undertaken. That is no longer a negotiating option for Sinn Féin.

The very appeal for unconditional IRA disbandment in itself changes the political equation in Northern Ireland. In Irish political terms it is momentous, whether it is an electoral ploy or not.

The British and Irish governments were given sight of the statement before Gerry Adams read it at a press conference on the afternoon of Wednesday, 6 April. They were not asked for their response or concurrence with what was being proposed. It was not a negotiating document.

Adams hopes the initiative will lead to a revival of negotiations on the restoration of the Good Friday Agreement institutions before the summer, believing that, if there is a delay until the autumn, the chances of reviving the agreement will be lost.

Throughout his career in the republican movement Gerry Adams has acted with caution, never getting too far ahead of the membership (that is the membership of both Sinn Féin and the IRA), never taking an initiative without knowing he could carry it. So too with this.

There were indications in January that Gerry Adams had lost control of the internal political situation. If he did authorise the Northern Bank robbery, it must have been in the knowledge that he could not stop it, even though he would have appreciated fully the damage it would do to the peace process. Some of the IRA statements issued about that robbery seemed not to have had his input.

He appeared to regain control of the situation in the wake of the murder of Robert McCartney in late January. His explicit condemnation of the murder and his extraordinary appeal to republicans to co-operate with institutions of the Northern state which, until then, they had disparaged (the PSNI and the judicial system) spoke of a confidence about his personal ascendancy within the movement. Again, whether this was for reasons of public relations or not is irrelevant. That he could ask republicans to hand themselves over to the courts was in itself hugely significant. If he had lost control of the situation internally, he would have been disparaged for such a suggestion.

The IRA statement in which it was stated they had offered to kill the murderers of Robert McCartney seems now like a blip (that is a blip in the control Adams's exercises within the movement, although, obviously, the suggestion remains shocking to most people outside the republican movement).

It is unthinkable that Adams would have taken this latest initiative – asking the IRA to disband unconditionally – without knowing that he had the support of the IRA for the suggestion or, at least, of the IRA army council and the leadership generally.

It is therefore an inevitability that the IRA will respond in a week or so and in responding will praise the leadership of Gerry Adams and accede to his request. The initial response may be just an acknowledgement of the request, stating that the movement will engage in internal discussion before replying substantively. (In fact, this has just occurred at the time of writing.)

There will have to be or, more likely, has already been, what is known within the movement "an army convention", that is a meeting of IRA leaders from around the country. The likelihood is that it has taken place, for the timeframe would not allow an exhaustive consultative process and a conclusion before the Westminster elections on 5 May.

Of course the IRA will not simply melt away in the spring sunshine. As was the case with the Official IRA, it will retain an existence in some form for years to come, undertaking "special activities" in support of Sinn Féin and otherwise. That is the nature of the demise of paramilitary organisations. There will be equivocations on the part of Sinn Féin on constitutional issues and residual contradictions and incongruities – remember Seán Lemass stating in the late 1920s that Fianna Fáil was only a "slightly constitutional party"? This was after Fianna Fáil had taken seats in Dáil Éireann.

But what is of momentous importance is that the issue of IRA disbandment will no longer be a factor in negotiations involving Sinn Féin. That card has now been thrown away.

Some loose ends will need to be tied up. There is the issue of decommissioning. One presumes that in agreeing to disbandment there will be a contemporaneous agreement to total and absolute decommissioning. How and when that takes place is of some importance, for the DUP has warned against a unilateral total decommissioning: it wants photographs or, at least, witnesses.

There is then the crucial issue of policing. Sinn Féin has been conditioned to an acceptance of the PSNI, given some marginal reforms. There will be some haggling on this but it seems there are no insurmountable obstacles. The significance of agreement on policing is also enormous for it will require of the republican movement total engagement in and co-operation with the police service and an acknowledgement that it and it alone has the authority to undertake policing in any form.

And finally there is the DUP. In a comment on the Gerry Adams statement on Wednesday, 6 April. Ian Paisley said: "There must be compete and total abandonment of IRA/Sinn Féin and that's not going to happen. The DUP won't be back at any negotiating table. He (Gerry Adams) has put himself outside the arena. It is all over. There is no place in any democracy for terrorists and no place for IRA/Sinn Féin."

Ian Paisley was speaking in the context of the opening of the Westminster election campaign, in which he hopes his party will eclipse entirely the Ulster Unionist Party. While his remarks can be discounted in that context, they nevertheless raise the ante and will make a climb down from that position all the more difficult in the coming months.

Clearly this initiative on the part of Gerry Adams is in response to the climate generated by the Northern Bank robbery, the murder of Robert McCartney, the extraordinary campaign mounted by the McCartney sisters and the international reaction to that. It is also evident that the timing of this appeal to the IRA was influenced by the impending Westminster elections. But whether this was forced on Adams or whether intended to win votes on 5 May, it remains of enormous and enduring significance.