A Sudden Rush of Peace

• Share

(2 of 2)

If the cease-fire holds, it will qualify the Sinn Fein as an accepted partner in talks with Dublin and London about the North's future. Such a course was outlined in broad brushstrokes last December in the Downing Street Declaration, under which Prime Ministers John Major of Britain and Albert Reynolds of Ireland offered Sinn Fein a seat at the bargaining table if the republican guerrillas permanently renounced violence. But a lingering question hovered over just how far the armed brotherhood had really gone. I.R.A. cease- fires in 1972 and 1975 seemed promising but collapsed after only a few weeks or months. Near the end of the week, Sinn Fein vice president Martin McGuinness spelled out more plainly that the offer was for a "complete" cease-fire "under all circumstances," which seemingly ruled out even "defensive" reprisals for any Protestant acts of terrorism. The I.R.A. has to live up to its promise for three months before talks will begin. London has yet to say whether it is satisfied with the I.R.A. truce statements. A spokesman for the British government would only say, "We felt the I.R.A. was nudging toward meeting our concerns."

At midweek Downing Street was furious at the transfer from Britain to Belfast of four I.R.A. terrorists convicted of key roles in the 1984 Brighton bombing that nearly killed Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In Sinn Fein's cease-fire announcement, Adams had called for the return of Irish prisoners. To Major, the shifts -- which officials said had been approved last June -- looked certain to inflame suspicions that he had cooked up secret deals with the I.R.A.

Any immediate British pullout of its 17,500 troops there -- another demand by Sinn Fein -- on the basis of a frail promise of peace would only increase the Unionists' fear of abandonment. The British government emphasized that no withdrawals would occur anywhere near so prematurely. But the crux of Protestant alarm was that Britain's publicly avowed and consistently re- emphasized support for majority rule in Northern Ireland would become fatally diluted. The I.R.A. has never made any secret of its ultimate goal -- unification with the Republic.

Perhaps the most telling verdict on last week's initiative was handed in by John Carmichael, a Catholic businessman in Belfast. Said he: "I can't see that the Provisional I.R.A. will go back. They are answerable to me. They are answerable to the people. We have had enough." Crossed fingers, unspoken prayers: it may be that three centuries after the Battle of the Boyne, when the British established dominion over Northern Ireland, the silent majorities of Catholics and Protestants see within their grasp their wish to turn the clock forward.