British-Irish plan seeks to break deadlock (Washington Post) -- Irish Media Watch Message Board

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Date Posted: 04:09:02 11/30/04 Tue GMT
Author: Lynn
Subject: British-Irish plan seeks to break deadlock (Washington Post)

washingtonpost.com

British-Irish Plan Seeks to Break Deadlock

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 17, 2004; 7:08 PM

DUBLIN, Ireland - The British and Irish governments gave Northern Ireland's rival parties a confidential plan Wednesday designed to break a stubborn deadlock on power-sharing and IRA disarmament.

Both governments said the blueprint includes a conditional commitment from the Irish Republican Army to allow Catholic and Protestant clerics to serve as independent witnesses to the IRA's next act - a weapons transfer to disarmament chiefs.

Three previous IRA acts of disarmament from 2001-2003 were shrouded in such secrecy that much of the public dismissed them as inadequate.

The north's two major Irish Catholic-backed parties, the IRA-linked Sinn Fein and the moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party or SDLP, discussed the formal package during separate meetings with Irish government leaders in Dublin.

In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave the same plans to Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists, a hard-line Protestant party that has become the largest party in Northern Ireland.

The British and Irish premiers have led several failed negotiations over the past two years to revive a joint Catholic-Protestant administration, the core goal of the Good Friday peace pact of 1998. A moderate-led coalition collapsed in October 2002 after suffering several breakdowns over the IRA's refusal to disarm.

The document presented Wednesday contained their joint recommendations for what each side should be prepared to accept.

Besides their assessment of what steps the IRA would be expected to take to disarm and disband in a convincing manner, the document proposes changes to how a new administration would be formed and operate.

After a 45-minute briefing from Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern, SDLP leader Mark Durkan said he had "very serious misgivings" about what the two governments appeared ready to concede to the Democratic Unionists.

Durkan said Paisley's party was "getting too much and giving too little," but he declined to reveal details of the government's proposals.

Northern Ireland's previous 12-member administration granted individual Catholic and Protestant ministers wide latitude in making departmental decisions. This policy angered many Protestant lawmakers.

Democratic Unionists say any new administration must have its policies supported by heavy legislative majorities. That rule would give Paisley's bloc - as well as the Catholic bloc - the power to thwart administration moves. Paisley says this would make the system more democratic; Catholics say it would lead to governmental gridlock.

The IRA killed about 1,800 people and maimed thousands more from 1970-1997, when it called an indefinite truce in its campaign to abolish Northern Ireland as British territory. Police say it retains a considerable arsenal, largely supplied by Libya, that has been hidden in underground bunkers in the neighboring Irish Republic.
© 2004 The Associated Press

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