In three well-orchestrated steps the
British government has switched off
the Irish 'peace process'. High profile police raids were followed by a suspension of the assembly and Tony Blair's watershed speech on the October 17. IRA disbandment is now a precondition for any restart.
Dawn raids on Sinn Fein by hundreds of officers were mounted in full view of TV crews with well-briefed Unionists available to give instant responses. Senior Sinn Fein leader Denis Donaldson and three others have been charged with possessing information that might be useful to terrorists, appearing in a court lined with armed officers.
This was an assault on the democratic and political rights of a major party. Sinn Fein historically represented the aspirations of the oppressed nationalist community for Irish self-determination, even if it has since moved away from this stance.
Sinn Fein's alleged 'political espionage' is of little concern. Special Branch has routinely passed the personal details of nationalists to loyalist death squads. And only this August top correspondent John Simpson effectively accused 10 Downing Street of hacking into the BBC News computer.
Sinn Fein criticised the government for caving in to the Unionists. It's true that a fortnight before the raids Trimble threatened to end power sharing if Republicans could not prove they had forsaken violence. But there is nothing new about such demands.
Blair claims his hand was forced by the findings of a police investigation. But the timing and the politics of the moves indicate that this was planned from the very top. Such raids had to result in the collapse of the assembly, if only because the Unionists would pull out. They were the outcome of an investigation lasting well over 13 months. Yet miraculously the raids did not occur before or during a Labour Party conference attended by Bill: Clinton, at which delegates hostile to war against Iraq might have been critical of moves to pull the plug on the peace process.
Blair's October 17 speech represents ! an unequivocal policy shift. A move far too bold to make on the hoof, it must have been crafted over many months. a sectarian carve up - a head count based on community affiliation - with participants fighting for the biggest slice of the cake for their side. It stoked up sectarianism. Meanwhile the fundamental cause of the conflict - the border and continued British rule - remained unchanged.
Republicans relied on two assumptions that have now been exposed as unfounded.
Firstly that the British were committed to their participation and would be the 'persuaders' of the unionists. Blair has unceremoniously dumped this policy without so much as a round-table discussion.
Secondly that the Americans (with Dublin acting as second fiddle) would act as guarantors against the British pulling the rug. The very idea of such a guarantee now seems absurd - Bush has launched a war against terrorism, he's not interested in helping terrorists' make peace.
For the British state the real 'problem' was militant nationalism - irreconcilable with the stability required for normal capitalist functioning, a challenge to the state itself, difficult to resolve without politically counterproductive repression.
Blair has gambled that this problem is over. Additionally New Labour's horizons have shifted. Like the 'ethical foreign policy before it, the 'peace process can be allowed to die a death.
Blair, far from bringing militant movehis goal of doing the opposite. Terrorism, BUT SIR, HE'S A TERRORIST since the Terrorism Act 2000, has been redefined by a catch-all conception of such breadth that it potentially criminalises any type of militant political activity.
In March Jack Straw proscribed 21 organisations, including the Kurdish PKK and the People's Mojahedin of Iran.
Internationally since September 11, Britain's allies have engaged in a concerted series of moves against militant political movements and activists.
The most obvious example has T been lse's asaut on the
Palestinians which, significantly, has included a targeted drive to dismantle the political apparatus of the Palestinian Authority set up under international auspices with EU and UN funding, after the Oslo accords.
This spring Spanish premier Jose Aznar