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Britain to control Northern Ireland
( 2002-10-15 10:36 ) (7 )

The struggle to keep a Catholic-Protestant administration for Northern Ireland suffered a potentially fatal blow Monday when Britain stripped its local politicians of power.

The gambit prevented resignations by the Ulster Unionists, the major Protestant party, because of alleged spying by the Irish Republican Army. An Ulster Unionist walkout would have killed the four-party coalition, the key achievement of the 1998 peace deal.

"This was the least-worst option," Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid said in an interview after he ordered an indefinite return to sole British control as of midnight local time.

"There's going to be a lot of recrimination in the coming days, but my concern is to create a breathing space, so that we can focus on rebuilding the trust that's been lost," said Reid, a Scot who reports directly to Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Britain has successfully shut down and revived the Catholic-Protestant administration before. But analysts agreed that the effort to create a stable coalition of British Protestants and Irish Catholics, wracked by chronic tensions since its founding in December 1999, has never faced a sterner test.

On the streets of Belfast, most Protestants and Catholics didn't appear worried. Many expected the politicians to sort it out, although most think that will take months.

"All the parties will have to show their people they're fighting for peace," said Iris Grace, a Protestant barmaid. "They'll get back together again. It'll never really work, but they'll keep trying."

The decision also isn't expected to spur more violence by Northern Ireland's myriad armed groups, particularly the IRA.

"Irish republicans are now part of the system. While dissidents pose a real threat, the leaders know any return to their old campaign would be political suicide," said Paul Bew, a politics professor at Queen's University of Belfast.

Nonetheless, in a joint statement Blair and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern pinned primary blame for the breakdown on the IRA and its Sinn Fein party, the smaller of two Catholic parties in the coalition.

The premiers said the IRA would have to demonstrate "an unambiguous and definitive conclusion" to its activities before Protestants would be expected to resume cooperation with Sinn Fein.

In Washington, President Bush backed the British move as "a difficult but necessary decision." He supported the prime ministers' call for the IRA and other outlawed groups to go away.

"There is simply no place for paramilitaries in a democratic society," Bush said.

Police said the IRA used Sinn Fein's access to government buildings to run a three-year spying operation, gathering intelligence on potential targets.

Sinn Fein denied involvement, but the party's top legislative aide is among four people awaiting trial on espionage-related charges after Oct. 4 police raids uncovered stacks of confidential documents, mostly stolen from Reid's office.

Political rivals accused Sinn Fein of not relying on "exclusively peaceful and democratic means," a commitment that all office holders are supposed to observe. The scandal proved one too many for the Ulster Unionists, who had agreed to share power with Sinn Fein in late 1999 on condition that the IRA gradually disarmed.

"The IRA was spying on me. You can't expect me to keep working with Sinn Fein in those circumstances," said Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, who has repeatedly battled Protestant hard-liners over his past cooperation with Sinn Fein.

But Sinn Fein chief Gerry Adams said the IRA — five years into a cease-fire after killing 1,800 people during a failed campaign to abolish Northern Ireland as a British territory — won't quickly disappear.

Brandishing a glossy copy of the Good Friday accord that proposed power-sharing, Adams branded Reid a hypocrite and accused him of rewarding Protestant intransigence.

"You cannot talk about democracy while suspending the institutions," said Adams, whose party has seen its support soar among Catholics because of its backing for the peace deal.

At Stormont Parliamentary Building, the grand hilltop home for the power-sharing administration, the 108-seat legislature mounted what may be its final debate.

Government ministers from the Ulster Unionists, Sinn Fein and the moderate Catholics of the Social Democratic and Labor Party said goodbye to their civil servants and cleared out their desks. The Democratic Unionists vacated its offices Friday.

Britain said it will hold elections for Northern Ireland's legislature in May 2003. The date, an unofficial deadline for the coming negotiations to bear fruit or fail, could be moved up or delayed depending on whether the Ulster Unionist-Sinn Fein rift is mended.

Underpinning the crisis is a widespread belief, backed by opinion polls, that the victors in the next election could be the extremes of opinion: Sinn Fein and Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists.

Both parties had two posts in the outgoing 12-member administration, but would appear to be incompatible partners if they held majority positions in any potential coalition. Paisley's insisted he'll never work with Sinn Fein leaders, only against them.