The British government’s decision to postpone the Northern Ireland Assembly elections in May 2003 was “the single biggest setback” in years, a leading Sinn Féin figure warned.
Speaking in early May, Sinn Féin’s Jim Gibney said it had been possible up to then to “put pressure” on the IRA “to rein its activities” because of the damage they could do to the party’s electoral prospects.
“This will be difficult to maintain in the future,” Mr Gibney told Belfast-based Foreign Affairs official Ray Bassett at a meeting Mr Gibney had sought in the Linenhall Library.
The Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive were suspended in October 2002 after a police raid on Sinn Féin’s Stormont offices amid allegations of intelligence gathering by the IRA.
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The May 2003 Assembly elections were postponed just weeks before they were due to be held, though the election did happen in November, where the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) beat the Ulster Unionists.
“Republicans had been told to move away from violence towards democracy,” Mr Gibney said, arguing that “they had persuaded their base that the path to a united Ireland is through politics”.
Many republicans had a “strong resentment” against Taoiseach Bertie Ahern for being “complicit” in London’s “double cross” of republicans, Mr Gibney claimed, even though Mr Ahern had opposed the suspension.
“Sinn Féin has managed to keep a lid on the situation and dissuaded some locals from painting the slogan ‘Bertie Trimble’ on a ‘famous’ mural wall in Beechmount in West Belfast,” Mr Gibney told Mr Bassett.
In mid-April 2003, the IRA had bowed to repeated demands from Dublin and London about its future intentions, saying that it had agreed to a third act of arms decommissioning.
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However, the IRA statement provoked demands for clarification from the IRA and Sinn Féin, but Mr Ahern “had sided” with Sinn Féin’s opponent, David Trimble, Mr Gibney said.
The reaction to the IRA statement had created real problems for Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, he went on: “[They] are being criticised in internal meetings in a manner unheard of in the past.”
There was dismay because the IRA statement was shared with Dublin and London before IRA members – a sharp break with the past where endless consultations had taken place.
Members of the IRA “were angry and astonished that the leadership had thought it acceptable to discuss its contents with the enemy [the British Government] before their members”, Gibney said.
Everyone accepted that the IRA should “transform itself into a different non-military group”, he told Mr Bassett, “but asking them to jump through hoops was not the way forward”.
In April 2003, Dublin and London had insisted that all parties must commit to “exclusively democratic means”, warning that “criminality masquerading as a political cause” had corroded public trust.
Decommissioning of arms was “an indispensable part” the Good Friday Agreement and every group should engage with decommissioning chief, Canadian general, John De Chastelain.
Unhappy with the statements by the IRA and Sinn Féin, Mr Ahern told British prime minister Tony Blair that they had not been given “the required clarity”.
Acknowledging the merits of some of Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble’s complaints, he said “the unreasonableness of (his) behaviour sometimes obscured the reasonableness of his argument”.
Trimble could not be expected to stay in government with Sinn Féin five years after he had gone into government with it when Sinn Féin “still continued to be associated with paramilitarism”, he said.
“The IRA has to stop its activities. This had gone beyond the possibility of fudge. Unless it was addressed the Ulster Unionists could not be expected to go back into government,” Mr Blair told Mr Ahern.
Saying that there was “no credible alternative” to Mr Trimble, Mr Blair said having to deal with the Democratic Unionist Party “would be a living nightmare” – though this was the outcome of the November 2003 elections.
