ON MONDAY January 16 the British government formally indicted Sinn Fein with breaching the Mitchell Principles, pointing the way towards Sinn Fein's expulsion from the talks.
It didn't take New Labour long to assert of democratic politics is a world apart from the politics of threat or actuality of violence.
Mo Mowlam insists that the expulsion is necessary to protect the integrity of the talks process. How strong New Labour's commitment is to the application of high-minded universals can be measured against a background of incessant warmongering against Iraq.
Ignoring for the moment this political hypocrisy, it is likely that the IRA was behind the two specific killings mentioned on che government's charge sheet.
On Monday January 9 Brendan Campbell, a commonly mentioned drugs dealer, was shot dead. No group claimed responsibility for his killing but it was no secret that he had been involved in a sort of one- man vendetta against the IRA for some time.
Four weeks before his death he had been shot in the chest and the local assumption was that the IRA were going all out to get him. A few months earlier he had allegedly thrown down the gauntlet to the IRA by throwing a hand grenade at Sinn Fein's headquarters.
The next day, Robert Dougan, a leading loyalist with the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), was shot dead. Police believed he was behind a long running attempt to burn Catholic families out of their homes in the Blacks Road area of West Belfast.
Over a two year period one particular home was petrol bombed 45 times. The RUC claimed they had a good idea who was instigating these sectarian attacks but were unable to bring the ringleader to justice.
Killing spree
This second alleged IRA killing occurred shortly after loyalists had just eased down on an intense sectarian killing spree which had 9 Catholics dead and 24 injured in 10 days. The intended message to the loyalists from Dougan's killing was clear - they should not think that Sinn Fein's participation in the talks meant that loyalists could run around killing Catholics with impunity.
The IRA probably calculated that their retaliation against the loyalist death squads would be overlooked by the British government - these talks are supposed to be "not worth a penny candle" without Sinn Fein.
Republicans gambled that the routine British approach to loyalist violence - "no claim no blame" - would be applied to the IRA, provided that they refrained from directly attacking the State forces. Not for the first time during this peace process, the IRA spectacularly misjudged the situation.
Pressure to expel Sinn Fein from the talks process at one of the most cricial unctures with the issue of the cross border institution was due to be discussed came from the RUC.
This is the same RUC that had had to be embarrassed into attributing responsibility for sereral sectarian killings to loyalist fac=cos Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) i =: lumped for joy when the RUC inface: 'amed the IRA for the two killings.
= LP irseif had entered Stormont for = is: fitary session with Sinn Fein on jessie 17 1997 flanked by delegates from ie loralist death squads.
They presented a common front and deKeeping up the fight: demonstrators in London mark the anniversary of Bloody Sunday clared they would all continue to participate in the talks but would not talk face to face with Sinn Fein.
On September 23, the first day of the real talks, Trimble put forward a blunt motion that Sinn Fein should be thrown out of the talks over a recent IRA statement articulating reseryations about the Mitchell Principles. From the beginning it was central to the Unionist negotiating strategy to force Sinn Fein out of any substantive talks settlement. The two killings handed Trimble, the Orange Dancer, a golden opportunity.
Trimble has had a victorious two months. On January 12 the Irish and British governments published their new "Proposition on Heads of Principles" document.
The unanimous press opinion was that Trimble had pulled off a coup in getting the two governments to shift from what was once thought of as the basis of a settlement - what. had been agreed in February 1995 between Major and Bruton in the "Framework" document.
Just before Sinn Fein entered the talks process in late September a senior spokespersonhad let slip that the 1995 proposals were in "Sinn Fein being booted out of the talks process is of course a travesty. All the remaining parties have used threats and violence to get their way." fact the very minimum they could try to sell to their supporters.
Soon after the announcement of the new agreement the media talked of a warm glow emanating from the Unionist camp. The vague language of the original Framework deal pertaining to a probable cross border institution with executive powers was replaced by a more explicit commitment to the Unionists.
They are guaranteed a northern Assembly with a final veto over any proposal that might arise from any future cross-border institution. The much derided 1995 Anglo-Irish agreement was to be replaced by a new much more ambiguous agreement based on a Council of the Isles, a new Unionist controlled Assembly with real powers and important changes to articles two and three of the Irish constitution.
One Unionist described the mood at a party committee called to assess the Heads document as "very hearty".
The blow for Sinn Fein was all the harder since the Heads of Agreement document was put together by their most vaunted nationalist "ally", Irish Premier Bertie Ahern. In a ironic aside, arch-republican basher Bruton ruefully reflected on the fact that if he had agreed to such a pro-unionist deal with Britain, he would have been denounced by Fianna Fail for selling out the nation.
Accounts in the Irish press of the diplomacy behind the making of the new agreement described Ahern being put under intense pressure by Blair "to trim back on Irish aspirations on the North-South body."
Stephen Collins, one of the cabal of trusted Irish journalists, reported that "The talks went on all through Sunday night... Eventually Ahern agreed to change the reference in the Framework document to the body having 'delegated, executive harmonising or consultative functions' to a formula which referred to 'a north-south ministerial council to bring together those with executive responsibilities in Northern Ireland and the Irish government'. The change was an important one because it kept the Unionists on board".
Sinn Fein angrily exclaimed that the new agreement resulted from the successful playing of the Orange card by the Unionists. Sinn Fein had got it wrong, it was the British who had successfully played the Orange card. Almost by definition the Unionist party is the Orange card.
During the first three weeks of January the Unionists, their many friends in key positions in the press and the loyalists created an air of crisis around the peace process.
Former Unionist party candidate, now political columnist with the Irish Times, Frank Millar, was just one of those who talked up a crisis of Unionist confidence in the peace process; "the crisis of confidence in the unionist community has assumed massive proportions and is now directly threatening Mr Trimble's position - and thus the whole peace process."
Gary McMichael on behalf of the loyalist UDP declared that the talks were at a "very dangerous stage" and there was potential for an escalation of loyalist violence.
Mr D Ervine on behalf of the loyalist PUP told Mowlam that the peace process was in danger of "imminent collapse", the PUP threatened to leave the talks process within days if concessions to Sinn Fein did not stop.
In unison with the warlike rhetoric, the rate of sectarian killings began to quicken. Mowlam then went into the Maze prison to speak to those loyalist prisoners who had voted to break with the talks process. Some Protestant clergy pleaded with Mowiam to address the lack of confidence people now feel in the process.
Mowlam told an English journalist that "the unionists feel hard done by, there is a serious perception and I have to deal with it". New Labour somehow persuaded the loyalists to stay true to the process.
The British used the much publicised crisis of Unionist confidence to put diplomatic pressure on Dublin to shift the Framework proposals even further to the right.
So the peace process has yet again exploded back in the faces of Sinn Fein. They are being dumped out of the talks that they spent 3 years trying to get into, and the British with able assistance from the dogged Unionists are pushing the whole process ever more to the right.
Worst of all, the trusty friends of Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail and the SDLP and Clinton are siding with Blair on all the key issues. Commenting on Sinn Fein's critical reaction to the 'Heads' document the SDLP said deal from that of Seamus Mallon, the supposed leader of the 'conservative' faction within the SDLP negotiating team, badly backfired when Hume rushed to the media to say that Mallon's largely sympathetic response to the new agreement was identical to his own and to condemn Sinn Fein.
The current misfortune of Sinn Fein being booted out of the talks process is of course a travesty. All the remaining parties have used threats and violence to get their way.
Booted out
If the Mitchell Principles were applied in an even-handed way the loyalists would have been booted out along time ago. The "respectable" Unionists would have been thrown out for orchestrating the mass intimidation of Catholics around Drumcree 1,2, and 3 and for their threat to make more trouble this 'summer.
The British too could be indicted - however the Mitchell Principles don't apply to the state forces. Just as well; for they would have to explain away the numerous crimes and human rights infringements regularly inflicted by the RUC.
They would be taken to task for Garavaghy Road and the Ormeau Road, for the death of Robert Hamil, kicked to death by a loyalist gang right in front of the RUC.
What reason would they give for the 500 detentions carried out under emergency powers in 199, or the kılling of Dermot McShane by the British army, or the use of plastic bullets, or the massive rise in official complaints levelled against the security forces since the IRA ceasefire?
The sudden expulsion of Sinn Fein from the talks will at least prompt some of the supporters of the peace strategy and nationalist unity to pause and think again as to where the whole thing is inexorably moving to - a strengthening of partition, a new Unionistcontrolled assembly, and a hardening of sectarian rivalries.
Socialists need to be ready both to listen and to articulate an alternative to a peace process which many times over has been shown to be fatally flawed.