OUT NOW! The Real Irish The Real Irish Peace Process available (£6 plus John North THE FEBRUARY vote the Stormont assembly to endorse new structures of partition for the island mark the beginning of the endgame for imperialism's current plans on imposing stability and smothering the Irish question for now.
It is becoming harder and harder to hide the true nature of the settlement.
A familiar cycle, acted out at each stage of the pacification process, was repeated again. The republicans clung desperately to last month's bottom line. Their allies in the nationalist family joined with the British and Unionists in moving the line even further to the right.
A new status quo emerged, even more reactionary than before. What causes a special shudder in Republican ranks was thạt the issue was absolutely fundamental for the movement - the surrender of weapons.
The focus was a "mistake" by Bertie Aherne, Irish premier and titular leader of the "Irish family" invented by Sinn Fein. In an interview with the British Sunday Times he made it clear that he expected the republicans to begin handing in weapons as a precondition to taking their place in a Stormont executive.
At the time of the Good Friday settlement the Republican leadership had had to agree to the renewal of partition, the return of a Stormont regime and an end to the formal statements of a right to unity in the Irish constitution.
In return their nationalist mentors stood by them in asserting their right to a place in the executive and the movement of the arms issue sideways.
The unionists have demanded decommissioning to humiliate the republicans, in the expectation that they would be unable to deliver and could be forced out of the of the RUC in executive sectarian killing The Good Friday produces only agreement did not require decommis- indifference. sioning before the formation of a government, but that was then and this is now. The task for the imperialists and their capitalist allies is to prevent the "Faulknerisation" of Trimble. (William Faulkner was the last unionist to agree to the co-option of the catholic middle Trimble was publicly assured that if necessary Sinn Fein would be dumped, and was able to hold 50% of the unionist vote in the Stormont ballot on the new struclures.
This would be significant but not fatal if what we were observing was the dying of an old regime and Sinn Fein's analysis of sweeping reform were correct.
A moment's thought shows this cannot be the case. Protecting Trimble means placating the unionist right, and that means no significant democratisation nor desectarianism - impossible anyway given the sectarianism built into the new structures.
All the evidence points that way. The great transitional structures that would lead to a united Ireland have been replaced by Micky Mouse committees like inland waterways and food safety. The sectarian bear pit of Stormont looms larger than ever but all the structures that were supposed to transform it are fading away.
Issues of equality will be the special concern of the proposed PM - David Trimble! A super-quango, the • Civic forum, will be set up. Nominations to the forum would come from voluntary and community, trade union, church, arts and sports groups, as well as victims' organisations.
The British will control not only the Stormont regime but a thoroughly artificial and dependent civic society. The whole caboodle will cost £36 million at the expense of services like Health and Education.
The reformist illusion is summed up by the laughIn able expectation that Chris Patton, evidence of the Grandee, will proroutine involvement pose any fundamental reform of the RUC. Hardly a day goes by without new allegations against the force -allegations that won't be answered. We will receive no explanation as to why RUC members stood by while as Portadown man Robert Hamill was beaten to death by a loyalist mob.
There will be no answer to their involvement in the murder of lawyer Pat Finucane - the local legal structures refuse, despite overwhelming evidence, to support calls for an enquiry. Even statements by prominent loyalist paramilitaries that they were flooded out with documents from state forces identifying targets are simply brushed aside despite overwhelming evidence. In Britain evidence of police racialism in the investigation of Stephen Lawrence's death has Eyes A column from Socialist Democracy, Irish section of the Fourth International caused outrage. In Ireland evidence of the routine involvement of the RUC in sectarian killing produces only indifference.
Nothing could make the reality of the pacification process clearer.
What is unveiled is always negative. The RUC are to continue the use of plastic bullets. Plans to cut down the number of arms in civilian (ie Unionist) hands are to be shelved.
British army demilitarisation has gone into reverse as they step up activity in border areas. The British continue to duck their obligation to protect nationalist civilians in the Gervaghy Road. Sectarian intimidation is presented as cultural difference and residents are under constant pressure to bow to the orange bigots and allow the British off the hook.
Sinn Fein feel they are pro-. tected by the formal wording of the agreement and by the secret assurances they have received. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The February vote at Stormont moved the process into the endgame. Its final operation depends only on secretary of state Mowlam and on British interests.
Britain wants Sinn Fein in to help bolster a really quite fragile process, but on Britain's terms. Sinn Fein must bend the knee. The only issue is the amount of leeway they have in timing and formulation.
The choices are presented quite starkly. They can wear suits in the new Stormont or they can be the victims of the sort of witchunt being aimed at republican dissidents - political opponents of the agreement are quite clearly being targeted under the catch-all of the Omagh bombing. Some have been abducted and threatened by the IRA itself.
In the North of Ireland there is growing uncertainty. Limited accommodation to Loyalism does not produce conciliation. The Loyalists move even more sharply to the right and demand further concessions. The British are determined to keep their Loyalist base but find they have less and less to offer nationalist workers, who gain nothing from the process and face