All the real concessions that have been made to open up this month's peace talks in Ireland have been made by the republican leaders, and the whole situation could swiftly unravel, warns John McAnulty in Belfast. THE NEW IRA ceasefire in Ireland reflects the outcome of a sustained round of secret diplomacy by the new Blair administration in Britain. Unfortunately for the peace process mark II, it also coincided with the annual British and Loyalist assault on the nationalist population of the Gervaghy road and graphically demonstrated the limits of what is on offer.
The Sinn Fein leadership's explanation for the failure of the peace process in Ireland was based on what they saw as former Tory leader Major's dependence on unionist votes and an unsympathetic regime in Dublin.
They had posited a dream ticket of a strong Labour government, a Fianna Fail administration in Dublin and increase in their own vote. In June all these elements of the dream situation carne into play in a series of elections.
This analysis, borrowed completely from the leader of the local nationalists, John Hume, left out of the picture the whole question of the interest and strategy of British That interest was spelt out with a vengeance by the new Labour administration. They brought new energy to the process, but left no doubt about the destination of the peace train, nor the price of a ticket. "The future is Orange"
Tony Blair rushed to Belfast to assure unionists that the future was Orange - that the outcome of the ocace process would be the continuation of partition for generations. He took the opportunity to thank the loyalist death squads for their restraint - on a day when one of the victims of loyalist sectarian violence was being buried The new British secretary, Mo Mowlem, adopted a no-nonsense, "meet the people" diplomacy. The result was the same - on the 6th July British forces moved in at dawn to attack the civilian population of the Gervaghy Road in Portadown in order to support the "right" of local bigots in the sectarian Orange order to assert their supremacy over the minority population by staging their annual march through the nationalist area.
A leaked official document - a "game plan" - showed that the British had decided weeks before that this would be their policy, and that Mowlem's posturing had simply been a PR exercise.
Mowlem had hoped to talk the loyalists around, but given that the loyalists already knew that the march would proceed she had no prospect of winning any agreement from them. The fact that all this happened when the British had already finalised the diplomatic details of a new ceasefire shows just how little is on offer from the peace proccos.
British policy
In order to understand this we need first of all to understand British policy. The British, through the Irish peace process, have enlisted local nationalist politicians and the Dublin government to shore up the northern state. S ir Patrick Mayhew, the former British secretary, spelt out the limits of what Britain could offer in return after Drumcree II - a carbon copy attack on civilians by the RUC, the sectarian local police force, in 1996. The British had never promised to confront Orangeism (hardly surprising, given that they are the mass base for the British occupation of the area. they bad promised to do was try to talk them around.
This policy was faithfully applied when the most extreme loyalists began a series of weekly attacks on Catholics attending mass at Harryville, Ballymena. For a year, with the support of the Catholic hierarchy who pushed the RUC into their schools in an attempt to rehabilitate them, the British tried to marginalise the ultra bigots.
They fired up a whole series of local loyalist dignitaries, including Robert Saulters, the Orange leader, to denounce the demonstrations. This had absolutely no effect and after a year of demonstrations and sectarian attacks the loyalists walked over the half-hearted resistance of the RUC to break into the church, which suspended services shortly afterwards.
The same policy was applied by British secretary Mowlem in the run up to Drumcree III - again with the same result: the bigots marched and the state assaulted the residents.
A test for Sinn Fein Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams called Drumcree III a test of the British. It was also a test for Sinn Fein -and it showed a seriously disoriented movement.
Adams rushed back from Tralee in the west of Ireland to a hastily convened rally on the Falls Road and assured his audience on eight occasions that he was an Irish republican. " 'He briefly broke politically from the peace process, criticising the establishment parties and the trade unions for their silence and calling an open meeting that Monday to discuss mass action.
By the time the meeting was held the republican leadership had closed ranks, debate was barred, and instead a bizarre session was held where the audience was asked to make tactical suggestions without being allowed to discuss strategy or policy.
It was clearly indicated from the platform that Socialist Democracy were not welcome at the meeting.
The strategy that finally emerged was one where the leadership held on firmly to the nationalist family and their interpretation of the peace process, and continued to hoist the SDLP onto their platforms.
The vehicle for activity continued to be the narrow residents' committees. These are confined to areas directly under attack, with no attempt to build a broader solidarity. They are the local expression of the nationalist family, with concessions made to the Catholic church and The British have engineered these situations the middle-class Social Democratic and Labour Party.
By their very nature they are Catholic committees and this allows organisations like the trade unions to stay firmly out of the picture and obscures the fact that the answer to Orange sectarianism is not a Catholic counter-organisation but organisation of the workers' movement. (The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) contribution was to announce that it would kill Orangemen if they marched through disputed areas.)
However the demonstrations that they held were clearly not on the same basis as in '96, where they had demobilised the resistance in favour of diplomacy.
Now for a brief period they tried to broaden and generalise mass action and in the end that proved decisive, forcing the British and the The "peace process" at work in Drumcree 1997: the bigots marched and the state assaulted residents. Orange leadership into retreat and the cancellation of a number of marches through nationalist areas.
Political
decommissioning Within days a new ceasefire was announced by the IRA. Rarely have the timetables of diplomacy and rank and file action been so at variance. The decision was too close to a raw exhibition of the reality of the sectarian state and to the British role in support of that state and led to a number of expressions of discontent by Sinn Fein activists.
The basis for the IRA decision was that the roadblock of prior decommissioning [that is the IRA surrender of weapons] had been overcome What the republican leadership did not explain was that they had made a further political retreat around the question of the Mitchell principles.
These principles are the contribution of US imperialism to the process, and call for the surrender of arms during negotiations and for the disbandment of the IRA. Whatever assurances the republicans received about the question of arms, there is no doubt about the political aspects of the demands made by Mitchell.
The report demanded a commitment to exclusively peaceful means, before, and the Loyalist base has always won. All but it made it clear that this commitment did not extend to the state forces.
It also made the demand that those participating accept in advance the outcome of the talks. This is actually a demand for political surrender, and it appears that the republican leadership have conceded this.
The day before the ceasefire, in a move clearly linked to the secret diplomacy with the British, Gerry Adams published an extensive document setting out the new programme of the leadership. It lists a number of reforms in tackling discriminatiou and repressive legislation and went on to call for a renegotiation of the union - a clear recognition that the demand for a united Ireland could not be realised through the talks.
Following criticism Adams repudiated the article. In a nice bit of peacespeak he claimed he had been "miscontextualised". Emergency rallies were held in Belfast and Derry to reassure supporters that the primary aim of the movement remained a united Ireland.
What the speakers did not say was that the "primary aim" would not - and could not be - realised through the peace process, and that the drift to reformism meant that the revolutionary elements of their programme were being moved to a long and indefinite future.
So the ceasefire returned, but without the fanfare and support that existed at the base of republicanism in the past. The focus will now shift to unionism.
Unionist division
In a mirror image of their role in the sectarian marches the British have managed to talk around some sections of big business and thus pressure elements in the leadership of the Unionist party.
They have voted against the decommissioning document, thus putting the process on hold ... but they have not walked out. This reflects a division some business sectors, who are willing to accept some cosmetic reform, and elements of Ine bourgeoisie and pettybourgeoisie wedded to the full expression of their sectarian privilege.
The British have engineered these situations before, and the Loyalist base has always won. All the initiatives of the past 20 years have fallen to the right under the pressure of loyalist bigotry.
The British calculate that this time the unionists are even more fragmented and that they will be able to use the representatives of the death squads, whom they have helped to dress in the sheep's clothing of working class moderation, further to weaken the reaction.
However it does not take much imagination to see how little the leadership of unionism will concede under this kind of pressure how difficult it will be for the republican leadership to sell the limited cosmetic changes as a steppingstone to a united Ireland.
Drumcree III spelt out how little substance there is to British peace proposals. They will yet live to regret uncovering the reality. * John McAnulty writes on behalf of Socialist Democracy, the Irish section of the Fourth International.