Trimble Protests IRA's Failure to Decommission Arms

Nobel Peace Laureate David Trimble said the survival of the Northern Ireland peace process was currently in the hands of the IRA in a press conference yesterday morning at the Kennedy School of Government.

The Northern Ireland government, formed in early December, was suspended by Britain on Feb. 11 after the IRA refused to begin decommissioning their weapons.

Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA, was included in the government, which included both Protestant and Catholic representatives.

Trimble had been instrumental in forming the government--"breaking the stalemate," he said--with the understanding that the IRA would begin decommissioning by February.

"There's clearly an onus on people to act," Trimble said. "Anything that falls short of [decommissioning] is inadequate."

Trimble is the leader of the Ulster Unionist party and the Northern Ireland government. He received the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in organizing the Good Friday Agreement, the peace treaty between Irish nationalist and Unionist groups.

While Trimble said a full decommission is necessary to ensure the reinstatement of the all-Northern Ireland government, he said he was not sure how events will unfold in the near future.

"There will be a period of reflection. We'll continue contact between the parties. I don't think anyone has a blueprint," he said.

But he said he is still optimistic.

"I'm sure it's going to work sooner or later--obviously I hope for sooner," he said.

Trimble also said the IRA might have refused to decommission because it did not believe the government would be shut down.

"It looks like...the IRA was gambling with this, [as if to say] 'Let's see if they'll really pull the plug,' " he said.

According to Trimble, this was exactly what Northern Unionists hoped would not happen.

"They feared another fudge. I gave assurances that this wouldn't happen again," he said.

Trimble dismissed a question from a reporter asking him to evaluate the performances of members of the Cabinet as premature.

"We'll resume, and these people who are in these positions will resume [their jobs]," he said.

While Trimble said there was no way to guarantee 100 percent decommissioning, he said he was also concerned with weapons being funneled to other paramilitary groups.

"One of the concerns is the leakage of arms from the IRA to [splinter] groups," Trimble said.

He referred to the Aug. 1998 bombing in Omagh, which killed 29 people, and was conducted by the Real IRA, an IRA splinter group, which used IRA arms.

Currently, Unionist paramilitary groups have not decommissioned either, but Trimble said, they will turn in their arms in conjunction with the IRA.

At the conference, Trimble praised former U.S. Senator George Mitchell (D-Wash.) for his extensive work on the peace process. He said Mitchell he would not be making another peace-process trip.

"He's served his time--we've been amazed he has committed so much time," he said.

On his trip to the United States, Trimble visited U.S. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger on Monday in Washington and spoke at Boston College in addition to speaking at the ARCO Forum Tuesday. He left Boston last night on a flight back to Northern Ireland.