Conflict settlement and beyond: The case of Northern Ireland
In: Medzinárodné otázky: časopis pre medzinárodné vzt'ahy, medzinárodné právo, diplomaciu, hospodárstvo a kultúru = International issues = Questions internationales, Band 8, Heft 4, S. 25-44
ISSN: 1210-1583
And an issue with considerable power to delay the implementation of the Agreement is the decommissioning of arms of the paramilitaries. While the Agreement set up an Independent Commission to address this issue, the timing of decommissioning, and its sequence in relation to the setting up of the Assembly has proved to be difficult to negotiate with all parties. What has made this difficulty even more contentious is the fact that the release of political prisoners, which was agreed in the political settlement, has caused considerable anger among many in the community but perhaps particularly to many in the unionist community who see murderers and other freed with what is perceived to be very little retribution for their crimes. It is not unexpected that the post-violence process has been so contentious or so protracted. Those who work in conflict settlement processes are aware that such processes rarely proceed either evenly or quickly, and indeed many continue through on going and often parallel violence. On the positive side, however, much work has already been undertaken on the development of pluralist approaches to many of the contentious issues of equality and diversity which have been so divisive in Nothern Ireland. In addition, although intra, and sometimes inter community beatings and shootings continue to mark the peace, the paramilitary campaigns, except for those of the various minor splinter groups that have arisen or have been revitalised since the agreement, have ceased. An increasing number of ex- paramilitaries are choosing to abandon violence and to join in the political, or communin, development process. And finally, over two years the Belfast agreement was signed, both the local political Assembly and the North South bodies are finally in place, and the politicians have begun to collectively address a programme for governance. + It is a well established fact to those of us working in conflict that in fact conflicts do not end - they just change. Undoubtedly significant challenges remain to be addressed. Among these can be numbered the possible further development of some of the splinter groups who have split from the main paramilitary movements, and the need for the existing Assembly parties to constructively and collectively deal with this challenge. Despite some progress, the issue of contentious parades still remain unresolved. There is the continuing difficulty of the possible destabilisation of the Assembly through the growth of more 'anti-agreement' representatives who could coalesce around such issues as the failure to agree to a process of decommissioning. These are generally more fundamentalist unionists who voted against the Belfast Agreement. Those Unionists who voted for the Agreement are only in a slim majority and this is likely to prove a continuing difficulty. Another issue that has the potential to destabilise political development is the difficulties in re-developing a police service that is more acceptable to nationalists and unionists alike. + Effectively, the war is ended. For many, committee papers have been substituted for guns. Major problems still remain. It does, however, at last appear that the hard work and the many committed approaches to both dialogue and constitutional solutions may soon yielded enough stability to take Northern Ireland to a future where politics and not violence will primarily prevail. (SOI : MO: 36-38)
