Analysis: Trimble's tactics

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday July 26, 2002 01:59 by McMean

In many Irish republican minds, the jury is out on David Trimble's attitude to the Good Friday Agreement. At various times over the past four years, I have heard republicans state a belief that intellectually Trimble is with the Agreement but emotionally he is on Drumcree Hill in his Orange Regalia, hectoring his neighbours and fellow Orangemen in the RUC who are blocking his way from marching down Garvaghy Road. "Why is it that some people are determined to attack people who are walking down the road?"

he recently growled.

People remember him going into the all-party negotiations in
September 1997 saying that his objectives were variously to force
Sinn Fein out, to have the party thrown out or to reach an
agreement to which Sinn Fein could not sign up. Having failed in
the latter his focus was then narrowed to the other two options.
His behaviour in respect of the political institutions agreed on
Good Friday fits in with that analysis. Likewise his
Humpty-Dumpty strategy with the Executive. The compliance of the
British government with his demands has been an indispensable
element of that strategy. More than four years after Good Friday
1998 that is where he has returned to. Variously, he is
insinuating that Sinn Fein must be thrown out of the Executive,
at least for a while, and that he will resign if he doesn't get
his way on this.

A recent Trimble interview in the Guardian, conducted by Jackie
Ashley, demonstrates all of this in a fairly candid way while
also illustrating Trimble's sometimes, perhaps oftimes, quixotic
approach or view of some things. Or perhaps he simply says some
things with tongue firmly in cheek.

For instance, the "prize", Trimble argued to the Guardian
journalist, and with no evidence of irony, "is a real Northern
Ireland democracy in which July 12 becomes just another
affirmation of community", like Bastille Day in France or 4 July
in the US.

Those who have lived the 'carnival of reaction', predicted by
James Connolly, that flows from partition, are more likely to
equate the Imperial Grand Master of the Orange Lodge with the
Imperial Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan than with Robespierre
or Thomas Paine. Trimble's "prize" is undoubtedly a vision seen
through orange tinted glasses.

This sort of rubbish apart though, Trimble pointed to the real
cause of the crisis he has painstakingly set out to create, with
the help of others, since the UUP's AGM in March of this year.
That is, the forthcoming Assembly elections and the electoral
contest between the UUP and the DUP.

Of course, he did not describe it in those terms but rather in
terms that might gain a wider sympathy. Instead, he projected a
scenario in which "the dominant political parties" after the next
Assembly elections "could be Sinn Fein and the DUP". This, he
predicted, would result in the whole thing going pear shaped,
taking another generation to fix. In other words, he wants to
beat the DUP electorally and he does not want to share power with
Sinn Fein, or at least not with Sinn Fein as the First or Deputy
First Minister. And whatever about the actual potential for such
an outcome this is the UUP leadership's politics for the
forthcoming election.

The flaw in all of this, as Trimble admits, is the outworking of
a strategy to give effect to these twin objectives. In words
ominously close to those used 30 years previously in another
conflict on another continent, he says: "In order to save the
process you have to look as if you're prepared to destroy it".

That conjures up a strategy of sailing close to the wind and the
need for a deftness of touch at the rudder that isn't immediately
evident in someone who believes that Bastille Day can be compared
with the Twelfth. In this situation, even if it is not his
intention, Trimble may steer the whole Agreement onto the rocks.
And the reason for that is evident both in the backdrop to this
contrived crisis and in the playing out of his strategy as
alluded to by Trimble in the Guardian interview.

The backdrop to all of this is an ongoing sectarian onslaught by
the UDA. Guns, pipe bombs, knives and machetes have been used to
injure, maim and kill by people intent on destroying the
Agreement. This has recently been stepped up in Belfast. The UVF
became involved in Short Strand and South Belfast. The UDA
expanded their attacks in North Belfast to include Ligoniel and
Skegoniel.

The latest fatality in their killing campaign was 19-year-old
Gerard Lawlor, shot dead close to the Antrim Road on Sunday
night. The PSNI and other securocrats have hyped the situation.
Bogus allegations about republican intentions to create conflict
and attempts to draw nationalist youths into street
confrontations have been part and parcel of that. The fabricated
myth of a tit-for-tat campaign of violence, which has largely
gone unchallenged, has been part of the smokescreen.

At the political level, the inter-unionist electoral battle is
being fought out on political territory that has been marked out
by anti-Agreement unionists, that is, by the DUP and
anti-Agreement unionists in the UUP. Anti-Agreement positions
will win out regardless of the party banner under which this
occurs, because the debate is being waged on their terms and on
their political territory. This is where Trimble has pitched his
tent for the electoral battle.

The UUP's publicly stated premise for the crisis they have
contrived and their demand for British Prime Minister Tony Blair
to take action is alleged activity by the IRA. Events,
allegations and wholly fabricated stories have been combined to
create a false picture of the IRA.

Against that, the British Secretary of State, John Reid, and the
chief of his police force say the "IRA cessation is not under
threat". British Prime Minister Tony Blair says "our belief is
that the IRA have never been further away from the resumption of
violence". And David Trimble says, in the Guardian interview, he
doesn't think the IRA seriously intends "a full-scale resumption
of violence". Instead, he says, for he has to justify looking as
though he is "prepared to destroy" the Agreement, that the IRA
have "a very definite strategy of tension and threat".

For Trimble, the logical extension of this strategy is the
attempt to out-Paisley Paisley, to out-Donaldson wee Jeffrey. He
will talk tough, act tough and expect the British and Irish
governments to pander to his demands as in the past or at least
acquiesce in them.

The Guardian's Jackie Ashley describes the logic put to her in
these terms:

"Trimble says simply: 'I'm saying to the government to do
something, to inject a bit more confidence into society.' But he
does refer back to the time in February 1998 when Sinn Fein was
suspended from the talks for a period because of IRA violence:
'And a couple of months later we got an agreement, so taking a
firm line with the republican movement, far from threatening the
process, actually improved the situation.'

"So what if Wednesday's strong words are not enough?... Is he
prepared to resign again? 'Of course, if it is necessary to do
so, I'm quite prepared to.' But he has already tried this tactic
once and he readily admits there is a paradox: 'In order to save
the process you have to look as though you're prepared to destroy
it.'"

Trimble's strategy, reduced to its essence, looks like this:

* Ignore in real political terms the responsibility of political
leadership to challenge a sectarian campaign by the UDA aimed at
wrecking the Agreement, homes, lives and schooldays. Instead,
make periodic remarks of alleged condemnation but do nothing.

* Ignore the threats this campaign poses to the peace process.

* Move onto you opponent's political territory to challenge him
electorally. That is, in order to save the process you have to
look as though you're prepared to destroy it.

* Contrive a crisis to serve these ends - one that makes you look
more anti-Agreement than your electoral opponents. Seek to force
the two governments down the road of breaching the Agreement or
acquiescing in a breach of the Agreement to serve these ends.
Seek to force the other parties to the Agreement into acquiescing
in this.

* Encourage the governments and the other parties to breach their
obligations and commitments in the terms demanded and in the
timeframe demanded by threatening to deepen the crisis. Do this
by making the foundation stone of the Agreement - the political
institutions - inoperable. Resign if necessary.

* Hope that the protracted campaign of sectarian attacks will not
terminally damage the peace process in the interim.

* Hope that some formula can be found after a few months that
will bring Sinn Fein back into the executive or to resurrect the
institutions.

* Hope that if all of this fails, even if this is not your
intention, that unlike the Titanic there are enough lifeboats and
life jackets available for all when you have steered this process
onto the rocks.

This is what the British Prime Minister and the Taoiseach need to
take on board in the coming months. For Tony Blair in particular,
the time of reckoning is here. For his decision, the words he
speaks in the British House of Commons today, Wednesday 24 June,
will set the course of everything that has been achieved over the
past decade either in the direction of the rocks or away from
them.

Blair may well ponder the possibility of pandering to Trimble now
with a view to changing direction in the future. He would be
foolish to do so. For if he talks the talk he is only
guaranteeing that he will walk the walk.