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Fein unless decommissioning is delivered.
But there are some signs of hope. It is reported by some - but dismissed by others - that the IRA Convention met last weekend. The IRA doesn't come together to swap recipes and knitting patterns. Any meeting is pretty difficult to organise. We can assume that they met for a purpose.
This larger Convention may have agreed to allow the smaller 20-strong IRA Executive to decide on decommissioning. And according to senior Government sources at Westminster, this is being interpreted as meaning that Adams and McGuinness could deliver on decommissioning.
Thousands of people have risked their lives, many have died or been jailed to build up the IRA into the world's most effective and feared fascist terror group. Hard-faced volunteers don't buy the argument that they can always buy more arms. It isn't that easy. And pity the IRA commander who orders his men to risk their lives to rob a bank to fund further arms purchases?
We know that the IRA has a doomsday dump of 100 tons of explosives and guns. We shouldn't be mesmerised like some scared rabbit by this figure. Destroying one rusty gun or one ounce of semtex is a massive political, even theological step for the IRA.
There is no such thing as token decommissioning. The Provos would have crossed the Rubicon. There would be no turning back.
Others might take up the fight. But any recurring IRA would operate in very different and much more difficult conditions. Not least if they can't access arsenals controlled by today's 'men of peace.'
But what already makes the situation radically different is that the people and parties of these islands have signed up to an agreement that knocks the stuffing out of violent politics. Bombs and death may happen again. But fewer people will be able to justify and sustain this in the court of public opinion.
The Provos either can't or won't decommission or want to keep the guns just in case. It's their problem, not ours. But decommissioning will allow Sinn Fein to realise some of their treasured ambitions. Without guns and the threat of force, they will be able to make new political alliances and work the equality agenda.
They face the de Valera dilemma - between twisted principles and pragmatism. He took the leap. Ireland was transformed. Sinn Fein can do the same. But the guns have to go if Sinn Fein wants the freedom to achieve the freedom it yearns for.
Versions of this article appeared in the Sunday World in November and in Tribune in December 1998. Gary Kent is chair of New Dialogue.
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