GIVE THEM A PIE AND THEY'LL FIGHT OVER THE SIZE OF THEIR PIECES:

The end of the Troubles, for real (Kevin Cullen, September 5, 2004, Boston Globe)

Two weeks ago, the Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams, told Irish republicans that they had to be prepared to remove the IRA as an excuse for unionist refusals to share power. It was, many observers suggested, the clearest sign yet that the IRA will soon be formally disbanded as an active paramilitary organization.

An IRA statement saying it was disbanding, combined with some verifiable destruction of the hidden arsenal it has stubbornly held onto, is expected to be enough to get the unionists who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom to resume a power-sharing government with Irish nationalists and republicans who aspire to a united Ireland.

Peter Robinson, the deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party that represents most Protestants in Northern Ireland, has been making positive noises about getting a deal done when Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, sit down with the northern parties Sept. 16 at Leeds Castle in England at a three-day conference aimed at breaking the impasse that has stalled the political process since October 2002. On Tuesday, the 10th anniversary of the ceasefire, the Northern parties met to plan for the negotiations, with Ahern calling for an end to all forms of paramilitary activity and Adams proclaiming that the republicans were "genuinely interested in building the peace process."

Two months ago, as he dined at the Beacon Hill home of John Rankin, the British consul general in Boston, an upbeat Robinson expressed confidence that the IRA was preparing to put itself out of business. More remarkably, some of Robinson's deputies later retired to an Irish pub to catch up on the results of the European soccer championship. The sight of the Rev. Ian Paisley's minions enjoying a quiet pint in an Irish pub in Boston, a city long demonized by the fundamentalist DUP leader as a den of IRA sympathizers, captured more than any speech just how much has changed over the last decade.

The DUP, long derided by nationalists as a group of unreconstructed bigots, is itching to regain control of the governing apparatus in Northern Ireland, and willing to share power with Catholic nationalists provided they can be assured the IRA is no longer a threat. And, as Robinson's deputies explained between conversations about Greece's improbable run and England's predictable collapse in the soccer tournament, the DUPers see themselves as better able to secure and sell a deal to a wary Protestant population that seemed to lose faith in the more centrist Ulster Unionist Party.

When the DUP and Sinn Fein topped the polls last year, replacing moderate parties as standard bearers of their respective communities, some pundits predicted perpetual deadlock, but both of the so-called extreme representatives of Irish nationalism and British unionism have instead showed a desire to wield power instead of old slogans.

It'll work that way in Palestine & Chechnya too.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 15, 2004 9:41 PM