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As
a banner headline in one of the daily Irish or British
broadsheets, ‘Donaldson brings down Executive’
would raise few eyebrows. Many have long anticipated
it. But if such headlines came to pass it would indeed
wax ironical from those who screamed loudest about
rejectionists if it were to be Denis rather than Jeffrey
who, rightly or wrongly, took the lion’s share
of the blame for the collapse of the institutions.
With Sinn Fein’s Denis Donaldson now charged
and due to appear in court as a result of last week's
searches in Belfast it would nevertheless be wholly
wrong for any commentator to presume his guilt.
The
British police security operation at Stormont was
not only unprecedented, it was also a major strategic
strike by the British state of quite startling brilliance.
Its aim was to incapacitate the Sinn Fein leadership’s
climbing ability as all sides scramble for top position
on the moral high ground in preparation for any collapse
of the Stormont executive. While on the day the real
evidence gathering most likely went on outside of
Stormont the media-visible assault - inanely aided
by Gerry Kelly - on the Sinn Fein assembly offices
was designed to conjure up a powerful imagery in the
public mind. Stormont was to become the site whereby
the so-called ‘organic link’ between Sinn
Fein, the IRA and ‘ethically indefensible terrorism’
was to be graphically illustrated in blazing searchlights.
Whether
by accident or design - it matters little - all week,
matters had been slipping outside the control of the
control-obsessed Sinn Fein leadership. It was the
week in which all the straws on the camel’s back
finally came to break it. The party had barely time
to digest the opening words of Ed Moloney’s book
on its relationship to the IRA, before the British
were leaking some findings from the Chilcott report
into the Castlereagh break-in back in March which
suggested IRA involvement. In a break with the policy
of his predecessor Ronnie Flanagan, who seemed not
to know who carried out anything, Hugh Orde allowed
a police statement to be disseminated which unequivocally
identified the IRA as the organisation which beat
and shot Derry man Danny McBrearty. The trial of the
three republicans in Colombia started in a blaze of
publicity and fed into the week’s recurring theme
which served to reinforce the unionist mindset that
there was indeed a Sinn Fein/IRA and that its existence
more than anything else posed a threat to the stability
and longevity of the institutions. And from the British
and Unionist perspectives the coup d’grace came
with the search and seize operation at Stormont. The
body language told it all. Bairbre de Brun on the
evening news programmes appeared like the cat who
had lost the cream whereas her government leader David
Trimble adopted the persona of a dog with two tails
puzzled only by which one he should wag.
Unlike
with the debacle in Colombia the Sinn Fein president
will not be afforded the luxury of claiming no one
told him Denis Donaldson was in Sinn Fein. Nor can
the party venture off to Cuba to hold an investigation
into the status of Donaldson’s membership. Its
sole defence shall be to position itself, as Martin
McGuinness has, behind the legal shield and argue
correctly that Donaldson is innocent until proven
otherwise. But the real difficulty faced by the party
is not one that can be deferred by seeking refuge
in sub judice. It is not that in the court of public
opinion Donaldson may already unfairly be deemed guilty
- legally it is not for the public to decide - but
that republicanism is. And unlike lengthy judicial
proceedings public opinion generates an immediacy
that requires hard and fast corrective adjustment.
Such
adjustment against the present backdrop may well lead
to the suspension of the institutions. The Stormont
strike against republicanism makes such a course all
the more easier while allowing any Trimble exit strategy
to be relatively cost-free and him to emerge as the
man to lead unionism into any new negotiations. And
before any such negotiations begin the unionist demand
that the IRA cease to exist as a prerequisite for
them taking place will be strengthened immeasurably.
If, as John Reid claims, Sinn Fein is riding two horses
at once, the British are now determined to ensure
that the horses will not run in tandem and that their
rider will be pulled apart.
It
is often claimed by Sinn Fein that moves such as the
search of Sinn Fein offices at Stormont are the work
of British securocrats who aim to destabilise the
Good Friday Agreement. If some of the press reports
from the Sunday after the event are reliable then
- the case of Denis Donaldson totally aside - some
may be forgiven for suspecting that the IRA intelligence
system is infiltrated by securocrats. That system,
allegedly, more than anything else has given both
Sinn Fein and those in favour of the Agreement a headache
that will be slow curing in the months ahead.
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