Posted by Tuars on February 04, 2000 at 11:49:08:
In Reply to: Re: SF and the Peace Process posted by Miney Molan on February 03, 2000 at 19:55:38:
Of course there should be decomissioning and
of course there should be an executive also.
The problems arise when you use one as a precondition
to the other. When that happens you give more control
to the paramilitaries. That should not be the objective.
The GFA gave the Decomissioning body responsibility
for the decommissioning issue for this reason and they
should be left to handle it. The parties should get on
with the things they can control like the executive, rather
than trying to do the job of the Decomissioning body and
rewrite the GFA.
The IRA and other paramilitary groups are not signed
up to the GFA so why should they be given the power
to stop it.
All this talk about the unionists taking risks is nonsense.
They always have the get-out clause of pulling out of
the executive (Unionist veto again). By doing this they
show that they are not genuinely interested in power sharing
and they do not respect the democratic structures.
What's to stop them bringing down the executive evry time a
decision doesn't go their way. Isn't that as much a threat
to democracy as the IRA terrorist threat? And it seems the
British government are happy to give in to the whims of
the Unionists.
I would like to see decommissioning as much as everyone else
but it will not happen until there is a credible power sharing
government established in Northern Ireland.