Peace in Ulster

Abstract

For the first time in history, Northern Ireland’s unionists and republicans are to share power in an executive, led by new First Minister David Trimble. Until late November 1999, the peace process, embodied in the April 1998 Good Friday Agreement, appeared to have reached a stalemate, as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) rejected unionist demands that it disarm before its political wing, Sinn Féin, could enter government. A deal brokered by former US Senator George Mitchell, approved on 27 November, extracted an IRA pledge to appoint a representative to negotiate the decommissioning of its weapons, and thus persuaded the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) to agree to the formation of the executive. However, the UUP has threatened to withdraw from the body if the IRA has not handed over some weapons by next February. The present peace settlement may, therefore, prove to be only another truce.