The killing will go on in Northern Ireland, at least for a while, and the political arm of the Irish Republican Army will continue talking of peace.
Through clouds of rhetoric, that was the principal message emerging Sunday from a two-day annual conference of Sinn Fein, the public face of the paramilitary organization.
In the week leading up to the conference, British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd and Sir Patrick Mayhew, the Northern Ireland secretary, made speeches intended to convey Britain’s willingness to reach accommodation with Sinn Fein. Prime Minister John Major did the same in an interview.
If they expected this to win Sinn Fein acceptance of December’s Anglo-Irish peace initiative, they were disappointed. Once again Sinn Fein has declined to say either yes or no, and made clear that the IRA won’t lay down its arms at this stage.
It is difficult to see where matters proceed from here. British ministers have been dropping hints that their patience is limited, and that they may proceed with some internal political arrangement if Sinn Fein doesn’t make up its mind soon. They have also talked of tougher security measures against the IRA.
Irish officials talk of waiting until March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, for a definitive response.
Yet Sinn Fein officials act as though they are under no deadline pressure. In their view, neither government really wants to foreclose the possibility of edging toward an agreement.
Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein vice president and a hard-liner, said after the conference that he was encouraged to think Britain may be ready to give ground on the key issue of a Protestant veto over political change.
McGuinness said Irish Prime Minister Albert Reynolds has said several times recently that the Protestants don’t have a veto, and the British government hasn’t contradicted him. “I think that is highly significant,” he said. “There seems to be a real possibility we can bring this off.”
McGuinness said it still is possible to initiate talks “in a total absence of violence,” meaning an end to the IRA campaign. But the British, he said, would have to make clear that all parties would go into such talks on equal terms-meaning no British commitment to keeping Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom.
Sinn Fein strategy appears to be based on an expectation that Britain wants to rid itself of the Northern Ireland problem, and eventually will find the courage to make that clear to the Protestant community. At the same time, the British believe that Sinn Fein and the IRA, or at least some members of those organizations, are tired of the conflict.
If this mutual weariness exists, and can lead eventually to direct talks, then Sinn Fein has promised that Protestant concerns will be taken into consideration in the development of a new political arrangement in Northern Ireland. It rejects a Protestant veto on change, but says the nature of the change to come will require Protestant consent.
The mood in Sinn Fein, as was evident at the conference, is buoyant. In recent months the party has scored two major successes- getting Ireland to lift a broadcast ban on Sinn Fein and getting President Clinton to allow Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams to visit the U.S.-without giving anything in return.
It has handled recent developments more adroitly than either the British or Irish governments, which haven’t even managed a facade of unity on how to deal with Sinn Fein.
