BELFAST — A last-ditch drive by the British government to persuade the Irish Republican Army to hand in its guns to save the Northern Ireland peace process met with a blunt rebuff Friday.

Sinn Fein, political ally of the IRA, said it doubted the guerrillas would begin to disarm within the coming week as demanded by Britain and accused Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson of bad faith.

The comments came as Britain raised the stakes for the IRA by publishing a bill to suspend the province's 2-month-old government and restore direct rule from London by next week unless the IRA made clear they were ready to disarm.

Sinn Fein Chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said his party would not press the IRA to start disarming within that timetable.

Asked in a BBC interview if he believed disarmament would have started by the deadline set by Britain, he said, "I doubt it very much."

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said Britain's threat to suspend the province's coalition government had undermined his own attempts to defuse the growing crisis.

"Peter Mandelson's remarks yesterday were disgraceful," Adams said. "Myself and others in our leadership have been in intense discussions with the Irish and British governments and with the other parties and with the IRA.

"At the time when we are actually talking to the IRA, what does Peter Mandelson do? He accuses them of betraying the process."

Political analysts said Northern Ireland's escalating crisis could play into the hands of political hard-liners on both sides of the province's sectarian gulf who view the entire peace process as surrender to the "enemy."

"In the short term, there is a danger of a vacuum which would be filled by extremists on either side," said Duncan Morrow, a lecturer in politics at the University of Ulster in Belfast.

Hard-liners in both pro-British Protestant and Irish Catholic camps, who viewed the 1998 Good Friday peace accord with suspicion at best or outright hostility at worst, have already responded to the current crisis by saying, "We told you so."

"We always said the IRA never had any intention of giving up its guns," said fiery politician-preacher the Rev. Ian Paisley, a steadfast critic of the province's guerrilla groups and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party.

The pro-British Ulster Unionist Party accused the IRA of not taking the disarmament issue seriously.

"Why do people want to hold onto things that will kill people when we have the opportunity to make progress without weapons?" said senior UUP member Sir Reg Empey.

The British and Irish governments — co-sponsors of the peace process — reported "some progress" in getting the IRA to commit itself to disarmament and agree on a timetable to meet a May deadline set out in the landmark 1998 Good Friday peace accord.

"All I can say is there has been some progress," British Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters during a trip to southwestern England. "But everybody is agreed now that we've got to resolve decommissioning (disarming) once and for all."

In the balance is the five-year peace process that seeks an end to sectarian violence that has cost 3,600 lives in 30 years.

Britain's move to suspend the Belfast government was meant to stop First Minister David Trimble, who leads the Ulster Unionists, from pulling out of the coalition of Protestants and Roman Catholics.

Britain would rather suspend the home-rule government — one of the peace deal's major achievements—than risk its collapse through a walkout by Trimble's UUP.

View Comments

To persuade the Ulster Unionists to enter the coalition with Sinn Fein in December, Trimble wrote a resignation letter postdated for Friday in case no guns were forthcoming.

Political analysts said it was likely Trimble would stay on a few more days to give Britain and Ireland time to find a solution to the deepest crisis yet to hit the peace process.

Telephone calls between Blair and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern were expected Friday after they held crisis talks Thursday, with another meeting possible this weekend.

Political analysts doubted the IRA would respond to what Sinn Fein called "blackmail" by unionists. The IRA does not wish to go back to war against British rule but is unwilling to disarm for symbolic reasons.

Join the Conversation
Looking for comments?
Find comments in their new home! Click the buttons at the top or within the article to view them — or use the button below for quick access.