Signs of Life for N. Ireland Talks

Britain’s newly elected Labor government has moved quickly on the Northern Ireland question, raising cautious hopes that the stalled peace process will be resumed.

The new Northern Ireland secretary, Mo Mowlam, has already ordered a series of measures intended to restore confidence in the process, wounded by hardball politics and the violent opposition of the Irish Republican Army.

Mowlam has committed the British government to reform the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the police department of what remains a British province. Her aim is to ensure fair treatment for all citizens of Northern Ireland, Catholic and Protestant. On the practical level, she has promised to strengthen laws barring job discrimination and to give full support to the North Report, which calls for establishing an independent tribunal with authority to permit or ban political and ethnic marches, often the match that torches off trouble.

Another promising sign is Tony Blair’s strong Labor majority in Parliament, an advantage that should provide him the political maneuvering room that’s needed.

On the Irish Republican side, Gerry Adams and his Sinn Fein party came out of the election slightly fortified in Northern Ireland. Adams was elected to Parliament and his party now ranks No. 3 in Ulster, with 16% of the vote. The question is whether the vote for Sinn Fein was a vote for peace and against IRA violence. Mowlam says, “The ball is in the IRA’s court,” inviting the underground army to deliver a credible cease-fire as an opening to new talks aimed at a political solution.