Reply #4: But the government was suspended in 2002 [View All]

[jmcgowanjm]

amid allegations of IRA interference in the political process
and its refusal to disarm, a key point of the peace
agreement.

A landmark settlement, the Good Friday Agreement of April
10, 1998, came after 19 months of intensive negotiations.
The accord called for Protestants to share political power
with the minority Catholics, and it gave the Republic of Ireland
a voice in Northern Irish affairs. In turn, Catholics were
to suspend the goal of a united Ireland—a territorial claim
that was the raison d'être of the IRA and was written into the
Irish Republic's constitution—unless the largely Protestant
North voted in favor of such an arrangement, an
unlikely
occurrence.

June 1999 the peace process again hit an impasse when
the IRA refused to disarm prior to the assembly of
Northern Ireland's new provincial cabinet. Sinn Fein insisted
the IRA would only begin giving up its illegal weapons after
the formation of the new government; Unionists
demanded disarmament first. As a result, the Ulster
Unionists boycotted the assembly session that would
have nominated the cabinet to run the new coalition
government. The nascent Northern Irish government
was stillborn in July 1999.

The problem they have is that the government
proposals
are hints and suggestions rather than specific
promises.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0108101.html

March 5, 2005 poll

in comparison to the pre-election poll in 2003, Sinn Fein
have maintained the same level of support and the SDLP
have dropped two
points.

http://www.irlnet.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t7434.html

Conclusion-when the occupiers of NI
are ready to negotiate again, Sinn Fein, kept in the
game by the fact of the IRA, will be ready.

Time is on our side.