Whole communities, meanwhile, came under the control of paramilitaries who substituted the gun and club for the vestiges of democracy imposed in 1921. It was to end these conditions and to create a new polity based on consent and compromise, that the people of Ireland voted in support of the Belfast Agreement in May 1998. Regrettably, abhorrently, it now appears that what has been secured at such price is in jeopardy. The decommissioning of paramilitary weapons, an indispensable element of the Agreement, still appears to be as remote a prospect as ever. And without a satisfactory resolution to the issue, the Ulster Unionists, at their council meeting on February 12th, are likely to decide to withdraw from the Executive.
Republicans say that what is important is that the guns have been silent for four years.
But no reasonable observer will condemn Mr David Trimble or his party for doing what they undertook to do if the republicans should fail to deliver their side of the understanding on weapons. In peril of political extinction, Mr Trimble brought his party the extra mile, going into government with the IRA's political representatives and allowing a reasonable period of time within which they could show their bona fides . But its spokesmen insist they do not have it in their power to do so and that the Agreement merely requires them to use their influence to achieve it. They say that they have done this and that the IRA will split if the issue is forced. A new thread in these arguments is that republicans have yet to see that politics is working properly and will not relinquish their weapons until this is clear.