Unionist parties in the North must convince the electorate that insistence on decommissioning is not "merely as a ploy" to prevent negotiations, according to an editorial in the current edition of the Church of Ireland Gazette. Decommissioning, it says, "is not a legitimate excuse for refusing to pursue the quest for a settlement [in the North]". It adds that a deal on decommissioning would not represent conclusive disarmament, as "no terrorist organisation involved in the sort of savagery which still occurs in Northern Ireland is going to surrender all its weapons before a climate of peace is established". It also points out that weapons can be replaced.
Because of this it urges "all parties to hasten to the table next month, provided a dependable ceasefire is still in operation". Accusing the Ulster Unionist Party leader of seeking "cautiously to fudge his position", it says he is doing so as "Mr Paisley is breathing down his neck in competition for the hardline unionist vote". Mr Trimble, it says, must accept the challenge of sitting down "to do business with the agents of IRA murderers", despite fears of Mr Paisley branding him as doing so.
"The crisis of the hour demands leadership," it says, and it defines leadership as an attribute of the individual willing to accept a challenge, even when that involves living dangerously. "Mr Trimble must accept this challenge," it says, "because it is the positive option". It advises him "to confront his backwoodsmen, the knee-jerk reflex brigade, and advise them that there is a better - and principled - way ahead".
This, it says, would oblige the IRA to subscribe to the Mitchell principles on exclusively peaceful means and as regards any deal commanding the consent of a majority within Northern Ireland. This would allow the constitutional parties to deal with "Sinn Fein's dogged misrepresentation of political circumstances north of the Border". It describes as "an insult to the intelligence" for Mr Martin McGuinness and Mr Gerry Adams "to pretend that Northern Ireland is a captive colony, held in bondage by alien forces, its populace the most oppressed ever".
