Mr Seamus Mallon, the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, has set down in the starkest terms the two options on the Drumcree crisis. There will be a negotiated compromise or the rule of law will stand. No Orange march will be forced down the Garvaghy Road against the decision of the Independent Parades Commission, the body established by law to rule on such matters. Watching the giant Chinook helicopters yesterday bringing in heavily-armoured RUC officers, while the British Army reinforced its already formidable defences, few can doubt that the authorities are resolved that the Commission's determination will stand.
With proximity talks due to open this morning after a week of appalling violence, a glimmer of hope emerges that such a compromise may be found. Government sources in both Dublin and London and political leaders on the ground are guarded in their optimism. Getting people to talk, albeit indirectly, does not necessarily imply that they can be got to make an agreement. Today's meetings will be decisive. It is not an exaggeration to say that the participants will be dealing in matters of life and death.
There are reasonable and moderate people within both communities who will want to respond to any compromise which preserves their dignity. But there are also elements which are anguished by the prospect of an accommodation. Sinister and unscrupulous forces are striving to achieve at the barricades what they failed to achieve at the ballot box on June 25th, as Seamus Mallon put it earlier in the week. For these, the issue of marching the Garvaghy Road and the massing of Orangemen against the police lines are incidentals to the principal agenda of destabilising Mr David Trimble's leadership of mainstream unionism and wrecking the Assembly and the Belfast Agreement of Good Friday last. Bringing Northern Ireland to a standstill would be a small price to pay. Injury, intimidation and even killing would be viewed as unavoidable collateral costs.
But it is clear that Mr Blair and his Government are not for bending, as were certain of their predecessors, before the bully-boys and the wreckers. Their resolution is manifest in the security preparations on the ground and also in their determination that the will of the great majority of the people, expressed twice at the ballot-box, is upheld. The Assembly and the Agreement can and will survive even a failure to achieve a compromise at Drumcree over the next 24 hours. Part of the genius of the new structures is that they are virtually incapable of being undermined whether by boycott, by obstruction or by mob-rule on the streets. When this crisis has run its course, whether by negotiated resolution or when the forces of violence have been spent, the new structures which have been voted into existence by the will of the people will still be there.
It must fervently be hoped that the talks beginning this morning will lead on to an agreed resolution. If they do not, the weekend and Monday will be days of peril with the likelihood of widespread violence. Security personnel will face great dangers while innocent civilians, possibly far-removed from Drumcree and the Garvaghy Road, risk further targeting in the rage and anger of the mobs. Those who have unleashed evil forces over recent days and nights must already carry a heavy sense of guilt. Only those devoid of conscience could want to add to that burden.