Talking to Terrorists is
flawlessly written and so
extensive that it answers most
readers' questions. It also says
the unsayable and, at times, the
never said.
Neither faux-neutral nor
nationalist, the book is
democratic and unionist in both
Spanish and British terms,
providing a lesson for
governments around the world.
Over 40 years of political history,
the authors use ETA as a
comparator with the IRA. It was
less terroristic than ETA but
both were equally implacable
and impossibilist.
But something happened to the
IRA. Amazingly, they were
herded like cats down an evernarrowing
channel to end up in
a place they never intended to
be. ETA declined to follow suit,
despite Gerry Adams's recent
intervention, and are now offceasefire.
The book's third chapter, The
Peace Process, provides a
succinct and revealing account
of Northern Ireland politics
from 1990 to date. It describes
how, in David Trimble,
Unionism had a leader who
having made the decision to
deal, gave the necessary
leadership – albeit inscrutably.
In 1997, in my one contact with
him, at a pan-unionist
conference at Hatfield House,
Lord Cranborne's historic home,
I was impressed to find how
utterly confident he was that
Sinn Féin/IRA were going to
abandon war.
As the book recounts, every
previous set of
talks with the
IRA, even minor
contacts, came to
nought. Worse,
they encouraged
IRA militarism,
either through
frustrating their
easily enraged
volunteers or by
offering the
scent of victory.
Tony Blair was
shallow,
deceitful and
well-intentioned
like New
Labour, but with a modicum of Unionist
sentiment, stemming perhaps
from his Ulster Protestant
mother. He spotted that with
patience and endurance,
particularly by cosying up to
Trimble, an agreement could be
achieved. John Major and his
team are properly described as
having already done much of
the groundwork – getting little
credit.
Rather than a "peace process," a
tendentious Sinn Féin term that
implies unending activity until
victory, what then happened was
a maturing process, one that
normally concludes with
adulthood. Ironically, as
described, the Belfast
Agreement, drafted by Dublin
with NIO amendments, was
largely complete before Sinn
Féin entered the Talks.
Regis Debray, the French
intellectual, is quoted
approvingly in the book as
saying, "nine out of ten political
errors result from reasoning by
analogy".
The tenth must be a policy of
doing what you failed to do last
time, like staying beyond your
time in Afghanistan despite the
job being done.
Nonetheless analogies are
helpful and the authors repeat
that theirs do not constitute a
template or prescriptive lesson.
Other near analogies are Israel,
Serbia and Sri Lanka, with their
ethnic or exterminatory wars,
separatist movements and
terrorism, but none precisely
fits. It would also be impossible
to find an analogy for a state –
other than the UK which
seemed to wish to divest itself
of sovereign territory,
even when the
majority of the
population concerned
were its nationals.
Therein lay the
unrecognised motor
of the IRA campaign,
and the core reason
for its length.
In the book's first
chapter, Intervention
and Oscillation, the
writer offers a
devastating critique of
British government
failures from 1968-78.
Incomprehension was (and is?)
the main obstacle to good UK
policy for Northern Ireland.
The unhistorical sense that
pervaded London meant we had
a decade of unmitigated horror.
It allowed policy decisions such
as the maintenance of the no-go
areas in Belfast and
Londonderry, which the book
somewhat underplays, and the
reckless Chelsea negotiations in
1972 between William Whitelaw
and the IRA (including a young
Gerry Adams).
These first talks with terrorists
ensured the growth of the UDA
and meant 1972, with its 479
deaths, was the worst year of the
Troubles. Later negotiations and
ceasefires in that decade
ensured the annual death rate .
remained in the hundreds. For
35 years no political concessions
placated the IRA.
The book also provides a
digestible account of ETA's war
since with Spain 1959 along with
a Basque history.
Essentially, the region consists
of three Spanish provinces,
including Biscay, and a mixed
fourth, Navarre, which chooses
separate autonomy, along with
three in the French department
of Pyrenees-Atlantiques. Like
Ulster it was an industrialised
region.
The Basques were last united
under the (Moslem) Visigoths in
the 8th century so it could be
argued they have experienced
1,200 years of oppression, where
Republicans in Ireland can only
complain of 800.
Through the 19th century, the
Basques backed the Carlist
pretenders to the Spanish
throne – "aspiring absolute
monarchs" – so beaten dockets
are in their blood. Like the IRA,
they wandered politically from
right to left.
ETA's first action was in 1959
when they killed a baby. They
have managed 800 more deaths
since. The book tellingly notes
the critical synergy between
violent and constitutional
Basque nationalism.
Two key checks on ETA's
capacity to wage war are
recounted. First was the 25-year
process to get France to
extradite ETA political criminals
- not dissimilar to our
experience with Dublin. It took
from 1974 to 1994.
Talking to Terrorists is
exceptionally well referenced
with an extensive bibliography,
academic in the best sense. It
should be read by every dewy-eyed
community and voluntary
sector worker, not to mention
the entire Foreign Office and
the BBC.
