2004/10 and 2004/12, The Sovereign Nation (October/December, 2004)

              32 county sovereignty movement publications the sovereig the republican voice october - december 2004 fundamentals of british agreement remain intact - irish sovereignty still not on the agenda adams and paisley opposites attract the much heralded deal to save the agree ment is almost done all the parties and the govt iu hcivc to do now u to dot the s and cross the t's the signatories to the deal have all accepted to a greater or lesser extent that there is significant agreement and in reality what we are witnessing at present is macho posturing in order to appear hard-line to their respective con stituencies the squabbling over the intri cate detail of the actual implementation of the agreement is a fudge designed to mask in sinn fein's case some of the more unpalatable aspects of what they signed up to for the two nationalist parties the agreement appears to be sacrosanct both par ties continually tell us that the fundamentals of the agreement must be protected at all costs it may be helpful at this point to outline what they mean by the fundamentals exactly the sdlp and sinn fein appear to put a lot of stock in power sharing and cross border institutions as well as something they refer to as the equality agenda but in reality what do they mean the issue now preventing a final deal being done is not decommissioning or policing and justice but rather accountability1 the issue of accountability appears to be perfectly reason able the only thing nationalists have against it is the fact that the dup have raised it this brings us to another fundamental flaw in the agreement that is unlikely to be dealt with in these talks or any other and that is its sectar ianism this sectarian aspect of the agreement in liiu wuiub 01 i cuiick n/iujpny supports the view that 30 years of violence here was not a struggle for irish independence but little more than a prolonged religious riot " for some neo nationalists this does not present any signifi cant problem in that their war was to defend their street or their territory rather than the republic however for republicans the institu tionalisation of sectarianism is unacceptable it merely reinforces our view that sectarianism is vital to the existence of the northern state whether that sectarianism manifests itself in a violent or electoral fashion it is important for republicans not to allow the facts to be obscured by spin or fudge this sectarian agreement can accommodate both extremes as long as they accept the real fundamentals of that agreement let's look at this closely what are the dup's conditions for entering government with sinn fein 1 disbandment of the ira 2 recognition by republicans that all previous action was criminal 3 all arms held for the defence of the republic to be surrendered to the british in a manner acceptable to unionism 4 aorvy cross-border activity to be purely pract cai between two separate states as with germany and france 5 all talk of political union of ireland to be seen in the context that there are two states in ireland and that 1916 1918 and 1919 are rele gated merely to a historical status contrast this with the constitutional nationalist requirements of the dup basically that they are allowed to share power in a parti tionist assembly and we are left with the unavoidable conclusion that the fundamentals of the agreement are intact and are being implemented those fundamentals being 1 the unionist veto is upheld 2 that the union is not up for disscusion 3 that the southern state has no sovereign claim 4 that sectarianism is institutionalised all of the above being recognised will result in the nationalist population having their human rights upheld by the british state some may argue that michael collins didn't get half as bad a deal for the irish people in his time glor na poblachta