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To: average joe who wrote (3586)	10/13/2006 3:28:38 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 5290

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland - The British and Irish governments unveiled a complex plan Friday for resurrecting a Catholic-Protestant administration for Northern Ireland — a deal that, to succeed, will require major concessions by both sides. The prime ministers of Britain and Ireland, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, stood side by side to announce that they — but not yet Northern Ireland's rival leaders — had agreed on a blueprint to revive power-sharing, the central dream of the Good Friday peace accord of 1998. Blair and Ahern said Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army-linked party that represents the province's Irish Catholic minority, must act first by recognizing the Northern Ireland police, a force the IRA spent decades trying to destroy. The premiers specified no deadline for this to happen. But they said both Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists, the major British Protestant party, must accept the governments' blueprint by Nov. 10. Then it would be the Democratic Unionists' turn to vote, for the first time in their history, in support of Sinn Fein. Both sides of the Northern Ireland Assembly would be required to elect, in a joint vote Nov. 24, the top two politicians of the embryonic administration. It would be a purely symbolic act, because neither figure — most likely Democratic Unionist leader Ian Paisley and Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness — would receive any government powers from Britain. Instead, Blair and Ahern said Paisley's Protestant followers would get more than three months to observe whether Sinn Fein supporters really were accepting the police, who now face hostility and no cooperation in Sinn Fein power bases. The Northern Ireland Assembly would not be required to elect the administration's remaining 10 posts until March 14, while responsibility to run Northern Ireland government departments would be transferred from Britain to local hands on March 26. "You can't have a democratic society unless the police are given full support," Blair said. The British leader defended the governments' decision to abandon their longtime demand for a full revival of power-sharing by Nov. 24 on the grounds that Democratic Unionist supporters needed "a time gap" to monitor Sinn Fein behavior toward the police, "to see plainly that what is stated in theory is being observed in practice." In a further key reassurance to Protestant opinion, the governments said Britain would not transfer control of Northern Ireland's police and justice system to the local administration until mid-2008, and only then if the Protestant side of the Assembly supported this. Sinn Fein had demanded an immediate transfer of power — potentially to a Sinn Fein minister. Paisley, an 80-year-old evangelist who has spent decades opposing compromise with Catholics, offered a cautious welcome for the governments' plans. "We will meet the requirements. But the IRA-Sinn Fein has got to meet those requirements," he said. "And when they do, we will really be on the way to peace in Northern Ireland." He said Sinn Fein leaders "must, both by word and deed, demonstrate their unequivocal support for the laws of the land and those whose job it is to enforce them." Adams offered a more guarded reaction to the governments' blueprint, which he said "requires thoughtful consideration and consultation." He declined to make any comment on the key question of accepting the police. But he described power-sharing as "an enormous prize. Common sense, political realism and the interests of all sections of our people demand that we achieve this." A key part of the governments' formula remained undefined — whether their plans would be reinforced, in early March, by either a public referendum or a new Assembly election. Blair and Ahern said one or the other would happen, depending on what the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein decided. Sinn Fein has been under pressure for years to accept the legitimacy of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, a mostly Protestant police force that is midway through a 10-year reform program drafted under terms of the Good Friday pact. An affirmative action plan has already boosted its Catholic officers from 8 percent to 20 percent. But police still face hostility when operating in Sinn Fein power bases. The IRA killed 1,775 people — including nearly 300 police officers — from 1970 to a 1997 cease-fire. The outlawed group last year formally abandoned its campaign to overthrow Northern Ireland by force and handed its weapons stockpiles to disarmament officials. Those IRA peace moves, the most dramatic products of a 13-year-old peace process, greatly boosted hopes of forging a coalition led by the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein. But relations between the two long-time foes remain distant, with Paisley still refusing to talk directly to Sinn Fein negotiators. Northern Ireland's previous coalition — which collapsed in 2002 over an IRA spying scandal inside government circles — was led by Protestant and Catholic moderates, but included the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein, the polar extremes of political opinion. The hard-liners triumphed in the most recent Assembly election in 2003, giving them both veto power over forming any administration.