NI: Mitchell Reports: Major Retorts
01 January 1996
The International Body on Arms Decommissioning (see Statewatch vol 5 no 6), headed by US Senator George Mitchell, published its report on Wednesday 24th January. The report describes the sticking point for political progress in paragraph 33 as follows: "One side [the British and Unionists] has insisted that some decommissioning of arms must take place before all-party talks can begin. The other side has insisted that no decommissioning can take place until the end of the process, after an agreed settlement has been reached." The Mitchell Report then makes the key recommendation that, "The parties should consider an approach under which some decommissioning would take place during the process of all-party negotiations, rather than before or after as the parties now urge. Such an approach represents a compromise." Although Sinn Fein's position is that demilitarisation has to take place on all sides and that it cannot speak for the IRA, the Commission clearly felt that the compromise was possible, as indicated in paragraph 25: "there is a clear commitment on the part of those in possession of such [paramilitary] arms to work constructively to achieve full and verifiable decommissioning as part of the process of all-party negotiations."
The emphasis on negotiations is a far cry from Britain's "Washington principles" which demanded the surrender of some weapons before preparatory talks. Although the Commission subscribed to the view that "there is no equivalence between such [paramilitary] weapons and those held by security forces", it is at pains to accord full legal status and immunity from prosecution to anyone involved in de-commissioning. The Report suggests that the parties should have the option of destroying their weapons themselves: "Groups in possession of illegal armaments should be free to organise their participation in the decommissioning processes as they judge appropriate". It continues, "individuals involved in the decommissioning process should not be prosecuted for the possession of those armaments; amnesties should be established in law in both jurisdictions". It also recommends that the armaments themselves must not be used for forensic evidence or future prosecution.
In being granted such a decriminalised status in the decommissioning process, parties to the negotiations are asked to affirm "total and absolute commitment" to principles of "democracy and non-violence". The Mitchell Report states six such principles. Parties must commit themselves to exclusively peaceful means of resolving political issues; to total disarmament of paramilitary organisations; to verify disarmament; to renounce the use of force and threats of force by themselves and others as a way of influencing negotiations; to accept the outcome of negotiations (ie not to use force to alter the outcome in the future); and finally to take steps to prevent "punishment" killings and beatings.
Within hours of the Report's publication, and without discussion with the Irish government, the British Prime Minister John Major made a statement in parliament sweeping aside the central Mitchell compromise. Major applauded those parts of the report emphasising the "non-violence principles", the need for verifiable decommissioning, and the declaration that there is no equivalence between security force weapons and those of the loyalist and republican armed groups. Furthermore, he welcomed "the body's broad recommendations on the modalities of the decommissioning process". He concluded, however, by reducing the current impasse to a one-sided problem of confidence. The parties cannot confidently sit down together for talks with the threat of paramilitary violence hanging over them: "self-evidently the best way to generate the necessary confidence is for the paramilitaries to make a start on the decommissioning process. We see no reason why they should not".
Major then plucked one paragraph from the section of the Report on "further confiden