Dumping arms in N. Ireland
It was a brisk March day when I climbed into a white Chevy van with Gerry Adams and headed to the British Embassy in Washington.
Adams is the head of the Sinn Fein, the political wing of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, and he had never been invited to the British Embassy before.
It had been unthinkable. The prevailing view of the British government was that if Adams was not a terrorist himself, he was at the very least a frontman for terrorists.
But now, in March 1998, Adams was invited to lunch by the British ambassador and then to his first Oval Office meeting with President Clinton.
As the van traveled along Massachusetts Avenue in one of Washington's loveliest neighborhoods, Adams gazed at the elegant buildings.
"Shall we take over the embassy and hold it until Ireland is free?" he said to me with a wicked grin. "And are you with us?"
This was the humorous side of Adams, a man of considerable charm and wit. The unfunny side, his opponents said, was his refusal to promise an end to the violence that had already claimed more than 3,000 lives in Northern Ireland.
When I asked Adams what the role of armed struggle in Northern Ireland should be, he grew careful in his speech and measured in his words.
"It is a prickly issue," he said. "The task of political leadership is to build alternatives to armed struggle. We need healing. It has been painful. You end up negotiating with your own side. You negotiate with the enemy, and then, you go back and negotiate with your own side and try to bring your base along with you."
Now, more than seven years later, Adams has brought his base along. The IRA has finally renounced armed struggle and in a blunt statement issued Thursday said: "All IRA units have been ordered to dump arms."
It was more than just Adams who accomplished this, of course. More than anything it was the weariness of the Irish people with the violence, the criminal activity, and the pervasive hopelessness that violence brings.
It was also public revulsion with terrorism.
"It's a terrible thing to say, but al Qaeda is really good for Northern Ireland," Richard English, the author of Armed Struggle–A History of the IRA, told the London Times recently. "It reminds people of how horrific terrorist violence is and puts moral pressure on anyone who wants to be a serious politician to distance themselves from bombing."
The IRA has renounced violence before, and this newest statement is being viewed largely with a wait-and-see attitude in Northern Ireland. But British Prime Minister Tony Blair said, "This is a step of unparalleled magnitude in the recent history of Northern Ireland."
Back in 1998, as we pulled into the British Embassy grounds, I asked Adams whether he could really foresee a day when there was peace in Northern Ireland, with no more resistance fighters and no more armed struggle.
"After World War II, the French resistance went home," he said. "People went back to being doctors and being housewives. The same will happen in Ireland."
Let's hope that day is now closer at hand.
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