Mistakes By The White House

Editorial

The Bush administration took two steps this week that sent very negative messages on the Irish peace process.

In the first instance, the administration refused to drop the Sinn Fein fundraising ban which has effectively been in place since the McCartney killing and the Northern Bank raid last year.

In the second, as we report in this newspaper, FBI agents have begun a campaign of seeking to force an individual in the Irish American community to become an informer and spy on three leading activists.

There is no way of knowing whether any of this is coordinated, if it is an attempt by the Bush administration to somehow coerce further concessions from Sinn Fein in the wake of decommissioning. If so it is truly a misplaced strategy.

Take the fundraising issue. Bush’s special envoy to the North Mitchell Reiss has apparently made it clear that the issue must await the completion of the stamp of approval by the International Monitoring Commission which will rule on how the IRA is dealing with their ceasefire on two occasions over the next few months.

No doubt Reiss and others believe that with issues such as Sinn Fein signing on for policing still to be resolved that the fundraising ban remains an effective issue to push Sinn Fein in the direction of agreeing on policing.

The FBI move is harder to explain. At a time when the IRA has effectively ended its existence and a huge breakthrough has been achieved, the FBI takes the opportunity to seek to coerce a young man into turning informer against other members of the Irish community, using his father’s undocumented status as leverage.

That tactic belongs back in the 1970s, when the FBI ultimately saw how useless it was. The peace process has made it doubly redundant. Why it should surface again now, especially when aimed at three individuals who have been foremost in the battle to win acceptance for the Sinn Fein peace strategy, beggars belief,

The law of unintended consequences is one we often hear quoted in connection with Iraq, in which something occurs that was never planned for. If the FBI is not careful they could drive some activists straight into the arms of the IRA dissidents, which would be a tragedy for all concerned.

The three men involved have been powerhouses of the peace strategy, and it is certainly unlikely the support that was lined up in America would ever have been achieved without them. To suddenly begin a spying campaign against them makes no sense at all.

There is no question that the Bush administration has played a very useful role in the peace process in Northern Ireland. Men like Reiss and the current ambassador in Dublin, James Kenny, have been of enormous assistance at critical times in the process and have ensured that the White House keeps close tabs on the issue.

Now, however, at a time when Sinn Fein has every right to expect that their access to America should be unfettered, suddenly obstacles are put in the way. It makes no sense.

The reality of long experience dealing with the Republican movement is that punitive efforts are rarely if ever successful. The transition from the armalite and ballot box to the ballot box alone is now complete, and Sinn Fein should be treated like any other party which wants to come to America and meet with supporters and fundraise, as is legal here.

Hopefully these two disturbing incidents are mere blips on the radar. The White House deserves praise, not condemnation, for their peace efforts so far. It would be a shame if that were to change.