Why Divisions in Northern Ireland Are Reopening

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Peter Morrison / AP

Police forensic officers examine the remains of a car bomb that exploded outside Newry courthouse in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland's Troubles may have officially ended, but it's a strange kind of peace. On Feb. 4, Catholic and Protestant parties in the province finally reached an agreement on policing, one of the most divisive issues between the two sides. Relations, though, remain frosty, and sectarian violence has made a worrying return. This week, as local politicians move to finalize major new legislative powers, the very foundations of power sharing are shifting again.

On Tuesday, March 9, the Northern Ireland Assembly will vote on the devolution of policing and justice powers from Westminster to the local government at Stormont, as the neoclassical building where the province's parliament meets is known. If the measure is passed, as is expected, a new post of Justice Minister will be created at the Assembly in April, carrying responsibility for the province's police, prisons and courts, hitherto controlled by London's Northern Ireland office.

The move marks an important milestone in the peace process. Although many aspects of daily life in Northern Ireland — sports, housing, education — are divided along Catholic-Protestant lines, few issues are as contentious as policing. For decades, the Catholic minority has viewed the predominantly Protestant police force with deep mistrust. Many Catholic neighborhoods were no-go areas for security forces; republican politicians, such as those in Sinn Fein (now the largest Catholic-backed party in the province), would tell supporters not to assist the police.

Since 2001, though, Sinn Fein has officially backed the reformed Police Service of Northern Ireland; party members now occupy seats on the watchdog body that oversees the force. In return for this support, republicans felt, there was an implied agreement that Northern Ireland's government would take control of policing and justice matters. After years of Protestant outcry, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) recently backed the move. Sinn Fein has agreed to support a new group overseeing contentious parades by the Protestant Orange Order. The accord has steadied the ship at Stormont, but the power-sharing government, particularly the beleaguered First Minister and DUP leader Peter Robinson, still faces serious challenges.

The most troublesome opposition for the DUP comes in the form of the anti-power-sharing Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV). The party has no seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly but has growing support among conservative, Evangelical Protestants, in part because a scandal involving Robinson's wife Iris (who obtained $80,000 from property developers to help her 19-year-old lover establish a café business) has rocked the bigger party's Evangelical base. Many expect the TUV to do well in the upcoming British general election. "The DUP is very worried," says Rick Wilford, a professor of politics at Queens University, Belfast. "There's a lot of disgruntlement out there, and if [the TUV] does reasonably well, the momentum will be behind [it]."

A three-way split of the Protestant vote among the DUP, the TUV and the moderate Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) could throw power sharing into complete disarray and allow Sinn Fein to emerge as Northern Ireland's largest party. That would mean a Sinn Fein politician, most likely Martin McGuinness, would assume the role of First Minister. The prospect of serving as McGuinness's deputy would be anathema to most Protestant politicians, and the government could well fall apart.

There are more immediate threats. On Feb. 23, dissident republicans exploded a bomb in the border town of Newry. Over the past 12 months, groups such as the Real IRA have repeatedly tried to kill police officers and members of the security forces. Paramilitary activity is at its highest level in six years. Although the groups are small in number, security experts believe that dissident republicans are now better organized and attracting new recruits. "There's a wide misconception that groups involved in these recent attacks are made up of those who left the IRA 10 years ago or longer," says John Mooney, co-author of Black Operations, a book on the 1998 Real IRA bombing of Omagh that killed 29 people. "The people involved in these latest attacks only recently defected from the mainstream republican movement and no longer believe in the strategy being pursued by Sinn Fein."

The bulk of security intelligence on dissidents is gathered by MI5, whose work would remain largely unaffected by the devolution of policing and justice powers to Stormont. Nevertheless, a large-scale dissident attack could derail power sharing, an objective Mooney believes dissidents are intent on achieving. "These people are fundamental republicans, and violence is a way for them to appeal to a wider audience," says Mooney. "The greatest trick they ever pulled was convincing the world they had gone away. While the intent is there, you can't rule out more acts of terrorism."

It would help if the mainstream parties were working together more closely. During recent talks on policing, Protestant and Catholic parties stayed in separate rooms, with messengers shuttling between the rival camps. Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams recently wrote on his blog that some unionist politicians refuse to share an elevator with him. As external pressures mount on the shaky consensus at Stormont, the parties' ability to work together across the sectarian divide will be tested to the full.