The Prime Cause
The cause of the present crisis is partially historical and partially due to current British malfeasance.
Historical Cause
The undemocratic partition of Ireland under threat of total war in the early 1920s for Britain s short term needs created an untenable statelet that was, by its nature, doomed to a future of crisis, violence and injustice.
No artificial, civil entity with approximately 45% of its citizens automatically disloyal to its very existence could possibly survive without the imposition of rigid and overwhelming judicial and police power over the minority and a system of social, economic and civil privilege bestowed upon the majority. Hence 80 plus years of inequality, ethnic cleansing, murder and bloody conflict.
The Good Friday Agreement was supposed to change all that. What happened?
Present Cause
The present crisis, like the series of crises leading up to it, has been caused by the British government s lack of vision and determination to see the GFA through. It never has acted in the best interests of the Irish people.
1) First of all, it failed miser ably to use its influence to get Unionist politicians to live up their agreements regarding power sharing and get over their constant unreasonable demands to avoid implementing the agreement they signed, particularly with regards civil and human rights for the minority community.
2) In addition, the British put forward undemocratic measures outside the GFA like the imposition of an International Monitoring Committee aimed solely at monitoring and punishing Sinn Fein and their voters -- the majority of nationalist voters. Worse, it unilaterally canceled GFA scheduled elections twice.
3) They also imposed unprecedented election rules and conditions, applicable only in the 6 Counties not throughout the UK that severely affected Sinn Fein voters and perhaps reduced the SF vote by tens of thousands. The new legislation, more reminiscent of the apartheid system South Africa than a so called democracy, requires voters to register every year in order to vote and to produce specified photographic identification at their designated election stations, erasing tens of thousands who had voted previously.
4) The Special Branch, the highly controversial northern police intelligence force often termed a force within a force with a clear anti GFA political agenda, precipitated the shutdown of the Assembly in December 2002 with a series of ostentatious raids having first given notice to the media. The high profile raids on Sinn Fein’s Assembly administrative offices and party members homes along with several arrests threw the GFA into suspension with the imposition of direct rule from London -- a condition from which the Six Counties has yet to emerge.
When the charges against those arrested turned out to be bogus and the raid on SF headquarters accrued nothing more than an innocent computer startup disc, there was no apology from the British authorities or the PSNI. The incident became popularly known as ‘bogus gate’. Still, the GFA remains shut down, which was the original intent.
The imposition of police intrigue (and by a force with an anti-agreement political agenda) in a conflict resolution situation was the British government s responsibility to avoid. Yet, they jumped on the opportunity to placate Unionism. There never was a doubt that their is a double standard being applied by the British government regarding the peace process.
5) When the democratic elections the British tried so hard to fix turned out against their wishes with SF emerging as the number one party among Nationalists and the DUP topping the Unionist voter, they continued to allow unionist politicians to stall, stonewall, and string out the process in pointless, British direct rule mode -- almost 3 years and counting.
The situation as a result of the election: the Agreement requires that a DUP candidate and a Sinn Fein candidate go forward for election by the Assembly to the joint positions of First Minister and Deputy First Minister respectively. However, since the anti-Agreement DUP state that they will not share power with SF, any movement to revive the GFA rests with the ability and resolve of the British government to move it forward with or without the DUP, or make sure the DUP understands the consequences.
The reality is that 70% of the voters in the 2003 northern assembly elections voted for Pro-Agreement parties, including the majority of Unionists.
The Dublin government, cosignatory to the Agreement, and the US administration, have been ineffective in moving the British government to move the peace process forward and defend the GFA.