Analysis: 'Ministers should resign': Hardliners seize on raids to undermine Good Friday Agreement
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Your support makes all the difference.The political fall-out from the raids and arrests of Sinn Fein officials seems likely to engulf the Good Friday Agreement, since its survival depends on the power of anti-Agreement Unionists. Their hand has been immeasurably strengthened by the weekend's events.
The hardline MP Jeffrey Donaldson said the time had come for Unionist ministers to resign, adding: "We should not allow our credibility to be dragged through the gutter just because Sinn Fein-IRA will not live up to its responsibilities. Let us be clear, we are not talking about weeks or months. Sinn Fein's position in government is untenable. What we are talking about is days."
To counteract this demand, the Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr John Reid, appealed yesterday to the IRA to come forward with a major gesture of reassurance. Dr Reid, who is to meet Sinn Fein today, said: "I think we are at a stage which is not only serious or grave, I think this is a critical stage.
"Somehow we have to have an assurance that if these things have happened in the past, they will happen no longer. The IRA have never been prepared to say the war is over or that their army is being stood down."
He said confidence in the Agreement was being hugely undermined by "the constant drip-feed of allegations of the maintenance of the apparatus of terror".
The Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble, called on the government to act against republicans, but has so far stopped short of ordering his ministers to leave the assembly. Many in his party view the raids as the last straw, providing the clinching arguments to those who argue that republicans are not serious about leaving their paramilitary past behind.
Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein gave a spirited, though generalised, response to the charges, declaring: "I am entirely convinced that Denis Donaldson is absolutely innocent of any charge.
"I have many questions to ask about that. In the course of the discussions we will have with Tony Blair and John Reid tomorrow, we will be asking straightforward questions."
He said he wanted to know at what operational level the decision to raid Sinn Fein offices was taken, and whether Mr Trimble was told in advance. "I think the IRA has made the most powerful contribution to the search for peace that we have seen, and of all the armed groups in the equation have stuck rigidly to their cessation of military operations."
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