David McKittrick: Why politics beat the paramilitaries

'Within republicanism, it is the striking success of Sinn Fein that has made decommissioning by the IRA possible'

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Ulster security posts to be pulled down

IRA begins to lay down its arms

Moves on policing at the heart of historic decision

The IRA statement in full

The Commission statement

The reaction in Northern Ireland

'Rebuilding a community as divided as this is going to take a generation'

The importance of the IRA giving up even just one Armalite cannot be overestimated

What the IRA has in its armoury

Symbols of British 'occupation' will be demolished

Leading article: A seismic shift by the IRA deserves to be welcomed

David McKittrick: Why politics beat the paramilitaries

On this day 11 years ago, 24 October 1990, a group of IRA members led Derry man Patsy Gillespie out of his home, put him into a van, and told him to drive it to an army vehicle checkpoint on the Donegal border.

The IRA followed Patsy to the border. When he reached the checkpoint they detonated the huge bomb in the van, blasting him and five soldiers to eternity. He was deemed a "legitimate target" for the IRA because he worked in an army base.

The tactic, as ingenious as it was barbaric, became known as the human bomb. The republican movement that invented that inhuman device was at the same time working on the beginnings of the peace process.

It is a measure of how far that movement has travelled in just over a decade that it has graduated from vapourising human beings to weapons decommissioning.

The IRA was responsible for almost half of the 3,700 or so deaths that occurred during the Troubles, which serves as a reminder of just how deeply militaristic a movement this is and of just how gut-wrenching it is for these people to decommission their weapons. It is obvious, just looking at and talking to senior republicans, that these are dedicated activists, tough people who have both inflicted and absorbed much pain over three decades of violence. Their sense of commitment to the republican cause remains undimmed.

During the Troubles, the security forces seized more than 10,000 firearms, more than 100 tons of explosives and well over a million rounds of ammunition. Most of this came from the IRA, which nonetheless constantly managed to replenish its lethal armoury. The idea of voluntarily putting gear, as they call it, beyond use is truly breathtaking in republican terms.

A number of those clustered around Gerry Adams when he made his Monday announcement were gun-runners. The Sinn Fein president made a point of sitting next to Joe Cahill, the elderly IRA icon who in the 1970s was arrested on a trawler full of guns on its way from Libya to Ireland. He and other IRA people spent long years in jail for gun- running; yet there was Joe, smiling and applauding as Gerry called on the IRA to move on arms. These are not pacifists: they are republicans with the options of pursuing their goal either in war or in peace.

Some splinters from mainstream republicanism, such as the so-called Real IRA, are still out there using terrorism. The mainstream movement regards them as patriotic but misguided, out of touch with the times. Most republicans feel the IRA fought a long hard fight, but that now it's all about politics.

Their politics will never be of the conventional sort, since Sinn Fein is very obviously not a conventional party. This is still an armed movement, even if it is one whose military side is being eclipsed by its political wing. Within republicanism, it is the striking success of Sinn Fein that has made decommissioning possible. If the political project had faltered, the option of going back to armed conflict would certainly have reappeared.

But it has not. Instead, Sinn Fein has expanded hugely, becoming one of the largest parties in the north of Ireland, and on the brink of making significant gains in the south. It has shown itself to be highly effective in channeling energies once devoted to terrorism into politics. Gerry Adams walks with presidents and prime ministers; Martin McGuinness is in office, by all accounts the best education minister Northern Ireland has ever had. Sinn Fein holds four of the 18 Westminster seats, and looks likely to win more.

There is great admiration, much of it reluctant and voiced only in private, for the republicans' negotiating prowess. Garret FitzGerald, who as Taoiseach worked so hard to prevent republican advances, wrote recently: "It gives me no pleasure to say so, but Sinn Fein-IRA has consistently outsmarted its Unionist opponents, and has seriously tested the diplomatic skills of two sovereign governments."

This view is widespread. So, too, is the sense that Sinn Fein has, within a few short years, produced the most talented middle-management team of any Northern Ireland party, in addition to a large number of politically promising younger people. Dozens of them are to be seen beavering away in Sinn Fein's offices on the Falls Road and up at Stormont. The Assembly provides offices, gainful employment and above all experience to Sinn Fein's apprentice politicians and aides.

Republicans – unsurprisingly, given their militaristic origins – can be intensely secretive about many things. Some of the workings of Sinn Fein remain mysterious, but the quality of the new people it produces indicates that it has some kind of meritocracy in place.

Many representatives of the more conventional parties look, by contrast, past their best, ranging in quality from the distinctly ordinary to the absolutely woeful. Above all, perhaps, Sinn Fein has kept its highly energising sense of mission. Month by month it has managed to extract concessions from British and Irish governments that safeguard the continued presence of republicans in politics. The Assembly has, meanwhile, provided a showcase for republican political skills.

The feeling is that Sinn Fein has been the real winner over the last few years, and that it is likely to make further progress. This perception has made decommissioning possible, but, more immediately, the prospect of losing the Assembly, and potentially the rest of the peace process, has now made it essential.

The powerful global backwash against terrorism has doubtless acted as a spur in the actual timing of the move, but this alone would not have been enough to force the IRA into action. The Assembly and the other parts of the Good Friday Agreement have proved to be of tremendous tactical and strategic value to the republicans. The Agreement has provided an arena in which republicans can excel. Their calculation is that if they must decommission to preserve the Agreement, then so be it. And decommissioning is a risky business: no matter how it is dressed up, putting arms beyond use carries a connotation of surrender, even if guns are not actually handed over to the authorities.

There is, for example, little enthusiasm for shedding arms in republican areas of north Belfast, where loyalist paramilitary groups and extreme Protestant protesters have been very active this summer. The IRA and Sinn Fein must have had a hard time persuading Ardoyne republicans to go along with the guns move.

The IRA calculation must be that, despite all the daily turbulence, grassroots republicans will eventually appreciate that sacrifices have to be made to keep the Agreement and the peace process going. The alternative is to see the Assembly collapse. The resulting dangerous vacuum could so easily lead to the unravelling of the whole process.

So it is that the IRA, which for much of the last century dedicated itself to tearing down any structure erected in Belfast, is now making huge exertions to rescue the Agreement.

In political terms, that is a truly remarkable development. In human terms, everyone will hope that it means that no more people will share the fate of victims such as Patsy Gillespie, and that lives will be saved as politics eventually comes to prevail over paramilitarism.