Word: truce
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...extended truce of the Provisional Irish Republican Army's 26-day holiday cease-fire came to an end last week. It marked Northern Ireland's longest period of nonviolence since "the troubles" began five years ago. The truce also underscored 1) how even such a short period of peace had almost miraculously transformed life in Ulster; 2) how far apart both sides remained in failing to find a way to make it last...
Despite widespread optimism that a way had been found at least to persuade the I.R.A. to extend last week's deadline, perhaps indefinitely, the Provisionals' bitter rejection of the truce re-emphasized the basic problems of the conflict itself. Neither the British government nor the I.R.A. ever seemed prepared to concede very much. The British diplomatic moves during the truce were tempered by fear of triggering a violent Protestant backlash while being drawn into a trap by the I.R.A. The government was also counting heavily on its judgment that the Proves were mainly intent on arranging a face...
Sweet-Sour Strategy. The British response to the truce, in fact, was almost begrudgingly small. After holding out the hope of an eventual end to internment, Rees dismayed even moderate Catholic politicians by releasing only 25 prisoners (five of whom were Protestants) of the 533 still interned in the notorious Maze prison and offering three-day home leave to 50 others. Moreover, British authorities would not even consider British withdrawal from Ulster-the principal I.R.A. demand...
There were even those who believed that peace would exert its own form of pressure on the Proves. "The consequences of the truce breaking down are too grim to imagine," one of the eight Protestant clergymen who helped to arrange the cease-fire said earlier last week. "If this fails, it will be a fight to the finish." With a vengeance that seemed to prove him right, the peace was shattered shortly after the I.R.A. announcement, by a bomb explosion at an army post in northern Belfast...
...mood of Ulster has become so mean and suspicious that it is difficult for the opposing sides even to begin talking. Thus while a kind of unilateral cease-fire by the radical Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army is possible (perhaps as an extension of the holiday truce), it is more probable that violence will increase. Most observers feel that the Proves could still launch a "final offensive" to improve their bargaining position for negotiations. This could mean that terrorism would spread into neighboring Eire and intensify in England...