-Caveat Lector- >From http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=217158
w w w . h a a r e t z d a i l y . c o m Northern Irish power-sharing agreement on verge of collapse BELFAST, Northern Ireland - Northern Ireland's peace process was facing its deepest crisis since the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement Monday after being rocked by an alleged IRA spying operation some are comparing to the Watergate scandal. Claims the Irish Republican Army penetrated the inner sanctums of British power in the province have left Protestant unionists clamoring for the outlawed group's political ally Sinn Fein to be ejected from the power-sharing government. Crunch talks will be held in London in the coming days but in an increasingly fevered atmosphere in Belfast, few expect the Protestant/Roman Catholic government to survive the week. If the coalition falls, London would be forced to take over the day-to- day running of Northern Ireland's government -- and while most analysts agree there is little prospect of a return to all-out war by the IRA, fears remain that those on the violent fringes could exploit the political vacuum. "This is 10 times worse than anything that happened at Watergate," the province's Protestant First Minister David Trimble told journalists Monday. "There has been political espionage on a massive scale and as far as one can see, that espionage was directed by the republican movement for the purpose of aiding their political projects." Last week, police raided Sinn Fein's office inside Northern Ireland's devolved parliament at Stormont, east Belfast, and on Sunday senior party official Denis Donaldson appeared in court charged with having documents likely to be of use to terrorists. The development followed a year-long investigation into allegations the IRA had a mole inside the headquarters of British ministers in Belfast, passing on classified documents. Protestant politicians, who are committed to maintaining ties with Britain, say the IRA is clearly breaching the cease-fire called in 1997 in its campaign to end British rule in the province, and therefore its allies cannot sit in government. Sinn Fein accuse unionists of being unwilling to share power with Northern Ireland's Catholic minority, and say the police raid was a political ruse aimed at discrediting republicans. Trimble, leader of the largest Protestant grouping, the Ulster Unionist Party, is due to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London Tuesday, and is expected to demand Sinn Fein's exclusion from government. A source close to the first minister told Reuters he and his three ministers will pull out of the executive if they are not satisfied with the British response. WHAT NEXT? Under the interlocking rules of devolution in Northern Ireland, such a move would collapse the self-governing institutions set up under the Good Friday accord, which aimed to end three decades of violence that left more than 3,600 dead. Blair, or his Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid, could chose to suspend devolution to prevent such a collapse -- but either way direct rule from London would be reimposed and the province's attempt at power-sharing would be in cold storage. Blair's spokesman appealed Monday for no "precipitate action before discussions have taken place." But even as he was speaking, hard-line Protestant preacher-politician Ian Paisley was further ratcheting up the pressure in Belfast, pledging his two Democratic Unionist Party ministers would also quit as soon as Trimble's party walked out. "The path marked out by the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement has been a fruitless one for unionists," he said. SINN FEIN Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, who will also meet Blair and Ahern this week, accused "elements within the British system" of plotting to ensure that when unionists pulled down devolution, his party would get the blame. "Let's not get carried away by hyperbole and overstatement in all this," he told Sky News. "This was a piece of political theater to try and tie Sinn Fein into whatever's happening in the murky world of British securocratdom." Northern Ireland's devolved institutions have lurched from crisis to crisis since power was transferred from London in December 1999, but have nevertheless proved popular with voters and helped attract economic investment into the province. No one believes their suspension would immediately plunge the province back into the bloodshed that existed before the first round of guerrilla cease-fires in 1994, but near nightly rioting on the streets of Belfast over the summer and sporadic attacks by dissident armed groups are a reminder the threat of serious violence remains real. "The peace process was about trying to get the IRA off violence," said James Dingley, a lecturer in terrorism and political violence at the University of Ulster. "If the IRA's representatives aren't in then you haven't got a peace process." 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