GENERALS understand weapons and they are not known for naivety; not even Canadian ones. So we must take John de Chastelain’s assessment seriously. It looks as if, at last, the IRA really has decommissioned most of its weaponry.

This is a welcome development. But it does not mean that we should ring the church bells. There are three reasons for caution.

The first is the delay. Under the Good Friday agreement of 1998, decommissioning should have occurred in months if not indeed weeks. Over the intervening seven years, the IRA has sold the same pig, so even if it has now delivered it, it is not easy to feel grateful. The delay has helped to undermine Northern Ireland’s political institutions while destroying moderate unionism and alienating large sections of the Protestant population. This all makes it much harder to achieve a democratic internal settlement as the basis for future stability in Ulster. But is the IRA interested in a stable Ulster?

Secondly, decommissioning weapons is only a partial contribution to peace. It is also necessary to decommission the will to use them. After all, the world is awash with arms while the IRA is awash with money, partly as a result of bank robberies. There has been no talk of decommissioning the stolen £26 million. As long as the IRA retains its paramilitary structures and mentality, it could rapidly rearm.

But even without rearming, the IRA retains the power to do harm. No guns were needed to murder Robert McCartney or to harass his sisters’ friends. In the neighbourhoods that it dominates, the IRA rules by fear. There was nothing in yesterday’s statement to indicate that this will end.

Over the past 35 years, Ulster has not only suffered from high-profile terrorism. In many urban areas, there has been a steady degradation. In the absence of normal polic- ing, paramilitary organisations have taken over. They financed themselves by gangsterism; protection rackets are widespread. As a result, thousands of children are being brought up to regard lawlessness as normal.

The IRA is much the largest of the gangster-militias, and thus far has shown not the slightest willingness to bring this evil to an end. Until it does so, there may be a sort of peace; no bombings or shootings. But the shadow of violence will still fall on communities suffused by the terrorism of everyday life.