SHATTERING THE PEACE

By Kevin Fedarko

AT 7:01 LAST FRIDAY EVENING, 16-year-old Neil Parker was strolling in East London with his girlfriend when a powerful blast of wind nearly knocked him to his knees. Nearly a mile away, a half-ton bomb had exploded just across from Canary Wharf, home of Europe's tallest office building. As blood-flecked pedestrians stumbled across acres of shattered glass and sirens pierced the smoke, Parker tried to calm his girlfriend, Samantha Herbert. "I thought immediately it was something to do with the I.R.A.," he said.

He was right. Less than two hours earlier, the Dublin newsroom of Ireland's main broadcast network had received a call. The person on the line gave a six-letter code word to identify himself as an I.R.A. operative. Then came the news. "The complete cessation of military operations will end at 6 p.m. this evening."

If the human cost seemed high--the blast killed at least two people and injured 39, one critically--the price in terms of demolished hope was even greater. The I.R.A. called a cease-fire in its campaign against British rule on Aug. 31, 1994, and Northern Ireland has enjoyed its first period of real peace since the Troubles began in 1969. Britain, too, has been free of terror. That respite, however may now be over.

The peace process made possible by the cease-fire had seemed to be moving forward. Slowly, haltingly, but nevertheless moving. Three weeks ago, former Senator George Mitchell put forth recommendations aimed at getting the I.R.A. and Protestant paramilitaries to turn in their weapons and begin formal peace negotiations. But progress stopped when the British government, at the suggestion of the Protestant Unionists, insisted on an election to create teams that would then undertake the negotiations. The I.R.A. vehemently opposes this. But though tempers rose, everybody kept talking. And as long as the talking continued, went the hopeful reasoning, a way forward would somehow be found. The desire for peace was too strong for it to fail. Now the hard men of the I.R.A. have brought those prospects crashing to earth.

Within hours there were signs of a return to the bad old days. In Belfast police were issued rifles for the first time in more than a year. Meanwhile, speculation swirled over whether the explosion signals a rift between the I.R.A.'s military council and Sinn Fein, the group's political arm. Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein's president, moved swiftly to distance himself from the bomb and tried to get negotiations back on track. But the possibility that Adams was unable to prevent the attack--or, worse, that he may not have even known about it--calls into question his ability to control the Republican movement.

The news of the bomb devastated the people of Belfast. On Friday night Gerry Cummings, 22, an economics student from County Armagh, was waiting to meet friends outside the Pink Flamingo nightclub. Their nights out may be curtailed now. "Belfast was like a city reborn without the fear and the killing," he said. "Catholics and Protestants were mixing in the pubs. How many more widows and orphans will it take before the politicians and the terrorists see sense again?"

--By Kevin Fedarko. Reported by Helen Gibson and Barry Hillenbrand/London

With reporting by HELEN GIBSON AND BARRY HILLENBRAND/LONDON