In the days running up to Christmas, parties were being held all over Northern Ireland. The Maze prison was no exception.

The infamous H blocks

Even though many prisoners were being allowed 10 days home leave, they were still able to celebrate the festive season inside the jail. Wives and families were taken in past the concrete walls and razor wire fences to join their loved ones in the H blocks.

The guns which were used by INLA inmates to kill the Loyalist leader, Billy Wright, inside the jail could easily have been smuggled in by visitors because they were never intimately searched.

"Many of the children were wearing nappies, imagine the outcry if we tried to search them," said Finlay Spratt, the chairman of the Prison Officers' Association (POA) in Northern Ireland.

Inside the jail, terrorists relax in circumstances which would make mass murderers in mainstream high security prisons in the rest of the country green with envy.

Prisoners' cells are never locked, many have their own mobile telephones and access to gyms and televisions.

They also control their own visits not only who comes to the jail, but how long they stay. Prisoners can be left alone with wives and girlfriends, and some prisoners receive large amounts of cash from their visitors.

Guards' fear of beatings

The inmates are rarely troubled by prison officers. Warders are supposed to do a head count twice a day but in reality, if the prisoners do not want to be counted they just tell the guards where to go.

If a guard was to venture on to one of the wings without the permission of one of the paramilitary "Officer Commanders" he could be badly beaten. And even when warders are allowed on the wings, if a prisoner shuts his cell door, then that cell is off limits to the guard.

Finlay Spratt

The situation has left prison officers deeply demoralised. "They come into work in the morning and all they are interested in doing is going home," said Finlay Spratt. "They're so demoralised by the lack of support from government over the years."

Even though there are two warders for every prisoner at The Maze, Mr Spratt believes any attempt to remove the concessions granted to the prisoners by various governments over the years would be short, violent and unsuccessful. "The reality is if you impose control now, you are talking about dead prison officers."

Twenty-eight prison officers have been killed in the troubles and Mr Spratt says that outside the jail officers are just as vulnerable. The POA maintains safe accommodation for officers who have to move in a hurry.

Officers want full public inquiry

Although security at the Maze has been tightened in the wake of Billy Wright's murder and an existing inquiry into procedures at the prison is being extended, the POA in Northern Ireland is demanding a full public inquiry into how control has been lost at the Maze over the years.

Will the Maze inmates agree?

But while the Government is being criticised for being too lax on the Maze inmates, it is also attracting criticism for not including them in the peace process.

According to Brendan O'Leary, Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics, the Maze inmates exert a powerful pull on the peace negotiations.

The prisoners exert great pressure on their communities outside, they have wide family connections outside the jail, and having gone to jail for their cause their opinion commands wide respect.

He firmly believes that the IRA, UDA and UVF ceasefires would have failed if their prisoners inside the Maze had not supported the strategy.

Billy Wright

The converse is true too. Aside from the tension generated by the murder of Billy Wright, the biggest stumbling block in the negotiations are Unionist fears that both the British and Irish governments are being soft on Republicans.

Professor O'Leary believes those fears come from the Loyalist prisoners inside the Maze who are jealous of the concessions made to Republican prisoners.

Factions within groups

Prisoners in the different factions inside the H blocks have widely differing views about the way the negotiations are going. While IRA prisoners are thought to be fully supportive of Sinn Fein, and were even understood to be deeply unhappy when the IRA ended its ceasefire last year, those in the INLA are opposed to the end of the armed struggle.

There is a similar split on the Loyalist side. Two of the Protestant parties, the UDP and the PUP, are committed to the peace process. The paramilitary organisations they are linked to, the UDA and the UVF, are backing them. However, the Loyalist Volunteer Force, which was led by Billy Wright, are firmly opposed to any ceasefire.

Professor O'Leary believes that the Government should have extended concessions such as the promise of early release to prisoners much earlier in the negotations. This, he believes, would have locked them into the peace process. With a huge carrot being dangled in front of the H Block inmates, he believes they could have exterted great pressure on the politicians to stop arguing and start agreeing at the Stormont talks.

In many ways the Maze is a metaphor for the Troubles. Republican and Unionist prisoners live cheek by jowl, indeed one wing of Block 6 is occupied by INLA prisoners and hard-line Catholics, while the other is inhabited by their extreme Protestant opponents, the LVF.

Any negotiated settlement will have to be agreed by the inmates of The Maze as well as the politicians at Stormont.
 

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