After 35 years of bombs and blood a quiet voice ends the IRA's war

[Exeter]

After 35 years of bombs and blood a quiet voice ends the IRA's war

Angelique Chrisafis, Ireland correspondent
Friday July 29, 2005
The Guardian

The IRA yesterday declared that its war against Britain was over. Even in the long debased hyperbole of historic moments in the Northern Ireland peace process, this was a monumental announcement.

Its statement, unprecedented in its clarity, was delivered on a DVD by a soft-spoken IRA volunteer called Seana Walsh, who at 50 is typical of the now middle-aged rank and file of the organisation. He had spent 21 years in prison and was one of the IRA "blanket men" during the hunger strike and dirty protests in the Maze prison in the 1970s and 1980s.
Standing in front of an Irish tricolour, he announced that from 4pm a "formal end to the armed campaign" had been ordered. All IRA units were ordered to "dump arms". The IRA vowed to complete its long-running decommissioning process as quickly as possible by "verifiably [putting] its arms beyond use".
The retired Canadian general John de Chastelain will oversee the final acts of decommissioning, which could be completed within a month.
Although the statement did not address the thorny issue of criminality - which has seen the IRA blamed for December's £26.5m Northern Bank robbery and the murder of the Catholic father Robert McCartney - it makes it clear that "volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever".
Eleven years after the first ceasefire, the British and Irish governments hailed it as the key that could unlock the final course of the peace process.
In a highly choreographed press conference in a south Dublin hotel, the Sinn Féin leader, Gerry Adams, described the statement as a "truly momentous and defining point in the search for a lasting peace with justice" and said the IRA had made a unilateral "magnanimous, principled and generous" move.
But asked why the IRA did not specifically say it would end all criminal activities, he shot back: "What part of 'any other activities whatsoever' do people not understand?"
He made a dramatic appeal to the hardline Democratic Unionist leader, Ian Paisley, who has refused to sit down at Stormont with Sinn Féin while the IRA still exists. "Let's talk, let's engage, let's not let this opportunity be wasted," he said.
Mr Adams's take on this historic moment was also clearly aimed at hearts and minds in the Irish Republic.
With Sinn Féin's vote on the rise, it stands a real chance of soon having a place in a coalition Dublin government if the IRA proves true to its word. Mr Adams was clearly signalling that the ultimate prize was simultaneously holding power across Ireland in a power-sharing assembly in the north and a coalition government in the south.
Tony Blair said the IRA announcement was a "step of unparalleled magnitude ... The statement is of a different order than anything before. It is what we have striven for and worked for since the Good Friday agreement".
The taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, said it was "a great day for Ireland and Britain" but in a joint statement with Mr Blair he cautioned that the IRA's words must be "borne out by actions".
The Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, writing in the Guardian, said: "In this new environment it will be the responsibility of unionism to respond positively.
"Provided that the actions have followed the words and the IRA is locked into a democratic and peaceful path, then we will want early negotiations towards the resumption of shared government through a resurrected Northern Ireland assembly."
Already last night difficulties were rearing up. Sinn Féin refuses to recognise the ceasefire watchdog, the Independent Monitoring Commission, which will verify if the IRA has indeed ceased military operations, punishment attacks and all forms of robbery and smuggling it is alleged to be involved in.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_I...538642,00.html




Are you surprised. How do you feel about the news?

[Milesian]

The occupied counties are now more unstable than they have been for decades, after this news. Everything hangs in the balance at the moment, but I wouldn't be suprised if this eventually leads to a resurgence in violence.

[Ederico]

"Go home British soldiers go on home! Have you got no f****** homes of your own!"

[Milesian]

Quite

Basically, the IRA have been disarming for the last decade. Now they have virtually disbanded, IMO (although not in so many words and not officially).
Meanwhile, there is still a host of fully armed Loyalist paramilitaries still running about who have been responsible for the majority of violence for years now.

We are at the same situation as we were in 1969.
The IRA had called off the "armed struggle" and given itself upto constitutional politics. The Loyalists saw a vulnerable Nationalist communiti in the north and started pogroms, burning out entire streets and districts, prompting a stream of refugees over the border into the Republic. The Six Counties was basically plunged into a bout of ethnic cleansing. The Irish Army actually got so far as to position itself along the border, ready to commence an invasion of Northern Ireland to restore order. Dublin lost it's nerve however, and the invasion never went ahead.
At this point, northern militant members of the IRA formed the Provisional IRA, regrouped, and took up arms in defense of the Nationalist communities. Eventually, the British army went in to restore order.

Despite the bombings and shootings, the presence of the IRA ( ie. Provisional IRA) has provided a counter-balance and kept the Loyalists in check. True, there has been constant tit-for-tat violence and the occasional "atrocity". But without them, the place may plunge back into civil war. It hinges on how the Loyalists respond.

Added to that, the prospect of disgrunteled provos joining dissident Republican groups, taking their weapons and expertise with them, and we have a very delicate situation at the moment.

[Theobald]

Now, IRA stands for I Renounce Arms
Jul 28th 2005

After a three-year logjam in the Northern Ireland peace process, the IRA has announced that it is finally abandoning its armed struggle for a united Ireland—ordering its fighters to dump their arms and pledging henceforth to seek its goal by peaceful means. It is an historic day in a conflict whose origins go back more than five centuries. But those who want the province to stay British will take some convincing

FOR a group long notorious for its ambiguity and twisted words, the statement could hardly have been clearer: The IRA’s leadership, it said, “has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign. This will take effect from 4pm this afternoon. All IRA units have been ordered to dump arms.” All of the IRA’s “volunteers”, the statement continued, had been instructed “to assist the development of purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means.” The IRA said it now believed it had an “alternative way” to achieve its goal of ending British rule of Northern Ireland. The IRA might continue to exist, the statement implied—but more as an association of old comrades than a fighting force.

Besides pledging to put more than three decades of bombing and shooting definitively behind it, the IRA’s dramatic announcement, on Thursday July 28th, also ordered militants to cease all “other” activities—a presumed reference to the IRA’s extensive criminal activities.

The IRA’s pledges, if kept, could break a three-year logjam in Northern Ireland’s peace process. Under the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 that launched the process, a power-sharing local government had been created, with complex rules to ensure that Northern Ireland’s Protestant majority (which is “unionist”, wanting the province to stay British) did not exclude from power the Catholic minority (which is “nationalist”, seeking a united Ireland). The IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein, and the political representatives of hardline unionist militias were invited to take part if they renounced violence. But in 2002, mainly because the IRA still had not announced a definitive disarmament, the assembly was suspended and its powers taken back by London.

An attempt in 2003 to break the logjam with a carefully choreographed set of announcements from the protagonists ended in farce. Britain announced fresh elections to the Northern Ireland assembly. Sinn Fein’s leader, Gerry Adams, then pledged his movement’s “total commitment” to using exclusively peaceful means. Then the head of the independent body overseeing weapons-decommissioning announced that the IRA had destroyed another cache of weapons. Finally, the then leader of the suspended provincial government, David Trimble of the Ulster Unionists (UUP), was supposed to step up and promise to resume sharing power with Sinn Fein. But he said he could not, because of the IRA’s failure to give enough detail on the extent of its weapons destruction. Britain felt obliged to hold the elections anyway but the outcome was victory for the more militant parties on either side of the political-religious divide—Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists (DUP)—at the expense of more moderate ones.

Late last year, just when hopes were rising of a fresh start, the IRA was implicated in a huge bank robbery in Northern Ireland—which its political representatives must surely have known about, even as they were at the negotiating table. The credibility of the IRA and Sinn Fein was further damaged in January when IRA men knifed to death a Catholic man in a Belfast bar. The murdered man’s sisters took their campaign for justice to America, resulting in Sinn Fein’s leaders being banned from the White House’s annual St Patrick’s Day party (when Ireland’s patron saint is commemorated). Even Senator Edward Kennedy—a long-standing supporter of Irish nationalism—refused a meeting with Mr Adams and condemned the IRA’s criminality.

The backlash may have helped Mr Adams and other leaders of the IRA and Sinn Fein to convince the remaining doubters within their movement that the time had come for it to take the final step, pledging never again to sit with a gun under the negotiating table. Ironically, the timing of the announcement was reportedly delayed because the IRA did not want news of its statement to be overshadowed by the new, more violent terror campaign being waged by young Muslim jihadis on the British mainland.


Deeds matter more than words

However, though the IRA statement was uncharacteristically clear, all other parties will take some convincing that its fine words will be matched in deeds—especially the DUP, which noted that recent Northern Irish history was littered with IRA statements that had been described as historic but had not been delivered on.

Recently the DUP’s veteran leader, Ian Paisley, has been demanding that the IRA not only destroy all its weapons to the satisfaction of the weapons-decommissioning body but also produce photographs of the act. The IRA has rejected this “humiliation”. The proposal now is that a Catholic and a Protestant cleric also witness the act of disarmament. However, even if this happens soon, the power-sharing government is unlikely to be restored for some time. Talks may re-start in a few months, though Mr Paisley may take rather longer to end his refusal to sit around the same table as Mr Adams and company. If all goes well, a further round of elections is likely, perhaps next year, and perhaps for a while the Northern Ireland assembly will operate in “shadow” form, scrutinising the running of the province by Britain rather than appointing its own executive.

The roots of the Northern Ireland conflict are long and bloody, stretching back more than five centuries, from the English crown’s subjugation of the whole of Ireland, to the Protestant King William III’s defeat of the Catholic James II on the River Boyne in 1690, through to the island’s partition in the 1920s and the launch of the IRA’s violent campaign in the 1970s. Is the bloodshed all over? Will the province’s long-term future—joined to Britain or united with the rest of Ireland—now be settled, one day, by putting slips of paper in a ballot-box? There have been setbacks before and, until the unionists finally declare themselves satisfied that the IRA is disarmed, there may be setbacks again. But the chances look as good as they have done for some time.

http://www.economist.com/agenda/disp...ory_id=4220821

[Milesian]

The "logjam" was caused by Unionists continually finding excuses to stall the peace process & not have to share power with the Republicans. They stated they wanted the IRA to start destroying their weapons before they would even sit down at the same table. The IRA did so. Then they changed the goalposts saying the IRA had to give up armed conflict altogether. They have now done that. Already the Unionists are saying it isn't good enough.
The Good Friday Agreement has been a catalogue of concessions being wrung from Republicans while they bend over backward to appease each ridiculous demand

Let's see the Unionists and their Loyalist paramilitaries decomission some weapons or declare an end to hostilities. It begs the question why they haven't been asked to do the same things that they demand the Republicans do before even talking with them. One set of rules for them, another set for everyone else. It's all delay tactics to hold up an end to the years of injustice and tyranny they have subjected countless people to.
They want to cling onto as much power as they can for as long as possible.
But they can only delay the inevitable. Our day shall come

[Valkyrie]

I think North Ireland should come home to Ireland.

[Milesian]

Sure, the name says it all.
If it belonged to the UK it would be called "Northwest Britain" instead

[Dirkhrod]

I can understand both parties' struggle, and I admire both British and Irish for their commitment to fight for their country's glory (in the case of the Brits) or liberty (in the case of the Irish).

No British politician has the right to willingly abandon a province for which British men have given their lives. Just as no Irishman should accept that a portion of his land is under foreign occupation.

There will be no peace in Ireland, not while there are two peoples there. It may seem more peaceful now, but it will all come back. There was never peace in Ireland. If you want peace, you have to exterminate the other side. It won't happen. It shouldn't. This war saw many great men on both sides, it is a sane war, a constructive war, a war in which each side gets better. Both are now under siege from non-europeans, and it is this decadence that brought us the apparent peace. It will not last. The only peace Ireland shall see is the peace of Islam, and I believe both Catholics and Protestants would rather have the old ways.

This said, I can only despise Blair and Hain (both communists). They have no right to renounce Ulster. They are nothing but leftist upstarts and a shame for Britain and Europe.

As for who is right... both, of course. Whom does Ulster belong to ? To the strongest. Both Celts and Anglo-Saxons are invaders, not only in Ireland, but in Britain too, in Western Europe even. None has a moral right greater than the other. It is absurd to talk about Ireland being Irish by right, since it is Irish by right of conquest, and it was British by right of conquest. It is ultimately the only right that matters.

If you are British, fight for your side. If your are Irish, fight for yours. If you are anything else, either stay out of it or pick a side, according to your heritage and values. But do not talk about divine right or justice or non-violence. If our ancestors had thought like this, we would still be living in caves.

[Phlegethon]

Seems as if we will have to support Republican Sinn Féin now.

[Exeter]

The Opression was/is one-sided. You can argue that is life, and that it is only a matter of "survival of the fittest". However, you cannot deny that land in Ulster was confiscated and sold to small Scottish farmers. The idea was that they would not sell the land back to the native Irish.

I would agree that if you seek deeper along the lines of population genetics self-identity based on nationality is indeed an artificial/man-made creation. The ancient tribes of Europe did not know the political borders of modern Europe. Nevertheless, I doubt you disagree that an Irishman probably has more in common with his countrymen than he does with populations in other nations of Europe.

"This time the Irish were really punished. And in 1695 the Penal Code severely reduced the rights of Catholics. These Penal Codes were added to over the years, all designed to keep the Irish Catholics in their place. At this time the Irish Catholics had only one-seventh of the land. Most Catholics were tenants and laborers. The Penal Laws and the attendant economic deprivation of the Irish Catholics were the start of the determined push to make the Irish a group with "minority status" in their own country."

http://www.vernonjohns.org/plcooney/ireland.html

Originally Posted by Dirkhrod

As for who is right... both, of course. Whom does Ulster belong to ? To the strongest. Both Celts and Anglo-Saxons are invaders, not only in Ireland, but in Britain too, in Western Europe even. None has a moral right greater than the other. It is absurd to talk about Ireland being Irish by right, since it is Irish by right of conquest, and it was British by right of conquest. It is ultimately the only right that matters.

If you are British, fight for your side. If your are Irish, fight for yours. If you are anything else, either stay out of it or pick a side, according to your heritage and values. But do not talk about divine right or justice or non-violence. If our ancestors had thought like this, we would still be living in caves.