Is it just me (and Prime Minister Blair) who thinks that this is a gleam of light in the otherwise rather dreary news from the terrorism front? I find it especially meaningful in the light of the last three weeks in London, and am hoping that the attacks on London have helped the IRA to come to the conclusion that armed resistance is not leading anywhere at all (though I don’t expect that to be necessarily the case).
I’d like to know what our British Dopers think of this: is it genuine? If it is, would you consider it, like I do, a victory for those who believe that the, for lack of a better word, European way of dealing with terror, through political dialogue, is going to be a successful approach? Do you think we cannot draw any conclusions at all from the IRA’s decision?
While this is not MPSIMS, I should add that this, coming after a couple of unhappy weeks of increasing violence, seems to me like a much needed ray of hope in an otherwise fairly grey sky.
The language in the statement from the IRA is the most explicit yet in terms of saying they will end violence. This is definitely a very positive and hopeful step.
The reason why there is a great deal of scepticism is that there have been a number of ceasefires over the past 30 years but the violence has always flared up for one reason or another. Also, cynics reading the IRA statement can rightly point out the very careful wording which skates around a number of points:
[ul]
[li]The IRA still exists - it is not disbanding[/li][li]No acnowledgement that the future of Northern Ireland will only be determined through peaceful democratic means[/li][li]There is no concrete comittment to destroy or surrender weapons[/li][li]No mention of the ‘disappeared’ or any similar offer to make amends for things which happened during the troubles[/li][li]Some of the wording could be read as implying the halt to violence is conditional[/li][/ul]
A lot of the loony protestants won’t accept anything short of all IRA members comitting hara-kiri, but some of the concerns being expressed are genuine. However, the IRA would never come out with a statement that meets all unionist demands because that would be seen as a surrender and their cadres would not approve it.
So everyone is hanging tight to see what happens over the next few months. Probably the best way to look at it is that the IRA have made a big concession and signalled a willingness to deal. The government are responding by immediately dismantling some watchtowers as a return concession and signal. The next step will then presumably for the IRA to visibly decomission some weapons, which may then be reciprocated by a return of devolution conditional on the process continuing. Over the next few years things will then hopefully stabilise and return to normal.
The big caveat - the Good Friday Agreement was also supposed to be the start of a process like this. It eventually ran into the sand. A lot of sectarian politicians and armed groups have an interest in the status quo, on both sides of the community.
One thing I forgot to add…
Currently the climate in the west is more than a little hostile towards ‘freedom fighters’ operating within democratic societies. al-Quaeda are souring public opinon everywhere, and measures put in place to combat them will also directly impact the IRAs ability to operate. So they have a extra incentive to actually shut up shop this time round. And that most definitely is a silver lining - a peaceful resolution to the Northern Ireland issue will be one of the biggest victories for peaceful democracy against terrorism in many decades.
That seems to be true. A few other factors that may favor this move sticking:
(1) It’s fairly difficult, logistically and mentally, to return to an “active warfare” mode with every passing year of inactivity.
(2) The growing material prosperity of Ireland and N.I. would, I think, make it harder to convince large numbers of young men that militancy was the way to go. I’m not saying that everyone’s gotten rich or that increasing affluence precludes militancy, but if nothing else, having more material stuff to lose might tend to discourage the risk-taking inherent in being an underground fighter. Last time I was in the Falls Road (about a year ago), I saw plenty of satellite dishes, and a good number of the families seemed to own a car or two. Belfast as a whole has had a lot of money pumped into it. Poverty drives desperation, and it’s probably true that diminished poverty diminishes it.
(3) The IRA/SF leadership have gotten a taste for political legitimacy, and they seem to like it. Put more crassly, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness don’t seem to mind at all strutting around in nice suits in the role of statesmen and budding Eurocrats, and the attractions of being political players/insiders rather than lonely freedom fighters might well prove persuasive to inhabitants of a small and (geopolitically and economically) otherwise-insignificant part of the world.
(4) I don’t know if this is happening yet, but I can see a day, if immigration to N.I. continues to increase (historically, it’s been very low) when Protestants and Catholics both find themselves fleeing to the suburbs, united in a sense by their basic cultural similarities in white-flight from increasingly-non-white inner city centers (as has happened elsewhere). Of course it’s invidious to mention this as a “positive,” but I do suspect that N.I.'s long history of being populated by an ethnically homogeneous demographic has allowed Catholics and Protestants to focus on their (comparatively) small cultural differences (which are probably waning anyhow, as religion declines in importance in all all Western societies).
Of huge importance is the support for it within Norn Iron, and the IRA traditional base. That includes supoorters as far and wide as Boston and Limerick. I even see a lot less support in Saint Paul Minnesota’s Irish community for the IRA as I did in the late 80s and early 90s. Even then, it was only marginal.
Having said that some news reports claim that a vote of the entire IRA membership might not/would not have supported the recent move, which these reports portrayed as strong-armed through by Adams et al.
So for now and for the foreseeable future the greatest risk of violence would seem likely to come not from the PIRA, but from any further dissident offshoots or defectors (to CIRA, RIRA, or some new grouping). RIRA got started IIRC when the PIRA Quartermaster bailed out over dissatisfaction with the Good Friday Agreement (taking with him and his a certain amount of ordnance et al.).
I am usually not an optimist about such things, but I think we can declare the Troubles well and truly over. While I think a return to warfare was practically impossible as early as three years ago, the icing on the cake was the massive blow to IRA prestige caused by the Christmas robbery of Northern Bank and the murder of Robert McCartney. The announcement by the IRA was merely a recognition of reality - which is a surprise in itself, as the IRA has very often, and proudly, defied reality.
Actually, you have triggered a rusty half-dead neuron to bring up something I should have thought of first time - given the weight of expectation and the number of elderly loons on both sides longing for the good old days, how can we tell if things really have shut down?
I think it’s safe to say that a proportion of militants on both sides of the community will be unable to integrate into civil society for whatever reason. How do we distinguish their misbehaviour from politial violence? i.e. if a team of provo ‘tax collectors’ decide to keep running their old racket for personal gain and firebomb a shop that hasn’t paid protection, or a bunch of UVF ‘volunteers’ kneecap someone who has been selling drugs on their turf, how can we determine if this is just ordinary crime or a restart of the troubles?
I would imagine that renegade elements would be inclined to stick together with their old comrades-in-arms, and use their accustomed methods and rackets. The mainstream organisations can’t maintain discipline without returning to violence themselves, so what happens?
It’s also depressing to compare the situation in NI and the complications in bringing it to rest with what’s happening in Iraq. 30 years, 3600 lives, 40,000 injuries and £100Bn to settle a few sectarian differences aggravated by cack-handed governance - I wonder what it will take before everyone in Iraq will agree to shake hands and call it quits?
I took it as a genuine ray of hope; my hopes were soon dashed thoiugh, when I heard the comments of various people from bodies that have been in opposition to the IRA in the past; I would have expected caution, but they strenuously ridiculed the whole thing and just used it as a springboard to spew venom about the IRA, it’s past actions and it’s motives.
I’m not a supporter of the IRA (although I do recognise that the viewpoint they’re promoting is not entirely invalid), but I was just depressed and dismayed that their opponents couldn’t just pretend to take the announcement at face value; it was almost as if they were trying to bait the IRA into resuming violent actions. Maybe that’s what it was.
