Beautiful Day for Peace in Eire

[Yorick]

I found this:

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (October 24, 2001 7:36 p.m. EDT) - The Sept. 11 terror attacks, the arrest of IRA suspects in Colombia, and the fear of being blamed for ruining Northern Ireland's peace accord all contributed to the Irish Republican Army's historic decision to begin getting rid of its weapons.

Tuesday's action, publicized by Sinn Fein leaders on both sides of the Atlantic for maximum impact, did much more than defuse the immediate tensions tearing apart Northern Ireland's Protestant-Catholic government.

It ensured that Sinn Fein leaders will enjoy continued cordial relations with Washington and hefty financial support from Irish-Americans, who in recent years have made Sinn Fein the best-funded party in Northern Ireland.

Of all the factors weighing on Sinn Fein's calculations, growing U.S. impatience may have been what tilted the scales in favor of IRA action on disarmament, after seven years of word play.

The arrest in August of three IRA suspects visiting leftist rebels in Colombia, a U.S. ally, had raised embarrassing allegations of IRA duplicity - professing adherence to a cease-fire, while helping America's enemies. One suspect was identified as the IRA's senior weapons designer, another as Sinn Fein's representative to Cuba.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams had for months denied that Sinn Fein had a man in Havana, then said Monday that one had been appointed without his knowledge.

President Bush's adviser on Northern Ireland, Richard Haass, met Adams in Belfast the day after the Sept. 11 attacks, with talk of a U.S.-led war against international terrorism already heavy in the air.

Haass' message - much tougher than anything Sinn Fein had heard during his years of being softly cajoled by the Clinton administration - was that Adams' movement had to make an irrevocable, public choice between terror and democracy. The IRA's decision a month earlier to withdraw a disarmament commitment was seen as an act of particular bad faith, Haass said.

"Terrorism is ethically indefensible. Those responsible for the atrocities in the United States must be brought to justice," Adams said in a speech last month, though he rejected suggestions that the IRA should be lumped with Osama bin Laden. "Progressive struggles throughout the world have been set back by the attacks in the U.S.A."

But the horror of Sept. 11 also had unexpected repercussions for the IRA's future tactics.

Throughout the 1990s the IRA found that car-bomb strikes on London's financial district hit Britain hard. Some commentators credited bombs in 1992 and 1993 with greatly influencing Britain's determination to pursue an IRA cease-fire and talks with Sinn Fein. When the IRA last gave up on the peace efforts in 1996, it struck the financial district again with a one-ton truck bomb.

"The IRA couldn't dream of mounting another bomb spectacular against the City of London. If it ever was an option, it no longer could be after Sept. 11th," said a senior Sinn Fein negotiator, speaking on condition of anonymity.

By contrast, a start on disarmament has never offered more kudos for Sinn Fein.

The party has high hopes of achieving a breakthrough in elections next year in the Republic of Ireland, where Sinn Fein's IRA links have long kept it unpopular - it has just one seat in the 166-member parliament.

Next year, opinion polls suggest, the party could win five or six seats. That could be enough to help form the next coalition government led by Prime Minister Bertie Ahern.

Ahern has previously cited the IRA's refusal to disarm as a reason why his party, Fianna Fail, couldn't form a government with Sinn Fein. But Sinn Fein is threatening to win seats at the expense of Fianna Fail, which grew out of the 1920s IRA and claims today to remain the authentic voice of Irish republicanism in the south of Ireland.

Sinn Fein, since it is the only Irish party running candidates in both parts of Ireland, would be in a unique position if it managed to win a place in the next Irish government. During regular policy-making summits between Ireland's two governments, north and south, Sinn Fein would have Cabinet ministers on both sides of the negotiating table.

"Sinn Fein would be putting its claims to be seeking Irish unity into practice in a way that no Irish party has ever done," said Brian Feeney, a Catholic political commentator in Belfast. "It certainly would be more effective than the IRA trying to bomb people into a united Ireland."

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[Neb]

Finally we're getting some good news, and some VERY good ones at that, I do hope the peace will finally be a fact this time.

[Moiraine]

That's awful good news ! The world sure badly needs such.


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The world is my oyster !

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Moiraine: That's awful good news ! The world sure badly needs such.

Sure does Moiraine.

Neb, of that I'm glad too.



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[Yorick]

Britain Begins to Cut Military in N. Ireland

By Adi Bloom
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, October 25, 2001; Page A26

LONDON, Oct. 24 -- Responding quickly to Tuesday's news that the Irish Republican Army had disposed of some of its weapons, the British government said today that it had begun demolishing two military observation towers in its province of Northern Ireland and will reduce its troops there as well.

"We will undertake a . . . program of security normalization, reducing levels of troops and installations in Northern Ireland, as the security situation improves," Britain's Northern Ireland secretary, John Reid, told Parliament.

The steps are intended to build trust and signal that as the 1998 Good Friday agreement gets back on track, the British government will match concessions made by the IRA, analysts here said.

The peace deal, which provides for power-sharing between Catholics and Protestants in a provincial government, had been near breakdown until Tuesday's announcement that, for the first time in three decades of conflict, the IRA had started to disarm.

The IRA, an outlawed paramilitary group that has been observing a cease-fire, says its role is to defend Northern Ireland's Catholic minority from its Protestant majority. The group favors merging Northern Ireland with the largely Catholic Republic of Ireland to the south.

"The word 'historic' tends to be overused about the Northern Ireland political process," Reid told the House of Commons. "But yesterday's move by the IRA is, in my view, unprecedented and genuinely historic. It takes the peace process on to a new level."

The two watchtowers that began coming down today are located in the district of South Armagh. Set up to monitor the border with Ireland, they have long been a cause of resentment in the community they overlook, where many people sympathize with the IRA.

British officials said work would begin Thursday to dismantle two more military facilities, the Magherafelt army base in County Derry and security installations at Newtownhamilton.

The withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland has been a longtime demand of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political affiliate.

Meanwhile, David Trimble, head of Northern Ireland's largest Protestant party, the Ulster Unionists, said he would renominate three ministers who resigned last week from the Northern Ireland Assembly's power-sharing executive in protest over IRA's refusal to begin disarming. This must be done before midnight Thursday to avoid suspension of the assembly.

Trimble has called a meeting of his party Saturday and will seek its support in his bid for reelection as Northern Ireland's first minister, the top political job.

Gerry Adams, head of Sinn Fein, today praised the IRA's move. Quoting the Irish poet Seamus Heaney in a statement, he said this was "a time when hope and history have come together."

But he also reiterated his demand that pro-British paramilitary groups follow the example of the IRA and begin getting rid of their arsenals.

Adams denied that the attacks in the United States on Sept. 11 had any impact on the IRA's decision to dispose of weapons. While those attacks "shocked and affected us all," he said, the IRA "was impervious to external pressure."

Sinn Fein and the IRA have come under increasing pressure from the U.S. government since Sept. 11.

President Bush's special envoy for Northern Ireland, Richard Haass, was in Belfast for meetings on Sept. 10 and, like many Americans, was stranded when transatlantic flights were suspended after the attacks. British and U.S. officials involved in the peace process say that during the subsequent five days he met repeatedly with key figures in the negotiations, stressing that continued U.S. support would depend on their ability to reach a compromise.

Since then, the British, Irish and U.S. governments have consistently increased pressure on Adams, telling him that the Sept. 11 attacks reduced sympathy for armed organizations in general, according to sources here.


© 2001 The Washington Post Company

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[Davros]

WOOHOO, great to hear - should be lots less barbed wire when I next go back to play golf and sip some Bushmills .

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Ironworks Revolutionary Splitter wannabe
Founding Member, and General Demands Adviser of the O.R.T.

[Wulfere]

God, I hope this works out. I would be grand indeed if the strife in Ireland could end.

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The line between good and evil is razor sharp. Be careful of misteps,
lest you find yourself spitted upon your own blade.

I saw it on the news
IT's GREAT
finaly we are getting somewhere

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[This message has been edited by Rikard (edited 10-25-2001).]

[Jolly Pirate]

Wow, nice to see peace breaking out for a change.

[Hayashi]

As much as the news appears to be good, I must confess that I remain a sceptic. Hopes have been raised by the IRA previously, and dashed. This time, they have started disarming and putting their waepons out of commission, and this is verified apparently by some neutral party established by the Mitchell Commission. Yet what is the extent of the disarming? How many of their rifles, guns and bombs are they *actually* destroying?
I am also concerned about the splinter IRA groups - Real IRA for example. If I'm not mistaken they have not disavowed the use of violence to continue their struggle. And what about the loyalists? How do they see the latest moves?
Well at least it's a start. Hopefully it will lead to a more stable political climate especially in N Ireland, and perhaps a long lasting peace in the Emerald Isle will actually be established.

OT (sort of): I'm not British, or Irish, or even European. But I had the misfortune of experiencing, first hand, the terror induced by a terrorist's bomb. This happened in Decemeber 1992 when I was in London with my wife, who was there on a business trip. Whilst she was in day-long meetings with her British counterparts, I was roaming about. I emerged from this particular tube station (I can't remember the name), only to be confronted by plenty of police, police cars, a street cordoned off with tape, and scores of people hurriedly leaving that street. Minutes later, I heard an explosion. I will never forget the feeling of uncertainty and fright in those few minutes. Later onit transpired that the IRA had planted a bomb in a department store and in a litter bin in a park outside that store.