Reports obtained from:
(1) Andersonstown News, (2) Irish Republican News, (3) Irish Examiner
(4) Irlandclick.com, (5) The Guardian, (6) The Sunday Business Post
Monday, 31 January, 2005
The IRA Did It (1)
Wednesday-Saturday, 2-5 February, 2005
Thursday, 3 February, 2005
Friday, 4 February, 2005
Sunday, 6 February, 2005
The IRA Did It
By Danny Morrison, Andersonstown News
There, I've said it. The IRA did it. And as a result of my assertion I suddenly become the bosom pal of many. I am fulsomely quoted and praised by even the DUP for my honesty and integrity. I am reported favourably in the 'Daily Telegraph'. Out-of-the-blue, even my books are posthumously declared excellent reads, such is the reward for conforming to the prevailing orthodoxy: that is, bashing Sinn Féin.
But if I say the IRA didn't do it then I am just a 'mouthpiece for the Provos', to be dismissed by those still fighting the war by other means and aiming to curtail the electoral growth of Sinn Féin.
For the purpose of discussion let us respectfully examine the mindset of the PSNI and the Garda Siochana by which they reached the conclusion that the IRA did the Northern Bank raid.
Firstly, it was incredibly well-planned and executed and involved a large number of people who made a clean getaway. To expect to successfully launder such a considerable sum of money requires a huge organisation of sympathisers. Their conclusion: 'only the IRA could have done it, therefore the IRA must have done it'.
We are told that after the event the PSNI and Garda were able to make sense of things they saw and monitored through surveillance and bugs before the event, with broad hints and leaks about senior members of Sinn Féin being seen in the company of senior members of the IRA. Their conclusion: for days beforehand we saw the barn door open but it never occurred to us that one hell of a horse was planning to bolt. Not very bright intelligence officers, nor does this 'evidence' amount to a hill of beans.
The authorities claimed that after the event they received definite intelligence indicating IRA responsibility. Their eyes and ears on the ground – that is, informers – have now confirmed to them that the talk in the bars or among the dogs in the street is that the IRA did it.
This suggests that there is no loose talk in the IRA before an operation, but plenty afterwards. However, the loose talk inexplicably stops when it comes to the location of the white van and the £26.5 million.
Let's examine the reliability of informers. Certainly, a lot of their information has led to the deaths and imprisonment of many republicans and innocent people. But let's examine the only ones who were ever stripped of their anonymity and whose credibility was scrutinised in public. I am referring, of course, to those supergrasses that were used to imprison hundreds of people over a five-year period in the early1980s.
Raymond Gilmour is a representative sample who was described by the Lord Chief Justice as being "entirely unworthy of belief". He was "a selfish and self-regarding man to whose lips a lie invariably comes more naturally than the truth." The then Chief Constable of the RUC, John Hermon, swore by Gilmour's credibility, as he swore by the credibility of thirty others, all of whose evidence was eventually rubbished in the appeal courts. Conclusion: if informers are the main source for the PSNI and the Gardai suspecting the IRA then I fully sympathise with Michael McDowell not making a laughing stock of himself by divulging his 'dodgy dossier' to Gerry Adams.
For several years now media security pundits (quoting the intelligence services) and dissident republicans have jibed that the ceasefire IRA cannot move because it has been infiltrated from top-to-bottom. That the bank heist was not thwarted disproves that assertion for it indicates that the intelligence services had no prior warning, otherwise they would have captured the raiders or monitored their getaway and arrested even more.
All of the above, of course, merely proves the weakness of the case for the prosecution. It does not prove that the IRA didn't carry out the heist.
There are republican supporters who have even taken succour from the IRA denial along the lines of "sure, the 'RA would have to say that". They appreciate that a formal admission would create an even greater crisis but that the operation itself sends a powerful message to Tony Blair that he has been taking republicans and their compromises for granted.
If that were to turn out to be the correct interpretation then we are at a crossroads but not one as bleak as has been made out. The British government factors into its calculations and negotiations that the IRA cannot return to armed struggle without Sinn Féin paying a heavy price electorally. Undoubtedly, because there is a degree of association, Sinn Féin's vote would suffer. However, the reason why a return to armed struggle would be foolhardy is because it would be a return to a military stalemate.
It is obvious that Sinn Féin does not represent nor can it speak for the IRA. Yet, London and Dublin propagate that assumption and exploit it to punish Sinn Féin. Even though the crisis in the peace process was caused by the DUP, prior to the Northern Bank raid, the governments do not punish it. The majority of nationalists in the North reject and resent this double standard and these attacks on them and their elected representatives. And that is why the SDLP will not be joining a gerrymandered executive led by Ian Paisley - which appears to be one of the crackpot notions being considered by Blair.
If the two governments insist that 'the IRA did it' and punish Sinn Féin then Sinn Féin should refuse to mediate between the IRA and Dublin and London. Let them do a better job. Sinn Féin's mandate derives from the majority of nationalists in the North, people who are denied their full rights by a combination of British rule, which they bear under sufferance, and DUP intransigence. Attack Sinn Féin and you attack those people.
Danny Morrison is author of several books, including All the Dead Voices.
This article appeared at DannyMorrison.com and in the Andersonstown News on January 31, 2005. All of Danny Morrison's articles can be found at DannyMorrison.com.
Copyright © 2005 Andersonstown News
Wednesday-Saturday, 2-5 February, 2005
IRA anger at wasted opportunity
Govts warned peace process is in danger
By Irish Republican News
The Provisional IRA has hardened its approach to peace efforts in the North following the rejection of its historic peace offer in December and recent attempts to criminalise its cause.
In a broad and comprehensive statement on Wednesday night, the IRA said its offer last year to stand down and cease its activities was "squandered" by the Dublin and London governments who were "pandering to rejectionist unionism instead of upholding their own commitments and honouring their own obligations".
The IRA added that it did not intend to "remain quiescent within this unacceptable and unstable situation".
In a reassessment of its position and in response to others withdrawing their commitments, the IRA said it was taking all its proposals "off the table".
In an informal briefing to journalists the following evening, an IRA source castigated the governments for "making a mess" of the peace process and underlined what he described as the seriousness of the situation.
The statement and subsequent briefing were intended as a wake-up call to the governments, who had seemed to abandon peace efforts until after the British general election in May.
The Dublin government, which has engaged in a war of words with Sinn Fein in recent weeks, has called for calm amid fears in some quarters that the IRA's ceasefire may be under pressure. The collapse of the peace process in 1996 was referred to in the IRA's statement on Wednesday, and some fear that history could repeat itself.
The IRA's relatively trenchant statement came as little surprise to republicans. The repeated and escalating failures of talks in spite of the painful concessions made by Sinn Fein negotiators inevitably required a change of tack.
Efforts to appease unionist demands have failed repeatedly since the Good Friday Agreemnet was signed in April, 1998.
In October 2003, Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble backed out of a deal to restore the Belfast Assembly at the last minute, ostensibly over the verification of IRA weapons decommissioning.
There was an even greater setback in December last year following outlandish demands by Ian Paisley's DUP for photographs of the destruction of IRA arms in order to 'humiliate' the IRA.
The Irish Prime Minister, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, was seen to grovel to Ian Paisley after the unionist hardliner flew into a rage over suggestions that his insistence on photographs would not work. The failure of the two governments to subsequently broker a way forward -- despite the prospect of a comprehensive and near universal agreement -- compounded the crisis.
Coupled to the continuing failure of the two governments to implement the Good Friday Agreement, the loss of republican confidence had begun to erode Sinn Fein's support base in the North.
Crucially, the IRA has not yet concluded the two governments are negotiating in bad faith, warning only that they are "making a mess" of the process.
And despite widespread concern, the Dublin government has said it does not believe the IRA intends to break its ten-year-old ceasefire for a second time.
Efforts to restore some trust between Sinn Fein and Bertie Ahern's administration were underway in Derry yesterday, where Dublin's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, met Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness.
As Ahern called for calm, Mr McGuinness again condemned the giant pre-Christmas Northern Bank robbery as "criminal" and hostile to his party's peace efforts.
The IRA has said it was not involved in the raid. The British Prime Minister Tony Blair suggested this week that a disaffected group within the IRA might have been responsible. However, combative allegations by the Dublin government that Sinn Fein negotiators were in cahoots with the heist gang continue to poison the atmosphere.
Politically-motivated attacks on Sinn Fein by rival parties and the establishment media have rained down in recent days.
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said his party's role as messengers for the IRA had been abused by the British and Irish governments.
"The electoral mandate of the Sinn Fein party has been ignored. We remain wedded to our peace strategy," he said.
Earlier this week, he stated that his party will no longer interpret IRA statements for the the governments, allowing the IRA to speak for itself.
The Taoiseach said he noted "distancing of Sinn Fein's comments from the IRA statements" in recent days, a move which, it has been suggested, might again ease the way for political progress.
However, the report of the Independent Monitoring Commission into the bank robbery is published next week, could further escalate the crisis. It is understood to controversially recommend some form of political discrimination against Sinn Fein.
There have even been suggestions in the media that a return to war could secure the defeat of the IRA and sideline Sinn Fein.
Mr Adams today warned the two governments not take any security initiative against republicans. He added that the mishandling of recent events had been "extremely damaging to the peace process".
There was understandably a "huge focus" on the IRA at the moment, but he urged everybody to adopt a sensitive approach on the road to peace.
He added: "They [the two governments] need to take their heads out of their asses for a start."
Wednesday-Saturday, 2-5 February, 2005
Analysis: Ominous Development
By Danny Morrison for the Irish Examiner
The statement issued yesterday afternoon by the IRA, the second in twenty-four hours, represents an ominous development and a major deterioration in the peace process.
Unlike Wednesday night's lengthy exposition of the IRA's analysis on what went wrong last December when a deal foundered, Thursday's statement was terse and suggested that the talking had finished. Republican frustration and anger has been building for some considerable time. Certainly, where I live, in the heart of Gerry Adams' constituency in West Belfast, there is a feeling that each and every time republicans have made concessions the goalposts are shifted by unionists, often with the support or tolerance of the two governments.
The majority of Northern nationalists, who voted for Sinn Fein, are of the view that the governments are hypocritical and operate double standards. Elements of the two governments are hostile to Sinn Fein for different reasons. Some, on the British side, are still fighting the war by other means, are out to destroy the Adams' leadership and would consider a split in the IRA and a return to conflict as a major strategic success which would allow them to finish off the organisation.
Political parties in the Republic, particularly Fianna Fail, never anticipated the success of Sinn Fein and its potential. Their party political concern is now a real factor in perversely affecting Dublin government thinking and using the current crisis to lambaste a domestic rival instead of coolly assessing what is a complex situation.
Republicans cite the list of compromises they made to help make peace: Sinn Fein changing its constitution to recognise a Northern Assembly; supporting the amendments of Articles 2 & 3 as a concession to unionist sensibilities; compromising and accepting the Patten proposals on new policing; the IRA suffering a split over the issue of engaging with the International Decommissioning body (IICD), which led to the formation of the Real IRA; the IRA putting three large tranches of weapons beyond use; and offering total decommissioning of weapons by Christmas, independently witnessed by Protestant and Catholic clerics.
But Patten was gutted during its legislative process. The old Special Branch migrated into the PSNI. There has been no Bill of Rights. Outstanding changes on criminal justice and equality have been stalled. The strictest electoral laws in Europe were introduced on the back of false allegations of mass personation by Sinn Fein - only for Sinn Fein's vote to increase. Republicans recall David Trimble being found guilty in court of illegally excluding two Sinn Fein ministers from North-South council meetings - yet he suffered no sanctions. Unionists refuse to accept the Decommissioning Commission's word on arms - even though it was set up for them. David Trimble reneged on the deal for the re-establishment of the executive in October 2003.
When at Christmas the anti-Agreement Ian Paisley blocked the peace process by demanding the total humiliation of the IRA, its wearing of sackcloth and ashes, the two governments caved in. They didn't threaten the DUP. They didn't look for an alternative 'government of the willing' of pro-Agreement parties, in the way they would now like to establish a gerrymandered coalition if they could recruit the SDLP.
The governments went along with the unionist demand for transparent evidence of IRA decommissioning. But when republicans politely asked for transparent evidence of IRA involvement in the Northern Bank raid new rules of confidentiality kicked in.
And now republicans are told by the two governments that the only obstacle in the way of peace is the IRA. That is such a blatant lie. But it is a pretext for the British rolling back the Belfast Agreement and nationalists are angry that they are being thwarted once again from achieving their rights.
The IRA - which re-emerged in 1969 because nationalists were left defenceless - has not gone away and won't go away until the security of the nationalist community in the North has been established and guaranteed, and republicans are free to use established institutions to peacefully campaign for social and economic harmonisation as a process towards unity.
The two governments have always calculated that the IRA cannot return to armed struggle without Sinn Fein paying a heavy price electorally. Undoubtedly, because there is a degree of association, Sinn Fein's vote would suffer. However, the reason why a return to armed struggle would be foolhardy, in my opinion, is because it would be a return to a military stalemate.
However, the IRA defies conventional analysis. If it decided there was a case to be made for a return to armed struggle it would go down that road without regard to the post 9/11 perception of the world.
It has always been easier for the governments to blame the IRA than to face up to what Britain created in Ireland at the time of partition - a sectarian state which refused to treat a section of its citizens as equals.
A major political vacuum looms. Hope is evaporating. People feel desperate. All depends on whether the governments listen to what is being said.
Copyright © 2005 Irish Examiner
Recipe for disaster
Editorial, Irelandclick.com
Here we go (again). The International Monitoring Commission is asked (again) to report on a specific incident (again) earlier than planned (again) and the group in the frame is the IRA (again).
It seems that for all their certainty that the IRA did the Northern Bank job, those pointing the finger need an awful lot of reassurance. First we were told that the dogs on the street knew that it was the IRA. All duly announced themselves "certain". Then we were told that Chief Constable Hugh Orde believed that the IRA did it. All duly announced themselves "really certain".
Then Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair said they believed that the IRA did it. All duly pronounced themselves "really, really certain". This week after a security summit in Downing Street, Bertie and Tony reiterated their belief that the IRA was culpable. All duly pronounced themselves "really, really, really certain".
And when next week, with the inevitability of Pavlov's dog, the IMC rules that the IRA was responsible, presumably, all will duly pronounce themselves "really, really, really, really certain" and the business of punishing republicans can begin.
That critical faculties have been put to one side in the rush to judgement in this case is not surprising, we've seen it all before in the case of Castlereagh and 'Stormontgate'. Nor is it exactly a quare gunk that the concepts of justice and fair play are done way with – after all, this is the place where the Diplock conveyor belt made a mockery of the very idea of due process so there is not much of a tradition of respect for jurisprudence. If those same people stood silently by while men and women were brutalised before being condemned to lengthy periods in jail on flimsy or non-existent evidence, then of course the side-of-the-mouth assurances of policemen and spooks comes as something akin to a smoking gun.
Those of us determined to stand fast in the face of this latest attempt to pressgang us into voting for the governments' pet parties know that the same intelligence agencies who are advising London and Dublin were not that long ago pulling the strings of their loyalist paramilitary puppets as they shot innocent people dead in their homes.
That London should accept the word of such people is not surprising – for the British establishment it was ever thus. It is bad enough that Dublin should so unquestioningly accept the word of these people, that they should expect the rest of us to do so to is an insult to our intelligence.
Of course, the IMC will have talked to precisely the same people who talked to the Chief Constable and to Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, so in that regard their latest rushed report will be utterly meaningless, but it will give the British government the pseudo-legal excuse it needs to move against Sinn Féin.
And that's all that really matters.
In the meantime, the latest loyalist feud continues with the gunmen and arsonists out in force on the Shankill and in Woodvale and the British government will continue to refuse to give any assistance whatsoever to the Barron inquiry, the Oireachtas committee and the various inquests trying to get to the bottom of the Dublin-Monaghan massacres. But you can bet your bottom dollar that neither of these things was on the agenda at Downing Street on Tuesday.
That criminality and gangsterism should come to an end goes without saying. But when one protagonist in a conflict gets to decide who's a criminal and a gangster and who isn't, then that's a recipe for disaster.
Who gains from this breakdown?
The British and Irish governments have reason to undermine Sinn Féin
By Niall Stanage, The Guardian
The Irish peace process, which just two months ago seemed inches away from a final settlement, is in turmoil. The current downward spiral began in late December, when a raid on a Belfast bank netted its perpetrators £26m. Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern wasted no time in declaring that the IRA was responsible for the heist. They have stuck with that position since, though they have not produced a shred of evidence to back up their claims. The two premiers this week characterised the IRA as "the sole obstacle" in the way of progress. The IRA responded in kind on Wednesday, declaring that further decommissioning was now "off the table". While reaffirming its desire to see the peace process succeed, it also warned, ominously, that current circumstances had "tried our patience to the limit". That statement, in turn, provoked an outcry from Irish republicanism's opponents. Ian Paisley, the leader of the hardline Democratic Unionist party, said that the IRA had "never had any intention of giving up their criminal empire".
The peace process has passed through moments of peril before, of course. But now, all forward momentum seems lost. Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness spoke yesterday of a "deepening crisis".
Two things have remained true of Northern Ireland since the worst years of the Troubles. First, things are rarely as they appear. Second, it is always vital to ask whose interests are served when unsupported allegations are flung about.
There are three possible explanations for the bank raid which precipitated the current mess. It could have been carried out by the IRA with the approval of the Sinn Féin leadership; or by freelancing current or former members of the organisation; or by someone else entirely, possibly someone who would like to see Sinn Féin ostracised and republicanism's political progress halted.
The British and Irish governments clearly favour the first explanation. Their vehemence has fuelled the notion that they must have cast-iron evidence. Perhaps they do. But why, then, have they not produced any of it? In order to believe that the likes of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were complicit in the bank robbery one must make a series of assumptions that make no sense.
The current republican leadership has invested two decades in the peace process. They have nothing to gain from its failure. Why, then, would they give tacit approval to a massive bank raid? Even if the perpetrators were not caught in the act, Adams and McGuinness would know that suspicion would fall upon them. And they would know that such suspicion would in itself be potent enough to wreck the project to which they have dedicated much of their lives.
It is more plausible to believe that individuals who are, or were, members of the IRA carried out the raid for personal profit. But if that is the case, why should the 300,000 Irish nationalists who vote for Sinn Féin be punished in response? One thing is not in doubt. It is Sinn Féin's opponents who can reap most benefit from pinning blame for December's robbery on republicans.
Attributing blame to republicans for the current impasse also gets Paisley off the hook. Many people believe that he kiboshed a possible deal on decommissioning at the end of last year: the IRA had offered to disarm fully, but Paisley demanded photographic evidence and made a provocative speech in which he demanded the IRA don sackcloth and ashes.
This would not be the first time a unionist leader has been saved from international condemnation by a flurry of allegations against republicans. Those who regard such talk as conspiratorial nonsense might recall that in late 2002, David Trimble was finally beginning to take flak for his intransigence - until sensational allegations of an IRA/Sinn Féin "spy ring" emerged. Almost all charges relating to that affair were eventually, and quietly, dropped. But Northern Ireland's devolved government has never been resuscitated.
The Irish government has good reasons of its own to blacken Sinn Féin's name. Adams's party is on the rise in the Irish Republic. It has five members of the Irish parliament and its first MEP from the south, and continues to threaten the establishment parties, Bertie Ahern's Fianna Fáil in particular. What better way to put a stop to Sinn Féin's gallop than to paint it as deceitful and nefarious?
Many Irish republicans were always suspicious of the peace process. They believed that the British government and the unionists were interested only in their defeat, not in genuine political progress. They believed they would be drawn away from the armed struggle, only to be frozen out politically. Recent events give them ample reason to say "we told you so".
· Niall Stanage is a correspondent for the Dublin-based Sunday Business Post
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
Sinn Féin must find a way
By Tom McGurk
Orwellian Close might be an understated name for the cul de sac up which the Peace Process has suddenly disappeared.
In a month we have moved from the prospect of total IRA decommissioning and virtual stand-down to ominous warnings from P O'Neill. The political consensus across Ireland and Britain that had worked the republican ship to the very point of arrival has collapsed into recrimination and blame gaming. Agreement in the North is out for the foreseeable future and we are all in a dangerous vacuum.
Among all this uncertainty, there are only two certainties left to ponder. One is that there can be no agreement in the North without Sinn Féin- any attempt to construct institutions without them would simply lead to the eventual electoral eclipse of the SDLP.
The other certainty is that the current Sinn Féin/IRA political axis as it has operated in the past cannot now deliver. The question of whether Sinn Féin controls the IRA is actually not the determining one. The real question is whether the Republican Movement's strategy is prepared to abandon the extra player of paramilitarism and settle on politics alone.
The IRA can, of course, issue statements. Much of its first statement last week was an understandable expression of frustration. However, beyond the IRA's pique, what is it offering to solve the impasse? In the cold light of day this is an army being maintained to fight a war which is effectively over. The Republican Movement in 1998 signed up to a new political construct that replaced the political cul de sac that was partition.
The Belfast Agreement ended political majoritarianism in the North and replaced a colony with the architecture of a new civic society. The effect was to politically, de jure, end partition, while de facto maintaining it. In the 21st century context of the European Union's developing political and social architecture, that was the end-game for unionist political supremacy. And with nationalist census numbers almost equal to unionist numbers the North, post 1998 was unrecognisable in comparison to the one that preceded it.
Equally importantly, all of this occurred against a background of unprecedented economic wealth North and South. Perhaps invisible against the background of the troubles, a new Irish bourgeoisie was emerging who were about to enjoy standards of living and education that were among the best in Europe. Economic change always precedes political change and in the South, the surging economy was contributing to the creation of a new political equilibrium.
In the North too, a new generation of nationalists emerged with educational, economic and cultural strengths unlike anything known before. As the old oligarchic structure of unionist economic power was wiped away by free market forces, the new nationalist economic power utterly changed the social landscape of the Six Counties. The last thing the post-ceasefire nationalist generation in the North needs is a paramilitary army.
Following the ceasefire, this newly aspirational generation voted in unprecedented numbers for Sinn Féin.
They did this because their demands and expectations were matched by Sinn Féin's harder political nose and they voted too - let's not forget it - to divert the republican movement's energies away from paramilitarism to politics. Ironically they voted for the war party in order to end the war. Above all, they voted because they wanted the share of political power that was the inevitable consequence of their new economic and cultural position.
The very serious question that Sinn Féin needs to ponder this weekend is whether their some 320,000 voters across the country fully appreciated the role the IRA would have in the discharge of their democratic franchise.
Of course. the political forces ranged against Sinn Féin were determined to trammel their political ambitions by tying them to the IRA, but do their voters accept this arrangement?
How can you have, at one end, a political party with 320,000 votes demanding political power and at the other end a secret, armed society exercising a political veto by virtue of their continuing existence?
The question this weekend is actually not who robbed the bank, but who runs the show lads? Is it the universally franchised, democratically elected members of parliament or the IRA army council with its more limited franchise? I don't know, but I would like to know. So too would the wider Irish political democratic constituency.
And what are the IRA's options this weekend? Go back to war? I don't think so. What would it be for - to have decommissioning without photographs? Anyway, the IRA knows perfectly well that its ultimate controllers, the nationalist population of the North would not stand for it. Another generation of jails and funerals? I don't think so.
So if republicans have no war to fight, why do they want an army?
If somebody doesn't watch out we may have a classical Irish internecine division. It has happened twice before, when the point where militarism ends and politics begins could not be agreed upon.
Such feuding has always been a classic post-colonial affliction. One can only hope that this present generation of Sinn Féiners has already left that condition behind.
The Peace Process has had many enemies in the South and in these last weeks they have been out tossing their sweaty nightcaps into the air in delight at the present difficulties. They are the usual suspects, with the southern nationalist instinct that from 1922 saw partition and unionist domination in the North serving their own best interests in the Republic.
In recent years Sinn Féin and the Peace Process had utterly wrong-footed them but they gritted their teeth and waited their opportunity.
The republican movement should not rise to their taunts, doing so only gets in the way of the work to be done. This is not about securocrats or Perfidious Albion.
This is about the all Ireland democratic vote which mandated the new political settlement that replaced the 1920 Government of Ireland Act.
This is about the long march of the nationalists of the North out of the dark and into a new century to their full share of peaceful political and economic prosperity. Sinn Féin is the weapon they chose to carve out that share. Is Sinn Féin up to the hard choices now needed to deliver it?
Copyright © 2005 The Sunday Business Post