Is there a serious threat to the leaders of the
North's largest Catholic party from republicans
opposed to the strategy of Sinn Fein's contra
leaders, a strategy which is bound to end in the
eradication of republicanism and the long dreaded
copper fastening of partition? It seems that those
who think it true at one time also professed to
believe that Freddie Scappaticci was a great republican
much maligned by securocrats and mischievous journocrats,
all out to devilishly undermine the peace process.
The
evidence for this threat emanated from within
Sinn Fein ranks. Like most claims by the party
it was greeted by a collective raspberry. Since
then the Taoiseach and the PSNI have given the
allegation legs by claiming to know of the threat's
existence. Because both have more credibility
than Sinn Fein in the truth department they have
probably increased the number of people willing
to give the claims some credence.
In
the past observers displayed a willingness to
believe that allegations of threats against republicans
from Sinn Fein had some substance. The party had
a history of bullying and intimidating, and was
not averse to the odd murder. It was hardly news
to learn that its goondas were putting the boot
on some neck.
Observers
to this are now urged to treat with equal seriousness
the latest round of allegations. There is a crucial
difference. When Sinn Fein associated personnel
issued threats they made them directly. The republicans
who complained about being threatened, Brendan
Shannon for example, could back their allegations
with names, times, places, the nature of the threat.
On this occasion the only evidence of threats
is that people say they exist. There is nothing
that anyone has yet pointed to, either by word
or deed, in the actions of republicans that would
firm up with even the most lightweight of substance
the claim that threats actually exist.
It
can never be ruled out that somewhere, someone
is so distraught by the collapse of the republican
project that an act of vengeance seems a fitting
response. If so, the urge to settle accounts must
be newly found. Those republicans, long dissociated
from the Provisional movement, are unlikely to
be surprised or shocked by Sinn Fein's eagerness
to endorse the British police. This is the final,
not the first step, in the shameless scramble
for a bit of British devolved power. Whatever
angst the long term alienated experienced it has
most likely long since dissipated. The desire
to attack Sinn Fein physically appears to be as
strong in those quarters as the urge to join the
PSNI.
Sinn
Fein has been intimating that its own recently
disaffected members have been meeting with other
republicans and that out of this the threat has
developed. Sinn Fein leaders have not missed an
opportunity to allude to members of the INLA as
possessing some ominous intent. But the INLA has
been on a ceasefire for years, has been much less
active in breaching it than the Provisionals,
and seems to have a leadership which is much too
astute to entertain the notion of emulating well
established Provisional behaviour and going off
on in violent pursuit of rivals. The organisation
has also been severely burned by feuds in the
past and its members or associates genuinely seem
to mean 'never again' when they persistently assert
the futility of such endeavours.
If
it exists at all, the only place where the malignant
bacilli of violent anti-leadership hatred could
incubate is amongst those who have only just discovered
that republicanism was never part of the leadership
grand design. But even here it is hard to believe
that they have any inclination to take out their
own leaders. Some Provisionals tasked with briefing
the rank and file on the nature of the supposed
threat are said to be half-hearted about their
affirmations of its existence. Having been sent
round the country on numerous leadership lie missions
in the past, the penny dropping for them is hardly
sufficient cause for the rest of us to marvel.
If
there are any threats to Sinn Fein leaders those
responsible should desist from pursuing them.
Not only shall they secure no support from the
vast bulk of those at odds with the Provisional
strategy, they will be viewed as pariahs who will
be remembered not for removing a leadership they
consider treacherous, but for having destroyed
oppositional republican credibility. The judgement
of history will be anything but kind.
A
more plausible explanation for the threat story
is Sinn Fein's problems with its own base. On
a daily basis 'mainstream' republicans are flouting
party censorship stipulations and writing to the
papers to vent their concerns. Only this week
the Irish News carried a damning indictment
from former blanket protestor Seosamh Mac An Ultaigh,
who expressed sadness:
