If
the offer made by the Sinn Fein negotiating team
at the latter part of last year, to fully decommission
the weaponry of the Provisional Irish Republican
Army (PIRA), was genuine —and I see no reason
to doubt it— then it is worth analysing in
what direction the PRM goes from here. Once Paisley
Snr made his sackcloth and ashes demand, it became
a certainty the PIRA offer would be withdrawn, as
Mr Paisley knew it would be, making one wonder and
not for the first time who is actually pulling the
Army Council's chain. For once the statement withdrawing
the offer signed by P O'Neill became public knowledge,
all blame for the failure of the pre Christmas talks
between SF, DUP, etc was bound to shift from the
shoulders of Mr Paisley's Party the DUP onto those
of Sinn Fein. Admittedly the Northern Bank raid
hardly helped SF, but by making their statement
when they did, the Army Council were all but confirming
the direct linkage between their military and political
wings — and not only in the minds of the two
governments.
The offer made by SF during the talks, which were
designed to get the Assembly and Stormont Government
back up and running, was in itself quite momentous,
so it is hardly surprising some like the DUP preferred
to take the easy option and dismiss it out of hand,
rather than run the risk of accepting it at face
value and seeing where it might lead. In reality
what you had was the PIRA agreeing to decommission
the vast majority of its remaining arsenal in front
of two independent witnesses, Christian clergymen,
one of each denomination. Hardly a trivial offer
from PIRA, as it nor any of its forbears have ever
done such a thing before, i. e., allow independent
witnesses to be present when an act of decommissioning
takes place.
For the Provisional Republican Movement to make
such an offer means there must have been extensive
discussions throughout the ranks of PIRA, or certainly
within its senior and middle ranking leadership.
These volunteers must have either agreed with the
proposed decommissioning, or have at least been
prepared not to actively oppose it happening. Indeed
stories leaked out of senior republicans visiting
volunteers around the country and explaining to
them the decision to stand the army down had been
made, all bar a small security detachment to protect
senior leaders etc., plus the Intelligence Department
would be able to slot across to become engaged in
political work, but in the main as far as the majority
of volunteers were concerned, that was it, the war
was over.
Now if all of this is true, after the talks failed
due to Paisley's intransigence, did the Army Council
have to go back to the membership and say, “Oh,
sorry, about what we told you last week, we were
wrong about that, the war is not over after all,
carry on as you were, you know us, we were only
kidding the Brits.”? What message does this
send out to volunteers? That they have a war on
one day, off the next, military leadership, the
chain of which the British, or their unionist acolytes
can pull at will being sure of a negative response?
For if the situation was such in November-December,
that the Army Council decided the war was over,
thus PIRA arms could be decommissioned, what made
it different in January? Surely not the mere fact
that Mr Paisley acted in a provocative, foolish
and bigoted way? The man has made a whole career
lasting decades out of behaving in such a manner.
Yet it is difficult to see any other real reason
for the offer's withdrawal.
No, if the senior ranks of the PIRA felt the time
was right to decommission weapons in November-December
and carry on the struggle by solely political means,
which in reality, as far as taking on the British
State, is what has been happening since 1997, then
the fact that Paisley has a big mouth and often
spouts bigoted nonsense should have been of no consequence.
It is difficult not to conclude one of two things.
The PIRA was manoeuvred into making the decisions
they did, by their political opponents north and
south; or, whilst serious about continuing the process
of decommissioning, they have not yet reached the
stage when they would be willing to order that PIRA
is stood down in perpetuity, still seeing it, despite
an abundance of evidence to the contrary, as a powerful
bargaining counter in any future talks they may
have with the British State and as a vehicle that
allows them to punch above their weight in the ROI
political arena.
Whatever one of these options one chooses, if on
the day after these talks had broken down due to
Paisley's bombastic outburst P O'Neill had announced
that decommissioning was going ahead no matter what,
under the originally agreed terms, i e two clergymen
as witnesses, they would have pulled the rug from
under Paisley, and the two governments in all probability
would have been forced to demand the inclusion of
SF within any northern government, with or without
the DUP. If the latter still refused to enter a
coalition with SF, which I feel is doubtful, I doubt
the UUP and SDLP would have refused an invite to
the party. Having the necessary majority, the show
would have been back on the road.
True, there is also now the added problem of the
Northern Bank Heist to overcome, however, if the
third trance of weapons had been decommissioned,
the PIRA would have been well on the way to being
stood down. SF would no longer be a party with dual
loyalty, thus it would not have been the intractable
problem it now appears. Perhaps too much may have
been made out of whether the Army Council knew beforehand
that the Northern Bank was to be robbed. During
the first ceasefire something similar happened,
although the sum stolen was nowhere near so large.
This time the raid took place in Newry; during the
course of the robbery, a postal worker, Frank Kerr,
was shot to death. As over the Northern Heist, the
two governments where in full outcry and again the
PRM denied senior SF politicians had sanctioned
the robbery as members of the Army Council. In his
book A Secret History of the IRA, Ed Moloney
quotes IRA sources as saying the Army Council did
not directly sanction the Newry robbery, but their
orders during the ceasefire were somewhat ambiguous
in so much as “a general permission had been
granted to continue ‘fund raising’ activity,
ceasefire or no ceasefire. It was a necessary part
of the job of keeping the IRA as efficient as possible.”
[A Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney,
pp 433-434] If the same ambiguous order was given
during the current ceasefire, then those members
of SF who also sit on the Army Council may well
be speaking the truth when they say they did not
know about the Northern robbery before hand.
As it seems unlikely even the most militant Provisional
Republicans will be able to come up with a strategic
argument as to how returning to the armed struggle
will progress their cause, then the road to decommissioning
and dissolution is the only viable option open for
the PIRA, if the PRM are going to have anything
to show for the years of sacrifice. The longer they
take to bring this act about, the more pressure
from the media and their political opponents they
will find themselves under. At times this may well
include lies, slanders and half truths. This being
so, coupled with the ceasefire, the more likely
the PIRA is to descend further into criminality
or become engulfed in bloody feuding, something
to their credit they have in the main astutely avoided
down the years.
Sinn Fein, free of a military wing, that in these
post 9/11 days cannot but be a hindrance politically,
can go forward hopefully as a truly democratic party.
Unless they do this, it is difficult to see how
they will ever gain a large enough electoral mandate,
to implement their programme of equality and the
reunification of Ireland. If the aforementioned
demilitarisation of this struggle were to come about,
then as far as the future prospects of SF was concerned,
all bets would indeed be off and in Ireland at least
the future may well belong to “the wretched
of the earth”*. Having said this, the aforementioned
depends on the decisions the current leadership
of the PRM makes over the coming period.
* The Wretched of the Earth, title of a book by
Franz Fanon, which was said to be a favourite of
Bobby Sands.
