If
the leadership of the PRM agrees to it, as seems
increasingly likely, not only will the senior members
of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning
oversee the destruction of PIRA weaponry, but also
selected members of the Clergy, who due to their
past associations, cannot but be regarded as tools
of the British and Unionist Establishment. If this
happens it will be difficult to disagree with those
Republicans who have for some time been claiming
that not only were the PIRA defeated, but their
leadership is willing to publicly accept this defeat,
something which is unique in Republican annuals.
It also must be conceded when back in the early
1990s a very senior British Government Minister
of the day paraphrased Martin McGuinness as saying,
“We (PIRA) wish to know how the war can be
brought to an end”, this individual was not,
as was then claimed from within Republican circles
lying, but had been speaking the truth. The anti
PIRA wag who recently commented on the internet
that"Paisley will shortly be raffling tickets
to his loyal followers to watch the Ra handing in
all its weapons” was not that far off the mark.
It also appears demands are being made of the PRM
leadership that they concede the right of these
Christian Ministers, who have correctly been described
by Suzanne
Breen in the News Letter as non-entities as
far as the troubles were concerned, to take photographs
of any decommissioning they witness. Which, presumably,
will some time later be passed around within the
Unionist community; in much the same titillating
manner as the snaps that were once taken of the
wretched victims of the Kincora children's home
scandal?
It is very difficult to understand what brought
Mr Adams to this sorry impasse, as he is as aware
as any that to allow your British enemy to gain
access to Irish weaponry goes against hundreds of
years of Irish Rebel custom and practice. If the
fight reached the stage where the Rebel leadership
concluded that victory at that time was unachievable,
then the order went out to dump arms and for volunteers
to return to everyday toil and await better days
and opportunities. Indeed even these days ancient
pikes and flintlocks are still occasionally found
in the lofts or thatch of old houses and barns.
It was not that long ago when Mr Adams and his fellow
Shinners themselves contemptuously referred to the
Official IRA, from which their own organisation
had sprung, as the rusty rifles for doing just this.
Yet it seems Mr Adams is prepared to go one step
farther and allow the British State to oversee the
destruction of the weaponry of the movement he leads
and for what, a united socialist republic or indeed
any kind of unified State for which the fought?
No, simply the opportunity to participate in a Stormont
Government from which the British State can pull
the plug as and when they wish.
It is true that almost all of the PRM prisoners
have been released, but this was always par for
the course when previous IRA campaigns came to an
end; even the most reactionary of Stormont governments
in the North eventually released imprisoned Republicans
once the IRA had been stood down. Yes, SF has made
political gains and if the war was indeed lost,
then Mr Adams is to be congratulated for this achievement,
which is considerable, for without this political
turn and taking into account past history, there
would have been little to show for the enormous
sacrifice Republican activists and the communities
they came from made during the last thirty-four
years. Plus, it has to be said, the suffering they
in turn have inflicted upon the unionist communities
within the North.
Having recognised these political gains and I will
say again they are not to be scoffed at, unless
there is something that Mr Adams and his colleagues
have not made public, it seems to me that in all
probability the vast majority of what has been achieved
since the second ceasefire could have been achieved
without going down the road of decommissioning as
demanded by the British State. Often tradition becomes
just that for very sound reasons and if the order
to dump arms and stand PIRA down had been issued
say some time after the second ceasefire, we may
not have had to go through the tortuous period of
negotiations etc that the people of Ireland have
had to endure of late. Never forget the Unionist
community like their Nationalist neighbours had
in the past always recognised that standing the
IRA down and dumping arms was the traditional method
of bringing IRA campaigns to a close, if only until
another generation takes up the challenge. Back
then unionists had few doubts about this procedure
as they or their fathers before them had personal
experience of it. It was only when the British brought
the decommissioning of PIRA arms into the political
arena that the idea entered their heads. Unionists
quickly saw that this would be an added embarrassment
to their Republican opponents as only a defeated
army hands over its weaponry to those it has fought;
to the victors go the spoils. When they factored
in that they had everything to gain and nothing
to lose from raising this issue of decommissioning,
it quickly became, as the British intended, the
centrepiece of all future negotiations. Once the
decommissioning genie was out of its bottle, it
was never going to be put back until the very last
ounce of semtex and the last bullet within the PIRA
armoury had been destroyed to the (Unionists) satisfaction.
Thus it is difficult not to conclude that this is
another fine mess the PRM leadership has got itself
into. It is worth asking, if only briefly how the
leadership of a movement so steeped in history and
tradition should find themselves in this position,
which goes against all they previously believed.
To be honest I find it bit rich for Gerry Adams
to claim, "Every negotiation, particularly
as it comes to a crucial point is rife with rumour
and speculation. This one is no different, though
the reporting of speculation as fact is irresponsible
journalism,” surely this is another case of
Mr Adams blaming the messenger, something he increasingly
does these days. After all, it is not the media
who has spent endless hours negotiating with the
British as to how they can oversee the destruction
of PIRA's weaponry.
Much of what he mentions above (rumours and innuendos)
has come about because his leadership have from
the start allowed the British State and their loyalist
partners to set the agenda as to how these negotiations
are conducted, i.e., in total secrecy and behind
closed doors (As to the Fianna Fail Government in
the South it is beyond their imagination to even
think of another way of proceeding). For all SF's
leadership's railing against the secret state it
is on this issue guilty of encouraging it. To me
this has been one of the most incredible and dispiriting
aspects of all the negotiations that have taken
place around the Good Friday Agreement. Of all people,
Irish Republicans are more aware than most of the
double dealing and duplicity of the British State
when it has engaged in negotiations with rebellious
Irish men and women. Yet the leadership cadre, presumably,
on the advice of their new found friends in the
Catholic Church and from within the US political
and business community, who encouraged them to go
down this, the same road that has been the very
undoing of previous generations of Irish rebels.
Mistakes, I might add, that generations of Irish
people have subsequently suffered dearly for.
All such negotiations should have been open and
in front of the SF party membership and those they
represent, no secret agreements, cosy one to one
chats, back stairs manoeuvring etc. The last thirty-four
years of trauma and suffering of both communities
in the north of Ireland cried out for it to be so.
As it was clear Unionists were never going to go
down this road voluntarily, SF had a revolutionary
duty to propose doing so. Not, I might add, solely
because the situation demanded it, but also because
of the lessons of history. The British State is
past masters of secret negotiations having had eight
hundred plus years of experience to draw from. That
they were able to entice SFs leadership into participating
in them gave them the upper hand from the start.
In
case some may wish to claim open negotiations are
not possible, I suggest they look at the example
set by Lech Walesa in 1980, when he was the shipyard
workers' leader in Gdansk. Encouraged by Jacek Kuron,
Adam Michnik and other socialists he demanded that
all negotiations between Solidarnoshc (Solidarity)
and the Stalinist government of Poland be open to
the public and broadcast live. Whilst the Stalinists
where dumbstruck by the very thought of negotiating
in front of the very people on whose behalf they
claimed to govern, they had little choice but to
agree and were out-manoeuvred by the Solidarity
team. Of course, much as the British have with the
GFA, they renegaded on what they had agreed to,
introducing martial law one year later. However,
because all negotiations had been out in the open,
when they did so it was clear to all why they had
resorted to this extreme measure and where the blame
lay. The Zapatistas in Mexico are another excellent
example of how, if you trust those you represent,
open negotiations are not only possible but are
a positive advantage and a powerful weapon in the
hand of the non governmental side, as there can
be no future talk of having sold out etc, and it
forces the State to place their cards upon the table
for all to see. Thus, if these negotiations had
been conducted from the start in this manner, Mr
Adams would have had no need to make the kind of
statement I quoted from above, nor as he has continuously
done, return to his political and military base
to reassure them that he and his colleagues involved
in the negotiations were not selling the movement
out nor getting too far ahead of it.
