Under fire, IRA returns to menacing form of old

[emad]

Sunday Times
Liam Clarke, Northern Ireland Editor



GERRY ADAMS quoted Woody Guthrie instead of Padraic Pearse or James Connolly when he was questioned about the Northern Bank robbery this week.

“I don’t just talk about this bank robbery or other robberies of that nature. I talk, as Woody Guthrie once said, ‘Some men rob you with a six-gun and some with a fountain pen’.” A few moments earlier, the Sinn Fein leader had parried questions with talk of banks ripping off their customers. The message was clear: robbing banks is no worse — better maybe — than running them.

It was the latest desperate blast from a republican smoke machine that has been working overtime for more than a month to cloud the issue of who robbed the Northern Bank of £26.5m. Since Christmas we have had four IRA statements, two signed and two whispered in the ears of journalists, and each has been more menacing than the last. The first two denied the robbery, the second pair warned of dire consequences if the IRA continued to take the blame.

In the past such statements have been treated with exaggerated respect and parsed carefully by analysts for hidden messages. This year it’s different. Each one has been dismissed by the British and Irish governments as soon as it was issued. As a result, the IRA’s tone has become ever more shrill. The second-last statement introduced a whiff of cordite by recalling the circumstances in which a previous IRA ceasefire had ended, withdrawing its offer to disarm and warning that the
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1472123,00.html

[DaveinMD]

1. what about the all the protestant paras

that have never stopped violence. Paisley has never renounced discrimination against catholic communities. The IRA has continued to make concessions and every time the unionists/loyalists/British make another demand. The forces of the status quo don't want power sharing. They never have. They want to continue to exert dominance over nationalist communities.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

3. I agree, I think the loyalist paramilitary violence isn't give as much

attention. I still don't think the IRA occupies any moral high ground (that it thinks it does), especially when they are doing bank robberies and punishment beatings.

http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/ireland/Full_Story/did-sgl6PlxJ6qDVQsglO-LCk0lQvU.asp

[DaveinMD]

5. there is no proof

that they are involved in the bank robbery. The same tired accusations from the forces of the status quo. Ask the Guilford Four about the veracity of the allegations that were made against them. Falsely accusing people is not new for the British and unionists.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

7. The Irish government and Irish intelligence also blame the IRA

Do they have a history of falsely accusing people?

[DaveinMD]

8. Fianna Fail

is doing anything they can to discredit Sinn Fein because they are losing votes to them in Southern Elections. Fianna Fail promotes themselves as a Republican Party. But they really haven't been for quite some time. Sinn Fein is eating into their support, so they will do what they can to discredit Sinn Fein. And Irish Intelligence has had a long history of opposing the IRA and its aims. Do some reading on this subject. There is a lot of good history there.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

11. Can you provide me with any proof that there is this conspiracy

Involving: the UK Government, Irish Government, Fine Gael, Irish Labour Party, SDLP, UUP, DUP, Irish Intelligence, European Union and British intelligence to frame Sinn Fein/IRA?

[DaveinMD]

20. There has been no proof

of any of the allegations against the IRA. Read some Irish History and you will see proof of this collusion. Start with IRA a history by the Tim Pat Coogan. Then read The Committee. That documents and proves collusion between the RUC, British Intelligence and Loyalist Death squads.

[RB TexLa]

4. What about the fact that Ireland is not Britain

Is that just supposed to be forgotten? The number of years an illegal occupation has be ongoing does not bring legitimatize to it.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

6. How is it illegal exactly?

A majority of people in Northern Ireland favour continued union with Britain. A majority of people in the Republic of Ireland don't want a 'united Ireland'. Do you support enforcing a united Ireland against the will of the majority of people in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland?

[Padraig18]

10. It is illegal because it is an occupation of sovereign territory.

Just because GB decided to un-occupy all but 6 counties, that somehow makes the occupation of the remaining 6 legitimate? Let's not forget that GB invaded Ireland and subjugated it for 500 years, shall we?

:wtf:

[Anarcho-Socialist]

12. Sovereign territory claimed by which other country?

[Padraig18]

13. It is ALL historically Ireland.

It was ALL Ireland until GB partitioned it off in the '20s.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

14. The Republic of Ireland dropped it's territorial claim in 1998

which was not actively sought since the 1960s. It's current status is covered the United Nations Agreement on Decolonization where territories are subject to democratic self-determination to decide their status.

The reason that the U.K. has sovereignty over Northern Ireland is because there is a MAJORITY in Northern Ireland who favour continued union with Great Britain. This is why the SDLP and Sinn Fein have not pressed for a referendum because they know that the 6 counties would not vote for a united Ireland.

We can look at historical British conquest in Ireland as a reason why the U.K. shouldn't have sovereignty, but the barometer today is self-determination and a majority in the 6 counties favour continued ties with Britain; and the Republic of Ireland doesn't particularly want a united Ireland either.

If we decide that the historical British conquest is enough reason for a united Ireland, then that must also logical that the United States return Texas and the Southwest that was forcibly annexed from Mexico. Or that the United States agrees to pull out of upstate NY as it was forcibly annexed from the Iroquois Confederacy.

[Padraig18]

15. I don't give a rat's ARSE what the ROI did; the PEOPLE did not.

"Ireland's right to sovereignty, independence and unity are inalienable and indefeasible. It is for the Irish people as a whole to determine the future status of Ireland. Neither Britain nor a small minority selected by Britain has any right to partition the ancient island of Ireland, nor to determine its future as a sovereign nation."

--— Sean MacBride, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

The right of the Irish people, as a whole, to national self-determination is supported by universally recognised principles of international law. Britain's policy of maintaining the forced, artificial union between Great Britain and the six counties runs contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and its declaration on the 'Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and People. This asserts that the subjection of peoples to alien subjugation is a denial of fundamental human rights and the right of all peoples to self-determination.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

16. Some people, a majority in Northern Ireland don't want a united Ireland

A majority in the Republic of Ireland don't want a united Ireland. For a united Ireland to happen there needs to be a majority in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Don't you think that the people of Northern Ireland have a right to say what country has sovereignty over them?

EDIT:
Also I think McBride was an IRA man and he's interpreting UN statute his own way. If Britain was doing wrong per the UN statute, I think someone in the U.N. would have a brought a resolution against them.

[Padraig18]

17. They should have *a* say, but not *the* say.

Britain's presence and influence has been divisive and destructive and has prevented the Irish people from resolving our differences. The divisions in Ireland today, as in the past, stem from the immediate realities of the British presence. The 'Northern Ireland' state was created by Britain in 1921 when London partitioned our country, without our consent and against the wishes of the vast majority of the Irish people. Since its creation there has been perpetual crisis, repression and injustice and a permanent 'state of emergency'.

Since 1969 when the reality of life for Irish nationalists living in the British-created sectarian state was exposed to international scrutiny the overall situation has not improved for nationalists. The inequalities and injustice on which the state was founded have not been removed. Instead layers of repression and injustice have been added.

An internal six-county arrangement cannot work. There has to be fundamental constitutional and political change. The partition of Ireland has failed. The political settlements imposed by the Act of Union 1800 and the Government of Ireland Act 1920 have failed the people of Ireland and the people of these islands. They have failed the fundamental test of providing lasting peace and stability. Instead there has been division, inequality and conflict.

The border partitioning Ireland was contrived by a British government to ensure an artificially constructed unionist majority. The partitioned area had no basis in geography or history, and its proposal had the distinction of being opposed by both nationalists and unionists of the time. Not a single Irish member, nationalist or unionist, of the Westminster Parliament voted for the "Partition Act" - the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. The consent of the Irish people to the division of our country was never sought and has never been given and the continuing wish of the overwhelming majority of the people of this island is for national unity.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

18. Are you going to be the one to tell the people in Northern Ireland

that they have no right to self-determination because you didn't like the partition in 1922?

You don't seem to be offering the people of Ireland any choice - it's a united Ireland or nothing. Why can't we just say to the people in Northern Ireland, you have the freedom to choose your own destity - and if a majority favours union with Britain, then the union is kept; if a majority favours to be united with a Republic, then that outcome is arranged; or a dual-sovereign solution?

[Padraig18]

19. The freedom to continue a fundamental injustice?

Partition meant the arbitrary division of Ireland. Areas and communities with nationalist majorities were incorporated into a statelet which sought, with the financial and military support of the British government, to create in the words of one of its advocates "a Protestant state for a Protestant people". Indeed, a leading Unionist of the time, Walter Long, in a letter to Lloyd George explained that the exclusion of three of the Ulster counties was on the basis that this would guarantee "Unionist supremacy" in the new state.

For over 50 years the Unionist leadership implemented a repressive regime through the use of the Special Powers Act, the RUC and the B Specials and the use of internment without trial in every decade from the 1920's to the 1970's, a clear illustration of the permanent state of crisis which existed in the six counties.

Coercive legislation continues today with the Emergency Provisions Act and the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

The most obvious symptom of the failure of partition is that it has not produced durable peace or stability. A fundamental consequence of partition has been the institutionalising of injustice and sectarianism.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

21. There could be other options instead of forcing a united Ireland

by gun point. Nationalist areas could be regrouped in to the Republic of Ireland, or a dual-sovereignty arrangement is reached. Whatever the option, the people there should at least be permitted to vote on it.

More Irish live in Great Britain that there are on the island of Ireland and the vast majority there suffer no exclusion or discrimination. Anti-catholic and anti-nationalist biases are endemic in Northern Ireland, I don't think change is impossible. There has been progress since the bad days of the 1970s, but everyone knows it's not enough. Ghandi brought down British rule in India by peaceful means and I think change for civil rights in Northern Ireland can be brought by peaceful means too. Change needs to be peaceful and democratic.

[Padraig18]

22. Why should there be another option?

Why should an illegal, colonial rump state be permitted to continue its existence? Good God, the ROI is hardly Stalinist Russia, so why do people always make it sound like reunification would be the equivalent of a Siberian labor camp?

:wtf:

[Anarcho-Socialist]

23. People tend to like decide via democratic elections on whether

the place they live is going to be incorporated into another country.

EDIT: Forcing a people against their will into a united Ireland makes it no better than what the British did to force Ireland into the U.K. in 1801.

[Padraig18]

24. Why should they have the luxury? The Irish people were never given it.

The particular structure of political unity desired by nationalists and which they would wish to see established is a unitary state, achieved as a result of negotiations, determined by the people of Ireland alone embracing the whole island of Ireland and providing irrevocable guarantees for the protection of the rights and liberties of every citizen on this island including the communal and cultural rights of both nationalists and unionists.

[Padraig18]

25. I'm going to go eat supper. n/t

[Anarcho-Socialist]

26. I think it's clear that we're not going to convince each other

I respect your opinion and I respect you as a fellow DUer and for your contributions to these forums. This conversation has been very demanding due to the emotive subject involved. I am going to leave this subject there for now as I'm need a rest from it. Thank you for the debate.

[Cuban_Liberal]

27. Wouldn't that be 3 wrongs?

The conquest was the first, the illegal partition was the second. It seems as though people are always concerned with doing 'justice' for NI now, while conveniently dismissing out of hand the 500 years of injustices done before and perpetuated by the partition to this very day.

:eyes:

[Anarcho-Socialist]

28. There have certainly been injustices, it's sad for everyone involved

[Cuban_Liberal]

29. If I'm catching his drift, what I think Paddy means is...

The peoples of NI and the ROI--- but NOT the British government--- should be allowed to resolve this issue. I don't get a sense of 'at the point of a gun' reunification from his posts, at all. I think what he's saying is that no one should be allowed to veto a priori the issue of Irish reunification.

[chelsea0011]

2. Gerry sounding a bit like Jesse James

Isn't Jesse James kind of a folk hero in the USA?

[Padraig18]

9. What utter crap!

:eyes:

[emad]

30. "Secret service defied neutrality during second world war:

A little background:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1216785&mesg_id=1216785