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IRA arms decommissioned

Staff and agencies
Monday September 26, 2005

General John De Chastelain, head of the International Commission on Decommissioning, announces the IRA has put all of the weapons believed to be in its possession beyond use. Photo: Paul Faith, PA
 
The IRA's last remaining weapons have been put beyond use, bringing an end to the organisation's military struggle against the British in Northern Ireland, the decommissioning watchdog confirmed today.

"The decommissioning of the arms of the IRA is now an accomplished fact," said John de Chastelain, the retired Canadian general who has been responsible for overseeing the decommissioning process since 1997.

"This can be the end of the use of the gun in Irish politics," he added.

He presented a confidential report on his weapons inspections to the British and Irish governments this morning following several months of decommissioning actions in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

He said they had been decommissioning since July but the bulk of the work had been done in the past week, finishing on Saturday.

"The arms involved included the full range of ammunition, rifles, machine guns, mortars, handguns, explosives, explosive substances and other arms," he said.

For the first time, IRA members present at the decommissioning admitted that all their weapons had been put beyond use. "This time when we said to them, 'Is this everything?' they said: 'Yes.'"

Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said that the decommissioning was a "landmark development".

"Today is a momentous day for the people of this island," he said. "Many believed this day would never come. Many believe it should have happened a long time ago. But it has now come.

"We cannot forget our sad and tragic past, but we must now look forward ... I call on everyone to now seize the opportunity that is opening in front of us to build a better Ireland."

The decommissioning was also welcomed by Tony Blair, who said in a statement: "This is an important development in the peace process and one we have all been waiting for, for a long time.

"Successive British governments have sought final and complete decommissioning by the IRA for over 10 years. Failure to deliver it had become a major impediment to moving forward the peace process.

"Today it is finally accomplished. And we have made an important step in the transition from conflict to peace in Northern Ireland. "

A statement released by the IRA read: "The leadership of Oglaigh na h-Eireann announced on July 28 that we had authorised our representative to engage with the IICD to complete the process to verifiably put arms beyond use.

"The IRA leadership can now confirm that the process of putting our arms verifiably beyond use has been completed."

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From Reuters:

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Pro-British opponents of the IRA earlier expressed scepticism about the disarmament move, which was witnessed by officials from the province's Protestant and Roman Catholic churches.

"In the past, decommissioning as a process has been shrouded in secrecy and if we are to increase public confidence in the process then we want it to be more transparent," said Jeffrey Donaldson of the hardline pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

"Now I don't think we are going to get that level of transparency (today) and I think that's most unfortunate."

Before July, the IRA had allowed international monitors, led by retired Canadian General John de Chastelain, to witness three separate acts of arms "decommissioning" but lack of detail meant the moves fell on stony ground with opponents.

The DUP has been pressing for photographic evidence that IRA guns and explosives have been destroyed and a full inventory of the material put beyond use.

Besides a definitive move on weapons, the IRA will need to show opponents in Northern Ireland that it has also ceased involvement in crime and "punishment beatings" carried out as part of its so-called "community policing" of nationalist areas.

Talks on reviving the assembly, the short-lived local government in which Protestants and Catholics together ran the province's affairs, are not expected to begin in earnest until after a fuller report into IRA activity in January.

In the short term, the move could help to defuse tension in the province after rioting earlier this month by pro-British Protestants worried they were being abandoned by the British government.

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The IRA is not cooperating with the inspectors. They likely have not honestly disarmed. They may possess weapons of mass destruction. Sinn Fein may be cooperating with terrorists.

Wait, where have I heard these arguments before?

Some men are just tried and true warmakers, and talk the talk and walk the walk, wherever they go, attempting to destroy concensus and diplomacy wherever it may show its loathsome face. Paisley is one of those men.

[ 26 September 2005: Message edited by: Yst ]

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It's natural that unionists feel suspicion and distrust and scepticism about anything that the IRA does.

After all, the unionist community suffered from years and years of terror by the IRA and there are a tremendous number of victims as a result.

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For years the IRA/Sinn Fein said "NOT A BULLET - NOT AN OUNCE":

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The Sinn Fein leaders - Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness - have taken the IRA to this new position without there being a major split in the organisation.

That has been the major republican achievement - and the internal IRA priority - throughout this process.

The first IRA meeting with General de Chastelain's Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) was in December 1999.

Then, in October 2001, the first IRA arms were put "beyond use".

Before Monday's statement, there had been two other acts in April 2002 and October 2003.

It has been a process conducted in a dark corner. The IRA has done it in its own way, resisting unionist demands for video and photographs.

The bulk of the IRA's weaponry was Libyan supplied. Semtex explosives, surface-to-air missiles, rocket launchers, machine-guns, rifles and handguns - tools of war smuggled into Ireland in the 1980s.

But a string of chief constables in Northern Ireland . . have acknowledged that the biggest threat the IRA poses is its "engineering knowledge" - something that cannot be decommissioned.

Within its ranks, the republican organisation has always had men and women capable of manufacturing a range of improvised weaponry, including bombs, mortars, grenades and rockets.

Yes, the process that General de Chastelain has overseen may well have "put beyond use" those Libyan-supplied and other weapons mentioned earlier, but it has not removed the IRA's capacity for "war".

The political alternative to "armed struggle" argued by Adams and accepted by the IRA leadership now has to flower.

It means the demilitarisation of Northern Ireland society, and it means finding a system of policing that republicans will be prepared to endorse.

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Originally posted by Screaming Lord Byron:
Personally, I'll be happy when Ian Paisley has shuffled off this mortal coil, as the guy has nothing to contribute but hatred and bluster. Sadly, it seems to have a market.

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Quite right. There was a time when he had little support. At that time Sinn Fein had little either. Over the years each has created the market for the other.

In 1969 Paisley ran only 6 candidates, got only 3.8% overall, and could not even win his own seat, but he did get 39% there. In that election the closest thing to Sinn Fein candidates were the "Peoples' Democracy" who got only 4.2% and also ran only 6 candidates. In 1970 Paisley won a by-election and later that year he won a Westminster seat too. In the first proportional election in 1973 Paisley got 10.8% and 8 seats.

In 1982 Sinn Fein first ran under that name. They got 10.1% of the vote while the main nationalist party, the SDLP, got 18.8%. Meanwhile Paisley's DUP got 23.0% while the main unionist party got 29.7%.

Over the years as positions hardened on each side they have finally gotten to the point where the two hardline groups dominate. In that respect, each has benefitted by the delays in decommissioning.

[ 27 September 2005: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]