Search
Close this search box.

IRA destroy weapons to preserve sectarian Assembly

Earlier this week the Provisional Irish Republican Army destroyed part of its weapons arsenal in order to prop up a Unionist dominated institution which was about to collapse. It has been hailed as an historic step. And indeed it is – backwards!

For 80 years the IRA fought a guerrilla campaign to unite Ireland, which had been partitioned in 1921 by the British and Unionist protestant minority in the north-east of the island.

For most of the intervening years the guerrilla war was desultory and indeed by the late 1960s the IRA was fairly moribund. The civil rights movement in Northern Ireland came into existence which demand equal rights for the catholic minority in the sectarian statelet.

The Unionist state and its police (RUC) smashed them in 1969 and out of the ensuing conflict the IRA was revitalised. In part this was because Catholics thought the IRA may provide some protection against pogroms and in part because they agreed with their goal: the repression convinced most working class Catholics that the sectarian state could not be reformed and that their only salvation was to join a united Ireland.

A fierce mass struggle in the years 1969-72 ended with Stormont (the NI parliament with an in built protestant majority and an apparatus of discrimination and repression) being brought down and direct rule from London instituted.

Between 1972 and the mid-1990s the IRAÕs several hundred fought a guerrilla war. 3600 people have been killed, 1500 or so catholic civilians, the victims of RUC, loyalist paramilitaries British Army violence.

Throughout these years British socialists has a duty to support the struggle of the anti-unionist minority against repression and in clashes between the IRA and the RUC or British army, support the victory of the IRA. Ireland had been partitioned against the clear and expressed will of the majority of the people of Ireland in 1920-21 and the very existence of British-ruled and Unionist-run six county statelet was an affront to democracy.

Nevertheless, socialist revolutionaries did not at all agree with the IRA (and their political wing Sinn Fein) about either the shape of a united Ireland nor how to fight for it.

Sinn Fein/IRA saw in the rulers of the Republic in the south natural allies in the fight for a bourgeois and capitalist (even if based on small scale co-operatives) Ireland. Socialists saw them as exploiters of the mass of the working class in the south and the natural allies of the British in securing partition.

The IRA was a self-selected elite military group. Lightly armed, highly sophisticated in its clandestine organisation, and astute in organising a mass of support in the Irish diaspora to help finance its struggle.

It acted on behalf of the anti-unionist, not through them. They often left them unprotected against RUC violence in the Catholic areas, because the nature of their guerrilla war often took them out of their communities. Tit-for-tat retaliation for attacks was the norm not self-defence.

Most importantly they distrusted the power of the working class, both employed and unemployed, preferring to keep them as a resevoir of electoral support not as the mass social force to be mobilised in the workplace and on the streets to smash the appratus of repression.

Consequently, the IRA could not beat the British militarily, even if it also proved that the British could not isolate and crush the IRA.

By the late 1980s the Sinn Fein leadership led by Gerry Adams internalised this fact. But instead of turning to mass revolutionary socialist politics as the basis of a new strategy they effectively gave up on their stated aims. In 1994 the IRA declared a ceasefire, renewed in 1996. The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) of 1998 embodied the political capitulation of physical force republicanism: In it Sinn Fein recognised the sovereignty of the British over Northern Ireland and the veto of the Unionists on progress towards a united Ireland.

More, it agreed to set up and help run a purely sectarian Assembly of all parties which signed the GFA, a body based on a sectarian head count and checks and balances between “different communities”, thereby institutionalising, rather than breaking down, social, cultural, religious and political divisions between Catholic and Protestant workers.

But the Irish “peace process” between 1998 and this week was marked by perpetual crisis, the source of which was the insistence that the IRA actually destroy its arms (rather than just lock them away) so that the NI state and British could assume once again a monopoly on the means of violence and so neuter any attempt to engineer social and political change by using the threat of a return to violence.

In the last few months alone we have seen the suspension of the Assembly, renewed talks in Britain (Weston Park) between all the GFA parties, renewed Loyalist sectarianism and finally increased military operations by republican splinter groups.

In short the failure of the 1998 GFA, the 1999 elections to the Assembly and the two years of the functioning of the power-sharing Executive failed to resolve the underlying issues that gave rise to the 1969-72 social explosion and ensuing guerrilla war.

The Assembly has merely been a show case for “sectarianism” rather than overcoming it. As a result constitutional unionism and nationalism/republicanism has weakened to the benefit of loyalist paramilitaries and republican splinter groups during the last year.

Roughly three processes have been at work in recent months:

o A resurgence of constitutional Unionism seeking unconditional and unilateral disarmament by the IRA as the price for UnionismÕs continued participation in the devolved institutions. For most of the year the UUP has moved further and further to the right, issuing more and more ultimatums to the SF/IRA that they actually destroy weapons and not just put them in sealed bunkers. The growth of support for lumpen Loyalism and anti-GFA forces within the unionist population had led to stronger influence of Donaldson wing of the UUP. TrimbleÕs position as leader was weakened further by results of the general elections in June which revealed a sharp fall in support for the UUP and an increase for Paisleyites.

Thus as a concession to these forces, in July Trimble resigned as First Minister, forcing the British to suspend the Assembly twice rather than allow it to collapse and force re-elections. This path is resisted by most parties and the British since it would almost certainly result in an increase in DUP and SF votes and seats at the expense of the UUP and SDLP.

In October Trimble attempted to remove SF from the Assembly executive. Failing, he submitted the resignations of his three UUP ministers on 18 October in a further attempt to force SF/IRAÕs hands over weapons.

o The second process has been rise of violent sectarianism by Loyalists against the Catholic community. The UDA publicly renounced GFA in July after most of their prisoners were released under GFA terms, and sectarian attacks on nationalists mounted (including murder of two teenagers), followed by pipe bomb and street attacks in September and the first murder of NI journalist ever (by LVF). Also in early September there was an orchestrated Loyalist campaign of intimidation of Catholic parents and schoolchildren in North Belfast. All this led NI secretary to warn UDA and LVF that there ceasefire would be “derecognised” unless they ceased: further attacks however led Reid to finally withdraw recognition of the UDA/LVF ceasefire in mid-October.

o The third process has been noticeable developments within republicanism. SF and IRA have remained committed to the GFA and the Assembly, opposed to its suspension. But they refused to be bounced by Blair, Clinton, Ahern or Trimble into unilateral moves on weaponsÕ destruction without significant further reforms on the RUC, de-militarisation including some British troop withdrawalÕ and the functioning of the Assembly. The Weston Park in the talks in the summer failed to come up with any and so the IRA refused to make a major move on weapons beyond an “increased engagement with the decommissioning commission”, announced in August.

At the same time and related to the weaknesses of the GFA and disillusion in SF/IRA the Real IRA increased its operations in NI and started them in Britain. In June last year they carried out their first attack in Britain – the bombing of Hammersmith Bridge in London. In January this year, a massive roadside bomb was discovered in Armagh. It was packed with more than 1,000lbs of explosives and was designed to ambush the security forces. In March, the Real IRA exploded a car bomb outside the BBC at White City, followed in August by a further bomb in Ealing, London. In addition there have been a series of audacious attacks against Crown forces in the six counties.

On the other hand, the increased collaboration of the RUC and Gardai has scored a whole series of successes against the Real IRA especially in the last few months. And we can expect a qualitative new level of clampdown on dissident guerrillas of all kinds now in the aftermath of September 11th and the beginning of IRA de-commissioning. In fact this is already under way. The South and British forces has already effectively isolated and corralled and contained them. They will now in the context of the IRA surrender have a new ally in making sure they are not a serious threat to the Good Friday Agreement.

The “peace process” clearly entered a critical phase after the general election. What then explains the timing of the “historic” decision of the IRA on 23 October to confirm that they have destroyed some weapons and explosives the first time ever a republican group has voluntarily done so?

The events on 11 September in New York and Washington clearly left their mark. Republicans were put on the back foot in the USA; funds are drying up, political support for SF in Congress and in USA Irish community has ebbed away all a function or fall-out from “the war against terrorism”.

But events before this need to be dialed in. The arrest of SFÕs representative to the FARC in Colombia earlier in the summer (one of three “terrorist groups” on BushÕs Colombia list) prefigured the events after 11 September and created problems for SF in the USA.

But in addition, we have to say that the pressure of Blair, Unionism, Clinton/Bush on Adams and McGuinness to destroy their arms was intense and incessant. And for SF the GFA and the Assembly was the only game in town, their commitment to its success complete.

While a return to guerrilla war was unthinkable, the crisis in the functioning of the Assembly meant that political support for the GFA was ebbing. So they had to try to convince the IRA to make the required concession to get Trimble and the UUP back into the Executive. Clearly, Blair and Trimble demanded that the IRA jump first, which they have done. But equally clearly, a deal has been done whereby once the IRA made a move, a process of reciprocal demilitarisation of crown forces would start, the Assembly would be rescued and further legislation on Patton reforms of the RUC tabled.

The significance of this new step is immense. Not so much militarily as politically. The unionists can argue that they no longer make concessions with ” a gun pointing at their head”. A crackdown on loyalist paramilitaries can be expected.

Military observation posts in South Armagh are already being dismantled, these hated provocations in the heartlands of republicanism. Further prisoner release will occur. All this will be rightly welcomed by the anti-unionists. But they will not remove the underlying structures of discrimination and repression.

In the short term there is still the issue of Loyalist paramilitary violence against the Catholics. The pipebombs are not likely to stop.

More than ever the Catholics will be dependent on the RUC and army for protection. In the medium term, the Assembly is unlikley to be able to transcend its sectarian character, making unionist obstruction to every attempt at gaining more social justice for the anti-unionists very difficult; rather it will prove the site of frustrated ambitions.

In the longer term Gerry Adams hopes that the 40%of Catholic voters can one day become a majority, a referendum held on whether to join a united Ireland, a prospect likely to be met with pre-emptive violence and legal challenges from the unionists.

In short if there is peace, it will not be one in which justice reigns. What is the alternative?

Immediately there is a need for immediate withdrawal of British troops and the disbanding of the RUC; both causes violence and collude in that of loyalists. And there is a need to fight on the streets, through mass organisations of struggle for them strikes and demonstrations.

There is a need for cross community organisation in the workplace and city-wide that is controlled by the workers themselves and which fights for better pay and conditions, against closures and sackings, and against privatisation and for democratic rights for all the citizens of Northern Ireland.

And against the Assembly there is a need for a democratically elected and convened all-Ireland constituent assembly, based on one person one vote and not weighted to reflect hardened sectarian divisions. This constituent assembly should then debate and decide on the constitution of the island, one country or two and what degree of autonomy for sections of the community.

Socialist revolutionaries will fight for such an assembly to be based on the sovereign power of the working class and poor farmers and a programme that seeks to overthrow capitalism throughout Ireland and destroy its state machine.

Content

You should also read
Share this Article
Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp
Print
Reddit
Telegram
Share this Article
Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp
Print
Reddit
Telegram