Funferal

IRA ‘taking all proposals off the table’

The IRA has issued a statement announcing that they are withdrawing from the decommissioning process. Among their whining complaints:

We will not betray the courage of the hunger strikers either by tolerating criminality within our own ranks or false allegations of criminality against our organisation by petty politicians motivated by selfish interests, instead of the national need for a successful conclusion to the peace process.

These are the people, it should be noted, who regularly engage in ‘punishment beatings’ and use guns and baseball bats to break teenagers’ legs. But of course in their minds that isn’t criminal – they’re merely the self-appointed, thuggish, ‘police-force’ of ‘their’ areas.
The self-serving nature of their pious condemnation of the other actors in the peace process – talking of the ‘national need’ – is sickening to those of us who have been involved in democratic politics and social action in Ireland. Bear in mind that the crime of these other groups is to seek a permanent end to violence and criminal activity by the IRA and others. The IRA has meanwhile been turning on and off the punishment beatings as best served their interests (and those of their ‘political’ wing, Sinn Féin) and engaging in internal strategising as to whether they should return to violence, and how Sinn Féin could best capitalise on such an occurence. UUP member Michael McGimpsey has it right when he talks of this latest action as “a thinly veiled threat.”