The Provos are going out of business
(by Tommy McKearney, Sunday Tribune)
It would be difficult to overstate the significance of the IRA's statement
of May 6. When P.O'Neill stated on behalf of the Provos that the
organisation would ". completely and verifiably put IRA arms beyond use.."
he was not just addressing Ulster Unionist Party demands. He was signalling
the winding up of the Provisional IRA as an army committed to breaking the
union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland by force if necessary.
This is not what the organisation will tell its members of course. Provo
staff-officers will now tour the country, meeting the troops and explaining
to them what the statement means or more accurately perhaps, what they want
them to believe that it means.
Volunteers will hear that their weapons are, in the final analysis, still
under the control of the IRA's Quarter Master General. They will be told
that the Movement can re-arm rapidly if necessary and all of this against a
reminder that they have fought Her Majesty's armed forces to a stalemate.
It may be some time before the reality of the situation dawns on the Provos'
ever trusting, ever credulous membership. No army anywhere at any time has
put its arsenal into the safekeeping of a third party (especially one that
must report back to that army's enemy) and thereafter retained a capacity to
wage war. An army without unfettered access to its weapons is like a sailor
without a ship - an incongruous, one-dimensional entity. The Provos are
effectively in liquidation.
Naïve Provos may retain dreams of returning to their dumps, rearming anew or
manufacturing home-made material locally. It won't happen. In the first
instance, only the insane would contemplate returning to an arms cache that
has been revealed to strangers, regardless of their integrity.
In the second case there is the question of faith. After having placed one
hard won arsenal under the protection of Cyril Ramaphosa and Martti
Ahtisaari, there will be huge problems persuading arms suppliers to part
with other consignments of potentially embarrassing explosives and surface
to air missiles. This and the fact that the IRA's D.I.Y. arms manufacturers
face the possibility of detection and ultimately the risk of exposure is the
real deterrent to all rearmament proposals.
Logically, the recent statement was designed to reassure a skittish David
Trimble and his sceptical Unionist community that it is safe and wise to do
business with Sinn Féin. All of this will be lost if there is the slightest
evidence of the Provos rearming.
In practice, St. Peter and the Angel Gabriel working together could not
guarantee that restocking would not be discovered. If proof of this fact
were required, it is only necessary to ask those currently on trial in
Florida, or Joe Cahill, or Martin Ferris or a host of other gunrunners and
explosives' manufacturers who ended up in jail. Bluntly speaking this means
that for so long as Sinn Féin remains on its current path, the IRA must
desist from rearming.
The Provos will most likely retain a small but potent supply of arms in
order to maintain a type of Praetorian Guard, no doubt one that will be
quietly tolerated by the British and Irish authorities. For a lengthy period
the leadership will feel insecure in the face of hostility from organised
criminals, unrepentant loyalists and even some die-hard republicans. The
fact though is that their capacity to operate at a broader level will be
effectively curtailed by the commitments made in the recent statement.
When it comes down to it, this announcement amounts to an acceptance of
decommissioning. The impact of this is enormous. The movement led by Adams
and McGuinness has irrevocably opted for the path of parliamentary reform.
This may well be the best and/or only option and time alone will be the
judge of that. What can be said for now is that the Provisionals are no
longer a revolutionary movement. They have crossed the divide that takes
them into the arena of exclusively parliamentary practitioners. Their long
war is over.
May 14, 2000
_________________________
Tommy McKearney is a former IRA prisoner and hunger striker.
(also founder of League of Communist Republicans in Long Kesh circa 1986 -
posters note)
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