The Challenge Facing The Republicans (from International Viewpoint)

Ireland by Gerry Foley

FOR SOME TIME, THE LEADERS OF THE IRISH REVOLUTIONARY

nationalist movement have been warning that the so-called peace process is in a crisis. On Sept. 30, about 500 activists of Sinn Féin, the political organization that supports the Irish Republican Army, met in Dublin to discuss the results of the negotiations since the indefinite ceasefire declared by the IRA more than a year ago. The negotiations have run up against two main obstacles — the refusal of the British government to offer any remission of sentence for the large number of republican political prisoners and the demand of the British government that the IRA surrender (“decommission”) its weapons before all-party talks can begin. On the eve of the Sinn Féin conference, the clandestine leadership of the IRA issued a statement saying: “[British Prime Minister] John Major’s government know enough of Anglo-Irish history to understand that there is no possibility of disarmament except as part of a negotiated settlement.

Given that history, and the reality that they and their loyalist death squad allies hold the largest stock of licensed and unlicensed weapons, the demand for an IRA handover of weapons is ludicrous.” AT THE SINN FEIN CONFERENCE, the lack of any important British concessions to the republican prisoners was apparently a major source of tension. The Irish Times of Oct.

2 quoted a north Belfast delegate as saying, “Offering prisoners 50% remission [time off for good behavior] — what they had in 1989 — is an insult. There is great frustration in my area about the ‘peace process’. There were indications of tensions at the conference but not of any explicit challenges to the peace negotiations policy of the Sinn Féin leadership.” However, the same north Belfast delegate also said that: “One benefit has been the relationship Sinn Féin has developed with the SDLP [the bourgeois Irish nationalist party in Northern Ireland] and the US. administration. Though, they could both dump us if we go too far for them.” THE MOST NOTABLE RESULT OF THE IRA CEASEFIRE is that republican leaders are now being treated as statesmen by bourgeois governments. In particular, the Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, has been received at the White House and allowed to tour the United States and to raise money for his organization. Apparently republican activists are beginning to think that their seemingly broadminded bourgeois interlocutors might not be very reliable. Well they might. For every word the republican leaders get into the Gerry Foley is the editor of the San-Francisco based newspaper Socialist Action, and a former editor of International Viewpoint 46 = Intemational Viewosint o° 271 — Movember 1995 mass media, the bourgeois rulers get in a thousand. And = the republicans now have better access to the public, thev ca also be more vulnerable to the pressure of public opinio-.

which in n smal circumstances is dominated by th: bourgeois ruil s and press.

For example, polls show that the majority of Catholics + Northern Ireland think that the IRA should give up i:: weapons. That is not surprising. The IRA military strugee had long been in a blind alley, and their arsenal is deriso= by comparison with the weaponry of the police and army. = there were a real chance an acceptable peace, even Casholiz could think that it would be foolish to let the IRA‘: arm: stand in the way. In any case, the involvement of tre Catholic population in Northern Ireland in the struggle = uneven, and the republicans’ popular base depends on ma= involvement. On the other hand, politically experrence: people, even moderates, such as some prominent Catholx priests, have expressed fears that the disarmament of the IR+.

before the achievement of a democratic settlement, wou: expose the Catholic population again to pogroms.

An international commission on decommissioning, chaire= by U.S. Sen. George Mitchel, is expected to be meeting r advance of President Clinton’s planned visit to Ireland r December. In the Oct. 2 Irish Times, political reporter Daglr- De Braden wrote: “Senior sources believe that once it ha: been agreed to establish the commission, it will be citficur for any of the parties to reject its recommendations.”

The British government knows better than anvone that te IRA arsenal is not a significant obstacle to peace negotiztion: The advantage for them in pressing this issue is tha: the know that a section of the movement would regard tre turning in of weapons as surrender. Thus, by mz2kirz “decommissioning” a condition for negotiations, they cat hope to produce a split in the movement.

At the same time, they are increasing the pressure b threatening a new military crackdown. The repusiica: leadership has responded to these tactics by calling for ma= demonstrations to demand multi-party talks. The protiem © that it difficult to mobilize masses of people for such 2 vague and unverifiable objective. On the oher hand, there mzv be : basis for a mass movement for amnesty for the repidlicaé prisoners. On Sept. 27, the European Court on Ruma: Rights at Strasbourg handed down a verdict condemning te British for shooting down three IRA members wiihoiwarning Gibraltar in 1988. The following dav, the S5nts- High Court condemned the Major government for detavinz parole of five republican prisoners. For some vears, humarights advocates defending Irish political prisoners hav: been winning important victories that indicate that tre British repression is becoming discredited in the eves «r informed public opinion. ¥ Se aaa