IRA takes a step into the future

ANDREW LAXON looks at whether peace could be in sight for Northern Ireland.

Will the IRA's decision to disarm change anything in Northern Ireland?

Commentators have described the IRA's move to start giving up its weapons - known as decommissioning - as historic and remarkable. The IRA has never agreed to disarm before and previous leaders swore it never would. In the past republican paramilitary groups "dumped arms" or buried weapons rather than rendered them useless. The history of the republican movement is built on never laying down arms until Britain leaves Northern Ireland. Any move to do so is seen as surrender.

"You cannot exaggerate the significance of this," says Paul Arthur, a politics professor at Queens University, Belfast.

"It has broken the links with republican mythology in that, while they still do not accept the concept of surrender, they have accepted the necessity for the first time of (providing) visible evidence of putting guns beyond use."

Why did the IRA change its mind?

Northern Ireland's assembly - a Protestant-Catholic attempt at self government set up by the "Good Friday" agreement of 1998 - was on the verge of collapse, potentially taking the peace process with it.

The head of the assembly, David Trimble, leader of the moderate pro-British Ulster Unionist Party, had quit in July over the IRA's refusal to disarm as violence continued. He was followed by four ministers this month. The deadline for suspension of the assembly was midnight today (noon NZ time) but Trimble now says he wants his party to return.

It may seem unlikely that the IRA would want to save the assembly. But its ally, Sinn Fein, was having more success through politics than the republicans had managed in years of armed struggle. Sinn Fein is one of the biggest parties in Northern Ireland. It has four seats in the British parliament and one in Ireland and looks likely to win more. It has negotiated plans to reduce Britain's military presence and reform the Ulster police force.

Did the September 11 attack on the US put pressure on the IRA?

It did - but the IRA was in trouble before that. In August three suspected IRA members (one later confirmed as Sinn Fein's representative in Cuba) were arrested and charged with training left-wing rebels in Colombia. The rebels belonged to the Farc group, a Marxist organisation that the US believes is involved in the drugs trade.

The US, whose citizens are an important source of money for the IRA, was furious and its special envoy to Ireland, Richard Hass, warned that the venture "came within the rubric of terrorism".

The IRA and Sinn Fein came under heavy pressure from the US, British and Irish governments to start disarming.

By this time, the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington had hardened world attitudes towards terrorism. They brought home to many Irish-Americans what attacks on urban populations were all about.

How do we know the IRA is really giving up its weapons?

This is the question British loyalists in Northern Ireland are asking. Ulster Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson questioned if the move was just a one-off, and the deputy leader of the hardline Democratic Unionist Party, Peter Robinson, dismissed it as "smoke and mirrors". On the streets of Belfast, a loyalist man told the Independent: "What does it mean? Covering three bunkers in the south with concrete doesn't mean f ... all. They can still get their guns from Croatia or Colombia, can't they?"

Northern Ireland's Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, headed by retired Canadian General John de Chastelain, has confirmed the IRA's claim that disarmament has begun.

It said: "We have now witnessed an event - which we regard as significant - in which the IRA has put a quantity of arms completely beyond use. The material in question includes arms, ammunition and explosives."

The commission refused to give further details.

But Trimble said he had been told the arms were not just covered over by a "concrete lid" but had been disabled in such a way that they "will never be used again".

What weapons does the IRA have?

Security sources say the IRA arms cache includes three tonnes of Czech-made Semtex plastic explosives - 500 grams brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 - and about 650 AK-47 rifles. It is also thought to have 40 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 500 handguns and a quantity of submachine guns, at least one surface-to-air missile launcher and six flame-throwers.

As well, the IRA is said to have a handful of Barrett Light 50 sniper rifles, accurate at a range of up to 1600m, around 30 machineguns and more than 100 handgrenades. Its firepower is bolstered by about a million rounds of ammunition and a wealth of homemade mortars.

Most of the weapons came from Libya, or from US sympathisers.

Will republican hardliners accept this decision?

Their leaders have spent months making sure everyone was on side for this week's announcement. When Sinn Fein head Gerry Adams signalled the IRA's decision on Tuesday he was flanked by top republican names, including veteran gun-runner Joe Cahill. The audience, which applauded his calls to disarm, included the IRA jail leader at the time of the 1981 hunger strike, Brendan "Bik" MacFarlane.

The biggest danger may come from the so-called Real IRA, a splinter group which continues to use terrorism. It was responsible for the worst attack of the last 30 years, a car bomb which killed 29 people and injured more than 200 in Omagh in August, 1998.

How will the British Government respond?

Britain is expected to gradually cut its troop numbers in Northern Ireland. It agreed in July under the so-called Weston Park plan to the "normalisation" of security in Northern Ireland, depending on how the Good Friday agreement was implemented and the RUC chief constable's assessment of the threat from paramilitaries.

Over time, this would mean the "vacation, return or demolition of the great majority of army bases, the demolition of all surveillance towers, no further army presence in police stations and the use of army helicopters for training purposes only".

As an initial response, Britain is expected to demolish a police lookout post, two army observation towers on the southern border and possibly an army base.

A board involving unionist and nationalist assembly members has already been set up to reform Northern Ireland's police force.

Will pro-British militias give up their weapons too?

Not yet. The IRA's announcement has not won over the staunchly anti-republican Democratic Unionist Party, led by the Reverend Ian Paisley, and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) announced it would not hand in any of its guns.

Trimble has called on loyalist militias to respond to the IRA by disarming. His influence is seen as critical if the IRA's gamble is to lead to further progress.

Many Catholics in Belfast remain deeply cynical. On north Belfast's Ardoyne Rd, 32-year-old Eamonn Keown nods his head towards the Protestant side of the street and says: "The trick is convincing that lot there that it's over."

A community worker who lives in a nationalist area adds: "A prominent unionist said after the IRA ceasefire (in 1994) that it was a dark day for unionism. I can't help feeling that there will be many on the loyalist side who think the IRA decommissioning is also a dark day. They don't want to lose their excuse for holding on to power."

TIMELINE

Key events 1969-2001


December 1969. Fifteen people killed in bomb attack by Protestant Ulster Volunteer Force on a Belfast bar.

January 1972. "Bloody Sunday" - Battalion of British Parachute Regiment fires on a banned civil rights march in Londonderry. Fourteen killed.

July 1972. Eleven killed, 130 injured when IRA sets off 26 bombs in "Bloody Friday" killings in Belfast.

October-November 1974. Wave of IRA bombs in British pubs kills 28 and wounds more than 200.

August 1979. Lord Mountbatten, is killed by a bomb on his boat while fishing in Ireland.

December 1983. IRA bomb at London's Harrods department store kills six.

October 1984. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's cabinet narrowly escapes IRA bomb which kills five at Brighton hotel during her Conservative Party conference.

November 1987. Twelve killed, 63 wounded when IRA bombs Remembrance Day service in Enniskillen, near Irish border.

September 1994. IRA declares ceasefire. Truce by pro-British Protestant guerrillas follows.

February 1996. Ceasefire off after IRA plants a bomb in London's Docklands area. Two dead, 100 wounded.

June 1996. Multi-party talks begin in Belfast. Sinn Fein excluded in absence of IRA truce.

July 1997. IRA declares "unequivocal" ceasefire.

December 1997-April 1998. Tit-for-tat shootings kill 15.

April 1998. Good Friday Agreement peace pact.

June 1998. Elections to the new Northern Ireland assembly.

August 1998. Real IRA bomb kills 29 in Omagh.

December 1999. Northern Ireland gets Protestant-Catholic government, ending 27 years of direct rule from London.

February 2000. Britain suspends Northern Irish cabinet over lack of IRA disarmament. IRA pulls out of arms talks.

May 2000. Britain and Ireland restore Belfast executive after sides embrace fresh proposals.

June 2000. IRA opens arms dumps to inspectors.

March-May 2001. Bombs explode outside BBC's London offices and two postal centres in north London.

July 2001. David Trimble (right)resigns over IRA failure to disarm.

August 2001. Britain and Ireland unveil plan to rescue the Good Friday accord. Britain suspends Northern Ireland cabinet to give leaders more time to agree on disarmament. IRA withdraws offer to put arms "beyond use".

October 2001. Unionist ministers pull out of cabinet after vote fails to have Sinn Fein thrown out of government.

October 23: Gerry Adams urges IRA to disarm.

October 24: IRA announces it has put weapons "beyond use".