Resistance will endure, warns Irish hardliner

BELFAST - On the morning that the Police Service of Northern Ireland buried Stephen Carroll, its first victim of terrorism, a 77-year-old grandfather and icon for a new generation of hard-line republicans was paying his respects to some of his "own" fallen.

In a bleak, isolated corner of County Roscommon, Ruairi O'Bradaigh came to honour the dead from IRA campaigns of the 20th century.

This uncompromising opponent of the project of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to bring republican violence in Ireland to a final end pointed to an inscription on a headstone bearing the names of IRA members killed in the Irish War of Independence and subsequent civil war.

The president of Republican Sinn Fein (RSF) nodded towards the legend beneath the roll of honour as justification for continued "armed resistance" to Britain. "They gave their lives for the 32-county Republic which has yet to be attained," it reads.

It is a defiant reminder that the Irish republican family is split about a political settlement in Northern Ireland that has resulted in the once unthinkable: Sinn Fein sharing power with unionists - who support the union with Great Britain - in a devolved government.

In the past two weeks, republican dissident terrorist groups have shot dead two British soldiers and a police officer. Sappers Mark Quinsey, a 23-year-old from Birmingham, and 21-year-old Londoner Patrick Azimkar were killed outside Massereene Barracks in Antrim town in the Real IRA attack.

Forty-eight hours later, the armed group allied to O'Bradaigh's Republican Sinn Fein, the Continuity IRA, shot dead Stephen Carroll as he answered a call from a woman whose house was under attack by youths in Craigavon, North Armagh.

O'Bradaigh, a republican veteran with almost 60 years of service to Sinn Fein and the IRA, said such attacks would be repeated in the near future.

"I have always said that anyone with an acquaintance with Irish history would realise what happens. Ireland was invaded by England and colonised and this was met with resistance. That resistance has been the way for hundreds of years."

One of the most dramatic developments has been the increasing sense of unity between unionists and nationalists sharing power in Stormont in standing up to the gunmen.

Old foes such as McGuinness, a former IRA chief-of-staff like O'Bradaigh, joined Democratic Unionist leader Peter Robinson in condemning the killings in Antrim and Craigavon. McGuinness led Sinn Fein over a dangerous rubicon by calling on the party's supporters to pass information to the

PSNI to catch the killers of British troops and a policeman. The Sinn Fein MP even denounced the Real IRA and Continuity IRA as "traitors" to the people of Ireland.

O'Bradaigh guffawed over McGuinness's use of the term "traitors".

"When I heard it, I thought immediately, 'Who is the traitor?' Is it those who just behave as they always behaved and believe sincerely as they always believed in republican struggle?

Or are they the people who turned their coats like McGuinness, accepted British rule, destroyed the arms, who said they would never accept a unionist veto and now have done so? In my view, McGuinness has abused words."

In a chilling warning to young Catholics in Northern Ireland encouraged for the first time in decades by Sinn Fein to join the police, O'Bradaigh said: "I think that's a very unwise thing to urge people to do because that's obviously going to put them in harm's way. My advice would be don't join up, and I think it's wrong to encourage young people to join the British forces."

O'Bradaigh's advice extends to those who vote for Sinn Fein and who have been encouraged by Adams and McGuinness to pass on information about the soldiers' and policeman's killers to the police.

"The record stands. People were shot dead for doing that [informing] and, just as I would say the Provos should not be calling on people to join the British forces, I would also say that they should not call on people to give information to the British occupation regime in Ireland. Because that is treachery and they [the Provos] are the very ones who called it treachery and carried out certain consequences for those unfortunates who informed."

The RSF leader, who founded the organisation during a split from Adams and his supporters 23 years ago, has remained unbending in his support for those who choose to take up arms.

There are two main organisations offering what O'Bradaigh termed "armed resistance" to the political settlement in Northern Ireland - the Continuity IRA and Real IRA. The latter, founded in 1997, was behind the double murder, while CIRA carried out the sniper attack that killed PSNI officer Carroll.

CIRA grew out of the split in 1986 and regards itself as the more ideologically pure, true inheritor of the republican tradition. Both organisations believe that Sinn Fein's participation in a power-sharing devolved government still ultimately dependent on the UK amounts to a "sell-out".

To CIRA and their political allies such as O'Bradaigh, Catholic policemen like Stephen Carroll are merely the "armed adjunct" of the British Army.

While Northern Ireland remains within the UK, no amount of reforms or increasing numbers of Catholics joining the PSNI will change that perception among the hardliners. Such officers remain high on the dissidents' target lists, which have widened to include local political leaders.

Around a dozen members of the Northern Ireland Assembly were told last week to step up their personal security.

O'Bradaigh's recalcitrance reflects a wider challenge facing the Irish and British Governments and the parties sharing power at Stormont, including Sinn Fein: How to push on with political progress behind an increasingly loud soundtrack of gunfire and explosions.

The Northern Ireland peace process will receive a major boost when McGuinness and Robinson today meet President Barack Obama in the White House for a St Patrick's Day function.

Northern Ireland office officials hope that Obama will announce a flying visit to Belfast next month when he arrives in the UK for the G20 global economic summit.

O'Bradaigh remains defiant: "As long as the British remain in a part of Ireland, there will always be some kind of IRA to stand up to them."

REPUBLICAN SPLITS 1969-70

The IRA divides into the Official and Provisional wings. The PIRA's emergence coincides with loyalist attacks on Catholic homes in Belfast.

1975
The Official IRA split again and a faction that wants to return to violence, the Irish National Liberation Army, is formed.

1986
A split in Sinn Fein over Gerry Adams's desire to get the party to recognise the legitimacy of the Irish Dail (parliament) produces another divide within PIRA. Those following Ruairi O'Bradaigh and the newly formed Republican Sinn Fein establish the Continuity IRA.

1997
A minority faction opposed to Sinn Fein sets up the Real IRA. After the Good Friday Agreement peace accord is signed in 1998, the Real IRA carries out mortar attacks and a bomb at Omagh kills 29 people.

- OBSERVER