Posted on 04/28/2002 9:17:09 AM PDT by aculeus
IN THE United States, the net is slowly tightening around Sinn Fein-IRA, although there have also been some odd relaxations, where Sinn Fein is concerned. Thus on Thursday last, Henry Hyde, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on International Relations currently examining International Global Terrorism, its links with illicit drugs as illustrated by the IRA and other groups in Colombia drew what might seem at first sight a surprisingly sharp distinction between Sinn Fein and the IRA.
Of the IRA he said that claims that the three Irishmen arrested in Colombia were there for activities related to the peace process are 'an insult to our intelligence.' The IRA, he said had 'significantly enhanced the FARC's campaign of urban terrorism which can already measure its success in thousands of casualties.'
Tough talk indeed about the IRA. But for Sinn Fein, nothing but sweetness and light. About Gerry Adams, Mr Hyde said that 'throughout the long struggle for peace and justice in Northern Ireland he has never given any reason to doubt his word. I accept Mr Adams's statement (denying any Sinn Fein responsibility for the Colombian shenanigans) at face value and ask that it be included in the record.'
Mr Hyde was prudent enough to add a qualification which he may well need in the near future: 'At this time we have no information contradicting this statement.'
So why the sharp distinction attempted between Sinn Fein and the IRA? I think the reason is that Mr Hyde and many of his colleagues have worked very closely and happily with Sinn Fein in the past, especially against the RUC, which Mr Hyde and his friends have consistently depicted against much solid evidence, as collaborating with loyalist paramilitaries. They cannot suddenly extricate themselves from all that without loss of face. So the sharp dichotomy: 'IRA bad. Sinn Fein good' is what they want to believe or, more likely pretend to believe, for the moment.
The Bush Administration which owes nothing whatever to the so-called 'Friends of Ireland in America' can afford to take a more robust view, and does so.
Yesterday, it was reported from Washington that evidence given on Capitol Hill that seven IRA members trained Colombian guerillas could lead to America declaring the Provisionals a banned terrorist organisation. A senior Bush administration official said the statement of General Fernando Tapias to a US Congress committee (regarding Sinn Fein-IRA's involvement in Colombia) was 'so deeply disturbing' that a fundamental reassessment of Sinn Fein's intentions was taking place. The official said all General Tapias's information has been available to British and US intelligence agencies for months. The most worrying aspect, he said was the seniority of some of the seven. 'If those people are who we think they are then it beggars belief that the Sinn Fein leadership did not sanction what was going on.'
That last sentence must send a shiver down the spines of Mr Hyde and his friends. I would expect them very soon to start putting clear blue water between themselves and their former friends in Sinn Fein.
Others also are attracted by the prospect of clear blue water, in the face of the tough line of the Bush government. Mr Adams naturally claimed that Mr Hyde's statement was a clear vindication of Adams's own position.
Our Taoiseach, in view of a recent statement of his that Mr Adams had always told him the truth might perhaps have been expected to back up Mr Adams's claim to have been vindicated. But not so. Our Government was reported as rejecting Mr Adams's claim that the US.
Congressional Colombian hearings would prejudice the upcoming trial there of three Irishmen. As the Irish Times reported on Wednesday: 'Speaking following Mr Adams's long-awaited rejection of the summons, a senior (Irish) government source said the US authorities would regard Mr Adams's refusal to appear before the House of Representatives very seriously.'
That is already clearly the case. But the Irish Times went on to cite the uneasiness of American 'Friends of Ireland' about coming disclosures: 'The fact that Irish-American figures have not been coming out in favour of Sinn Fein indicates that they believe or fear that there will be stuff in (the fresh documentation) that will be embarrassing.'
Since then the disclosures in the fresh documentation have been published and they are indeed embarrassing to the Friends of Ireland in America, and also to lots of people in this country and in Britain. The disclosures in question have a momentum of their own. The Colombian authorities, fully supported, and even instigated by the US administration, strongly backed by the US public, will develop the case against the FARC, and with it the case against Sinn Fein-IRA. They are most unlikely to lose that case, and the men are likely to receive severe jail sentences. Sinn Fein seem certain to protest against the sentences, while disclaiming links with those sentenced. Their protests will certainly fall on deaf ears in the United States, and probably mostly on deaf ears on this side of the ocean also.
Now that Sinn Fein-IRA have become bad news in America, they will soon be bad news here as well. Most Irish people have close kin in America, mostly in the populous Eastern States. Those people, up to now, have been broadly sympathetic to a peace process largely dominated by the so-called 'Friends of Ireland in America.' But the Friends in question are beginning to look perilously like enemies of the United States. And people of Irish origin living in American must now be writing to their relations in Ireland to convey the message that Sinn Fein is no longer the flavour of the month in the United States. That message, which will be growing in strength in the weeks ahead, will be likely to have an impact in the coming elections in this country. The impact will be damaging to Sinn Fein. The ties between this country and the United States are not always as strong as we sometimes proclaim them to be. But they do have a real strength, and we want that strength to remain a reality. Once our people perceive that Sinn Fein-IRA now pose a very real threat to that relationship they will begin to see Sinn Fein-IRA as threatening themselves. I think Sinn Fein candidates in the present elections are about to feel a cold breeze on the backs of their necks.
It took Irish-America a long time to see the light. Where was the outcry after Enniskillen, Warrington, the London City district, etc. Only after dozens of Irish-Americans die in the WTC do they see the reality of terrorism.
One exception: Chuck Feeney, founder of Duty Free Shoppers, who is a multi-millionaire and a supporter of SF if not the IRA itself.
It was a small boat. They managed to kill Mountbatten's young grandson with the same bomb.
IRA 'is teaching Palestinians how to blow up Israeli soldiers' in West Bank
By David Bamber, Home Affairs Correspondent
(Filed: 28/04/2002)
THE IRA has been teaching Palestinian terrorists to build booby-trap bombs for use against Israeli soldiers, according to a British explosives expert working in the Jenin refugee camp.
Paul Collinson, a former Royal Engineers bomb disposal officer working for the Red Cross, said that the devices he had found were identical in every detail to those he had encountered in Northern Ireland.
He told The Telegraph that he had discovered more than 200 explosive devices while working in the camp in the West Bank after the recent Israeli invasion. He said that he was convinced that the bombs were either supplied by the IRA or made under their supervision.
He said: "When I saw the bombs it was like a flashback to Northern Ireland.
"The pipe bombs I found in Jenin are exact replicas of those in Northern Ireland. The size of bomb, the way they put the nail in, the way of igniting it with a light-bulb filament, where they drilled the holes through, the use of a command wire and the means of initiating the bomb; these are all the same.
"They have all the hallmarks of originating from Ireland. When you put two and two together then it seems that they could well have been trained by the IRA."
"They have all the hallmarks of originating from Ireland. When you put two and two together then it seems that they could well have been trained by the IRA."
You don't suppose this might be related to the reason Gerry Adams recently refused an invitation to testify before a US Congressional Committee investigating terrorism?
As regards the Unionist government, the Unionist party was in power in Stormont from 1922 until 1972, so unionist government is a fair description.
Finally, over 70% of the people of Northern Ireland voted for the Good Friday Agreement, which included devolution. Whether they're still happy with the arrangement we shall see in the next Assembly elections.
The Good Friday agreement does not include devolution as a certainty, it includes it as a measure to be voted upon in due course. I am almost certain that when the time comes, a significant majority will vote against unification (you might also consider that opinion poll after opinion poll in Eire demonstrates a substantial majority in the south are opposed to re-unification). It is my firmly held belief that average Irish and British citizens in Northern Ireland do not want to be governed by unreconstructed Marxist revolutionaries (and sometime terrorist killers) like Gerry Adams, Bryan Keenan and Martin McGinness.
You're right of course about the six counties, I lapsed.
As someone who lives in the south, I would never vote for reunification unless the north did first. Dragging one million unionists kicking and screaming into a united Ireland will help no one nor solve anything.
I dont like Commies. I never have and I never will!
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