Irish News, December 15, 2004
Analysis:
It's impossible to deliver, so let's move on
By Brian Feeney (for the Irish News)
In practical terms decommissioning was always a nonsense. The arguments are
well known. Surrendering weapons doesn't prevent an organisation acquiring
new and more modern weaponry as the Real IRA proved. Besides, at the end of
the IRA campaign improvised devices knocked up in sheds and garages were
causing more devastation than factory-produced military hardware.
Writing in the Irish Times former Irish army commandant Tom Clonan also
points out that there could never be full and complete decommissioning
because the IRA don't know where all the weapons and explosives are, given
the circumstances in which they were hidden. It's always been like that:
rusty old revolvers and Mills bombs from the War of Independence and Civil
War keep turning up. Clonan predicts that for years ahead the army will be
'decommissioning' wee dumps of Semtex, AK-47s and ammo clips found in
hedges and ditches.
We also know that some individuals who defected to the Real IRA pilfered
IRA dumps they knew about. Photographic evidence is also a nonsense.
It is notoriously easy to doctor photos, especially digital ones. Why
would the DUP believe someone showing photos which could be anyone
anywhere, when they won't believe the same person's word that they
witnessed weapons being 'put beyond use'? Tom Clonan concluded therefore
the DUP demand is a 'political red herring'. Of course he's correct. Anyone
with half a brain knows the real reasons behind the demand for
decommissioning.
Michael Oatley, the MI6 officer who acted as the British government's
contact with the IRA for years, was quite explicit about unionists' motives
for demanding weapons surrender. It was, he said in 1999, 'an excuse to
avoid the pursuit of peace'.
It's an excuse which has worked pretty well now for a decade mainly
because both the Irish and British governments have supported each
incremental unionist demand to the hilt.
Why did governments lend their support to demands which they know are
politically motivated and cannot be realised?
They cannot be realised for the practical reasons mentioned here already,
but also for the very good reason that there is no way anyone can ever know
if the IRA has decommissioned all its weaponry. We would end with the
absurd proposition that, even if the IRA were to consent to photographic
evidence, which they won't, the DUP would have to believe the IRA when they
said they had completely decommissioned all their arms.
The DUP would have to answer the question, 'How do you know the IRA have
decommissioned all their weapons?' with the daft response, 'Because the IRA
told us.' Right.
The governments support this pantomime because they adhere to the fallacy
that if they cave in to unionists' demands, no matter how stupid, specious
or provocative, then unionists will ultimately have no alternative but to
be reasonable and see sense and behave like normal political animals.
Wrong. They have never in recorded history acted in such a fashion.
In fact all historical evidence points in the opposite direction to them
being notoriously unreasonable and senseless.
However, the result of the governments acting as the agents of demands
that unionists hoped would prove impossible for republicans to concede is
that republicans have made enormous gains as the price for accepting the
demands, drip by drip.
If republicans didn't have the decommissioning counter the unionists gave
them to play with, would they have got the deal on the men who killed Garda
McCabe? Would they have got speaking rights in the Dail and membership of
the Seanad so readily?
Yet republicans need to decommission and declare the IRA out of business
because they know they won't make electoral progress in the south unless
they do. So what's the solution? Simple.
The proposals Ahern and Blair presented last week represent the high water
mark for SF with all republican demands addressed.
The IRA have their stuff gathered together ready to decommission before
Christmas in a couple of big heaps, the locations of which are known only
to a few IRA men, the Irish special Branch and MI5.
What the IRA should do is shoot the DUP's fox.
Ring up de Chastelain, decommission it all as planned and he will tell the
DUP and the governments it's done. All gone. Sorry lads, nothing to
photograph. The IRA have already decommissioned three batches. They're
going to have to do the rest some time for southern politics. SF have
accepted the political aspects of last week's deal. They've nothing left to
gain by hanging on.
What could the DUP do?
In the end they have to believe the IRA anyway. So why not leave the DUP
looking stupid sooner rather than later?