Daily Ireland Editorial:
Killers are hostile to peace process
Editor: Colin O’Carroll
Daily Ireland, 5 April 2006
The full facts about the death of Denis Donaldson are still to emerge, but
whatever the truth it must be remembered that this if first and foremost a
massive personal tragedy for the Donaldson family who have had a heavy cross
to bear since the grim facts of his secret life emerged in the wake of the
‘Stormontgate’ fiasco.
The IRA has said that it had nothing to do with the killing, Sinn Féin
President Gerry Adams has condemned it outright. The DUP said that eyes
would now be turning in the direction of ‘Sinn Féin/IRA’. The eyes that are
turning in that direction have a history of making considerable political
capital out of unproven allegations – that they should fall on this with
ill-disguised glee is hardly surprising. Still, there’s something deeply
unpleasant at the maelstrom of fact-free disseminating and spin that broke
out even before the body in Glenties had been officially identified. At this
stage no-one knows who killed Denis Donaldson except those who carried out
the killing and those who ordered it. But in the absence of hard
information, we are entitled to ask, cui bono? Who benefits from the death
of a man who proved such a massive embarrassment for the republicans that he
worked for in the open, and the British spooks that he worked for in secret?
For the peace process to be sucked into another debilitating round of claim
and counter-claim about a high-profile crime is the last thing that
mainstream republicans want at this time. The modalities for the resumption
of the political institutions in the North have not yet been worked out, but
the increasing momentum towards the restoration of power-sharing is
undeniable. Add to that increasing confidence about the prospects of Sinn
Féin in the South, where hysterical rejections of the party as potential
coalition government partners are being gradually replaced by the quiet but
unmistakeable shuffle of stances being repositioned, and you wonder why on
earth mainstream republicans would consider the setting of an old score to
be worth the candle. None of this rules out, of course, the very real
possibility that an individual republican’s anger and animus might have been
of sufficient depth to drive him to carry out this murder.
Let’s consider for a moment how much the British intelligence services, Mr
Donaldson’s long-time employer, might have to benefit from his death. In the
years since the IRA ceasefire the attrition rate among those paramilitaries
– mostly loyalist, it has to be said – who were in the pay of the British
state has been chilling. The secrets that Denis Donaldson held he now takes
with him to the grave, just as so many did before him. As so often happens,
this high-profile crime took place just as a significant political
initiative was imminent – in this case an important announcement on the way
forward due to be made by Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair in Armagh tomorrow.
That will most please the securocrats who are intent on bringing this
process down.
