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Title: IRA Cease-Fire Author: Carolyn Date: 1997 Language: en Topics: IRA, Ireland, Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation Source: Nov/Dec 1997 issue of L&R. Retrieved on 2016-06-13 from https://web.archive.org/web/20160613072401/http://loveandrage.org/?q=node/10
On July 19, 1997 the Irish Republican Army (IRA) announced, “the
unequivocal restoration of the cease-fire of August 1994.” The renewed
cease-fire came soon after the Orange Lodge (a Protestant cultural
organization loyal to the British government) canceled some and rerouted
two of the four Orange Order parades scheduled for July 12. Nationalist
outrage at the beginning of the Loyalist marching season (Loyalists,
also called Unionists, support the enforced “union” of Ireland’s six
northern counties with Britain), forced the Orange Order to cancel the
parades. The widespread demonstrations, protests and rioting caused an
estimated $30 million of damage in the first week in July. This massive
show of resistance followed the July 6 Drumcree Parade which thrust its
way through Republican neighborhoods accompanied by the RUC (Royal
Ulster Constabulary) and the British Army.
The 1994 IRA cease-fire now being restored was ended by the IRA after 17
months because Loyalist political parties refused to meet with Irish
nationalist political party Sinn Fein, and the British government (under
former Prime Minister John Major) demanded that the IRA begin disarming
at the start of all-parties peace negotiations. The IRA resumed its
military campaign on February 9, 1997 with the bombing of the Docklands
in London. The IRA and Sinn Fein both beleive that all-party disarmament
(including that of Republicans, Loyalists and the withdrawal of the
British Army) should begin only after significant progress has been made
in the political negotiation process.
The current IRA cease-fire is timed to increase the pressure on Loyalist
forces. It came on the heels of more than a week of nationalist rioting,
and just days before the July 23 deadline for all parties to respond to
the British and Irish governments’ proposals on the process for
negotiations and the timing for disarmament.
In the past few years, Loyalist terror campaigns and parades celebrating
British imperialism have become a focal point for Republican resistance
to the British occupation of the six northern counties of Ireland. This
year Republicans began gathering days before the Spirit of Drumcree
parade through the small nationalist town of Portadown. The Spirit of
Drumcree and other Loyalist forces engaged in a campaign of
anti-Catholic terror; for weeks they attacked church-goers and tried to
burn down at least one church in the village of Dunloy in the months
preceding the marching season. In response to last year’s nationalist
rebellion, Mo Mowlam, the newly-appointed British Secretary of Northern
Ireland, held more than 20 secret negotiations, feeding speculation that
the new British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s administration was going to
cancel all parades through Republican areas. On July 6, the RUC, British
Army, and over a thousand Orangemen invaded the town of Portadown
attacking peaceful nationalist protesters. Instead of forewarning
nationalist forces, as Mowlam had earlier promised, the government
ordered all Catholics to stay in their homes. The Republican movement
went on the offensive against this pattern of harassment, to the
marching season, and to the persistence of British occupation and
discrimination.
The Blair administration has made a number of concessions to the
Republican movement including maintaining a public dialogue with Sinn
Fein despite continued IRA military actions, and proposing a process of
parallel discussions on issues of disarmament and peace negotiations.
The cease-fire succeeded as a well-timed political tactic, forcing
Loyalist parties to the negotiating table and winning concessions from
the British government.
After meetings with Tony Blair, the main Loyalist political parties
rejected the disarmament proposal brought by the British and Irish
Governments. To avoid looking like the only ones who will not negotiate,
the Ulster Unionist Party, the largest Loyalist political party by far,
announced its willingness to enter some sort of parallel negotiations
process. The Loyalist call for the IRA to disarm before negotiations on
the future of Ireland even begin is basically an insistence on a
symbolic surrender; it serves only to subvert the process of British
military withdrawal from the north of Ireland. The British know that
they cannot defeat the Irish national liberation movement.
In the days after the IRA announced a cease-fire, international
journalists proclaimed that Sinn Fein has softened its commitment to a
united Ireland. The IRA and Sinn Fein have thus far been clear and
consistent in their goals of a united Ireland. Martin McGuiness, chief
negotiator for Sinn Fein, said on July 22 that the IRA would not
surrender “a single bullet” before British troops are out of Ireland and
that “Sinn Fein will enter any negotiations as an Irish republican party
seeking national self-determination for the Irish people and an end to
British rule....It is our view that an independent Ireland achieved by
agreement offers the best and most durable basis for peace and
stability.” Despite lofty pronouncements, Sinn Fein has suggested that
with some form of interim agreement the IRA would probably be willing to
begin disarming before the completion of British withdrawal. It is
unclear how much the IRA will be willing to compromise as negotiations
continue.
More than a few people who participated in or witnessed the massive
outpouring of opposition to the Loyalist marching season are now asking
themselves, “A cease-fire? Why now? We’ve got ‘em on the ropes, let’s
finish them off.” Negotiations with the British government that include
unclear references to interim agreements and parallel negotiations evoke
the specter of Michael Collins and the 1921 partition of Ireland.
[Michael Collins was a member of the Irish Volunteers in the 1916 Easter
Uprising and the director of organization and intelligence for the IRA
until 1921. He played a central role in negotiating the partition of
Ireland, and was one of the signatories of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of
1921. The Treaty partitioned Ireland into the 26 counties of the
Republic of Ireland and a six-county statelet under direct British rule.
In the civil war that followed, Collins commanded the government forces
against the IRA. He was killed in an ambush in 1922.] Many committed
revolutionaries for good and bad reasons reject this negotiation process
especially when it becomes bogged down in confusing details. But while
abstaining from all negotiations might hold the moral high ground, it
doesn’t grasp the current conditions of struggle.
The left in Palestine and elsewhere points to the example of “the peace
settlement” in Palestine and Arafat’s and the PLO’s bankrupt leadership
as proof of the futility of negotiations. The current negotiation
process in Ireland does differ slightly from the situation that brought
the PLO to the negotiating table. Sinn Fein and the IRA are in positions
of relative strength. While the IRA’s military power may have declined
compared to its height in the early 1980s, the Republican movement as a
whole is growing, particularly those forces that are closest to the IRA
and Sinn Fein’s politics. For example in the recent Irish elections Sinn
Fein won its largest electoral victory ever. The British Labour Party’s
electoral victory also adds pressure to Loyalist parties in the north of
Ireland who almost uniformly support (and are supported by) the Tories.
A more fitting comparison for the Irish than Palestine, might be the
EZLN (Zapatistas) in Mexico. While upholding negotiations with the
Mexican ruling class, the EZLN have put the majority of their energy
into building mass resistance to Neoliberalism and mass support for
indigenous rights and autonomy—and they have an army to back them up. In
both cases, the revolutionary movements have used every tactical
military option at their disposal while continuing to develop and rely
on the mass movements that brought them to their current position. Of
course an important distinction between the IRA and the EZLN to note is
the Zapatistas’ rejection of taking state power.
In recent weeks the Republican movement, including Sinn Fein, has
continued to emphasize substantive political issues, demonstrating for
the release of Republican political prisoners, and against police
brutality, state repression, and job discrimination. This emphasis on
mass social movements is more than just another means to a negotiated
settlement; it recognizes that even in the best case scenario,
negotiations will not solve all of Ireland’s social problems. This
contrasts markedly to current-day Palestine, where the PLO, and now the
Palestinian Authority (PA) strives to manage social protest and mass
mobilizations to use solely as a bargaining chip against Israel. Yasir
Arafat and the PA have at times banned public protests and detained
political organizers when negotiations with Israel seemed to be going
well. Arafat and members of the PA have even arrested Palestinian
journalists and activists who have simply questioned policy decisions or
challenged their leadership. Sinn Fein and the IRA have not engaged in
this type of activity and stand against such sectarian politics.
While emphasizing mass protest and resistance, Sinn Fein has continued
to build a Pan-nationalist alliance with more moderate and middle-class
political forces, such as Fianna Fail, the Social Democratic Labour
Party (SDLP) and segments of the Catholic Church. The Workers Solidarity
Movement (WSM), a libertarian communist organization in Ireland has
sharply criticized Sinn Fein for this Pan-nationalist, united front
approach. WSM argues that building a united front submerges the class
struggle for broader unity. This is certainly a real danger, and has no
doubt happened at specific times in Ireland. But this effect is not an
inevitable result of the united front, but dependent on the relationship
of forces in the united front and in Ireland as a whole.
Since the opening of the September 15 Stormont talks (without the
participation of the main Loyalist parties), the situation has changed
rapidly. Protestant paramilitaries considered to be significantly
dominated by British intelligence agencies are now talking of a renewed
campaign of murder in Catholic areas. And more importantly, the Irish
National Liberation Army (INLA) and the Continuity Army Council—IRA
(CAC), two small Republican military organizations have both declared
their intention to challenge the Stormont talks with renewed military
activity.
On September 16 an RUC station was bombed in Markethill, a small town
just outside of Belfast. A few days later the INLA launched a failed
grenade attack in Derry. The IRA has denied the Markethill bombing, and
denounced the two attacks. Recently the CAC took responsibility for the
bombing. The CAC is an armed organization that may be linked to the
political party Republican Sinn Fein, a 1987 split from Sinn Fein.
Republican Sinn Fein differs from Sinn Fein in (1) their refusal to take
seats in or recognize governmental bodies in the northern counties while
Ireland is partitioned, and (2) their demand that Britain declare its
intent to withdraw from Ireland before any negotiations take place. As
for the INLA, they have repeatedly stated that the IRA has conceded too
much too soon. The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) offers an
interesting model for such a consultation. The EZLN has held
locally-based meetings in southern Mexico where their supporting
communities decide on political and military questions. In 1995 the EZLN
circulated a series of questions in their base areas as well as
nationally and internationally on what general direction the Zapatista
movement should go. Who knows whether a similar process could work under
conditions of the “hot” war in northern Ireland. Nevertheless the IRA
cease-fire, the Stormont talks, and their outcome are momentous events
that all Republicans should have a voice in. Some sort of consultation
process is in order. Even so, the INLA has recognized that the
cease-fire has popular support, and have gone as far as to say that
negotiations could move the liberation struggle forward.
The INLA is the armed wing of the Irish Republican Socialist Party
(IRSP), a left-wing split from the Official IRA which halted operations
in 1972 to become the Provisional IRA. The INLA, and the IRSA are
explicitly republican socialists who fight for a united, democratic
socialist republic. Neither the INLA nor the CAC are not against
negotiations in principle; they simply reject the particulars of the
Stormont talks. While the CAC and the most recent incarnation of the
INLA have much less active support now, some independently-minded
Republicans who are uneasy with the IRA and Sinn Fein’s strategy of a
negotiated settlement seem to be looking to these other groups to keep
Sinn Fein on the right path. And if the IRA and Sinn Fein do “sell-out,”
the anti-negotiation Republican organizations might see a rapid increase
in support.
Meanwhile all of the Loyalist political parties have seized upon the
recent bombings as examples of IRA deceit, and have called,
unsuccessfully, for the expulsion of Sinn Fein from the Stormont talks.
The Loyalist parties have suggested that the (Provisional) IRA and the
CAC and the INLA are somehow linked organizationally and politically,
even though British intelligence sources quoted in the mainstream press
acknowledge that there is no working relationship between the
organizations.
The recent bombing and calls to resume armed struggle may short-circuit
the negotiations process and in turn divide and demoralize the
Republican movement. Right now the Stormont talks seem to offer the best
possible solution to the colonial occupation and partition of Ireland.
The IRA and Sinn Fein have seized on this opportunity with massive
support from the Republican community. While different organizations
committed to uniting Ireland should continue to struggle politically
with each other and in the broader society, military actions by the more
marginal groups that have no chance of winning the liberation of Ireland
can only cause a major division in the Republican movement. At this time
a deep division in the Republican movement can only serve the interests
of the Loyalists and the British government. So far Sinn Fein has
conceded nothing. If Stormont were to lead to a settlement similar to
the Treaty of 1921, then revolutionaries would have a responsibility to
push forward by whatever means possible.
What the negotiations will bring is unclear. Sinn Fein and the IRA have
always been clear that freedom for all of Ireland requires both military
and political struggle; and that in order to win, negotiations are a
tactic Republicans need to employ. The tragic history of national
liberation struggles that have lead to neocolonialism illustrates that
there are no easy answers and that a healthy dose of skepticism is
crucial. But this should not lead us to dismiss the Stormont talks out
of hand. The route of a just peace and its form must be worked out in
practice. A massive assault on the British Army occurred in response to
a Unionist parade held the previous day. Thousands of Irish nationalists
chanted “no cease-fire, no cease-fire.” Sinn Fein seems to understand
that nationalist demands for justice and a free Ireland cannot be
negotiated away. Time will tell if they truly understand.