[BBC News] Chuckies take ball; Go home

pete

IRA withdraws weapons commitment

The IRA has withdrawn its offer to complete the decommissioning process.
In a statement passed to the An Phoblacht newspaper, the organisation said it had taken the offer off the table.

Last year, the IRA said it would complete the decommissioning process within weeks and move into what it called a new mode.

The statement said the British and Irish Governments had tried the organisation's patience to the limit".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4231237.stm

No great surprise there, then.

Sand

Big deal, SF/IRA have consistently dragged their feet on anything asked of them - decomissioning, declaring the "war" is over, ceasing activity - all this is promised to occur at some later date in the future, when they feel like it and not before. Everyone else has to sign up to immediate deals, like the prisoner releases - which in hindsight should have been linked to major steps forward such as decommissioning, good behaviour on the part of the terrorist groups, etc etc.

Who cares that a vague commitment dependant on their less than respected word is not there anymore. If any deal is to be accomplished theyll bring it back, and if no deal is to be accomplished then nothings lost.

pete

quite a bit more detail on the RTE News site:

'The IRA has demonstrated our commitment to the peace process again and again. We want it to succeed. We have played a key role in achieving the progress achieved so far.

'We will not betray the courage of the hunger strikers either by tolerating criminality within our own ranks or false allegations of criminality against our organisation by petty politicians motivated by selfish interests, instead of the national need for a successful conclusion to the peace process'.

Mad Cyril

Sand wrote:

Big deal, SF/IRA have consistently dragged their feet on anything asked of them - decomissioning, declaring the "war" is over, ceasing activity - all this is promised to occur at some later date in the future, when they feel like it and not before. Everyone else has to sign up to immediate deals, like the prisoner releases - which in hindsight should have been linked to major steps forward such as decommissioning, good behaviour on the part of the terrorist groups, etc etc.

Who cares that a vague commitment dependant on their less than respected word is not there anymore. If any deal is to be accomplished theyll bring it back, and if no deal is to be accomplished then nothings lost.

Brendan O connor is almost definitely the worst journalist I ahve ever come across, and that includes Paul Williams

Johnny_the_fox

there goes the peace progress

mike65

Brendan O connor is almost definitely the worst journalist I ahve ever come across, and that includes Paul Williams

Eh?

Anyway, a paddywhack alright. Its all ME Me Me with the Provos.

I'll be interested to "understand" the internal republican dynamic at work. Did the IRA tell Gerry et al this was comming? Or or did Sinn Fein tell the IRA...etc!

Mike.

jbkenn

Johnny_the_fox wrote:

there goes the peace progress

What peace process?

jbkenn

A Dub in Glasgo

Do you remember the killings/bombings/attacks that took 10 years ago? If you do, you will know that there has been a difference since then and that is the peace process in action.

billy the squid

Chuckies take ball; Go home

lol

Now is anyone surprised by this. I mean, how long have the IRA been on "ceasefire" six, seven years? and they still have guns. they got their power sharing assembly, they got their talks between the irish and brittish government, they got their reformation of the RUC and what do they do. nothing

the "conflict " is making too much money for the IRA they have no intention of giving up that tity little earner of theirs.

jbkenn

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

Do you remember the killings/bombings/attacks that took 10 years ago? If you do, you will know that there has been a difference since then and that is the peace process in action.

Oh you mean, the ritual song and dance, the tribal buffoonery, the decommisssioning soap opera, the punishment beatings the continued criminality, the innumerable historic breakthroughs, the false dawns, but most of all the blatant ignoring of the democratic wishes of the majority of decent minded people on this island. That peace process?

jbkenn

A Dub in Glasgo

It certainly is a ritual but to deny that we have had a huge step forward over the last decade is just bonkers. Maybe you can live easier the way it was in the '70s/'80s and early '90s?

cdebru

nothing new the IRA always withdraws from the decommisioning body once the talks break down

dahamsta

mike65 wrote:

Its all ME Me Me with the Provos.

As against ULSTER SAYS NO NO NO?

jbkenn

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

It certainly is a ritual but to deny that we have had a huge step forward over the last decade is just bonkers. Maybe you can live easier the way it was in the '70s/'80s and early '90s?

My memory goes back to 1968, when the Civil Rights Movement started, and I can assure you it was'nt Sinn Fein who were in the front line, it was people like John Hume, Ivan Cooper, Austin Curry, Paddy Devlin and Gerry Fitt the founders of the SDLP

jbkenn

A Dub in Glasgo

jbkenn wrote:

My memory goes back to 1968, when the Civil Rights Movement started, and I can assure you it was'nt Sinn Fein who were in the front line, it was people like John Hume, Ivan Cooper, Austin Curry, Paddy Devlin and Gerry Fitt the founders of the SDLP

jbkenn

Good, use your memory and stop denying that we have had a peace process and the IRA has been on ceasefire (an imperfect one) for about a decade.

sceptre

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

Good, use your memory and stop denying that we have had a peace process and the IRA has been on ceasefire (an imperfect one) for about a decade.

Good, they can have a medal (an imperfect one) for that. In my view, an organisation doesn't deserve adulation for deciding to stop murdering people one sunny morning. The people who managed to convince the thugs to stop using their guns may well (and in this case sometimes do) deserve some adulation and thanks for waking up their knuckle-dragging drinking mates to the idea that the democratic process, where possible, is a good thing to follow rather than putting bullets in people's heads (and/or kneecaps) but frankly they've lost a few brownie points for deciding they'll leave the process open to an armed struggle in the future (just in case you understand, the boys nmay decide that they don't fancy duck-hunting at some point in a few months, cough, cough, mind yerself now)

Yeah, we've had a ceasefire for the last few years. A few charmers (with guns) decided to move northern Ireland towards something that people should be able to take for granted but couldn't because of their actions. And today they took a little bit of that away again. One can harp on about how it's really the fault of government X or politician Y but the bottom line is that they took this decision to take away a little of the security honest innocent folk have begun to take for granted as something they should have as ordinary citizens and they took it away because they wanted to. That's what happened today in the PONeill typing pool.

Hobbes

I am less worried about the decomissioning and more worried about a return to violence.

A Dub in Glasgo

sceptre wrote:

Good, they can have a medal (an imperfect one) for that. In my view, an organisation doesn't deserve adulation for deciding to stop murdering people one sunny morning. The people who managed to convince the thugs to stop using their guns may well (and in this case sometimes do) deserve some adulation and thanks for waking up their knuckle-dragging drinking mates to the idea that the democratic process, where possible, is a good thing to follow rather than putting bullets in people's heads (and/or kneecaps) but frankly they've lost a few brownie points for deciding they'll leave the process open to an armed struggle in the future (just in case you understand, the boys nmay decide that they don't fancy duck-hunting at some point in a few months, cough, cough, mind yerself now)

Yeah, we've had a ceasefire for the last few years. A few charmers (with guns) decided to move northern Ireland towards something that people should be able to take for granted but couldn't because of their actions. And today they took a little bit of that away again. One can harp on about how it's really the fault of government X or politician Y but the bottom line is that they took this decision to take away a little of the security honest innocent folk have begun to take for granted as something they should have as ordinary citizens and they took it away because they wanted to. That's what happened today in the PONeill typing pool.

No one is asking you to have adulation. I am pointing out the futility of 'ignoring' the fact that we have had a peace process and ceasefire over the last decade.

Villain

Mod's can we have one Thread on the IRA statement and one on the Bank robbery, too many threads with the same topic here.


Done - swiss

swiss

I'm disappointed, though not surprised at this outcome.

This is clearly an IRA response to the worsening relations between Sinn Féin and everyone else, which originates primarily from the Northern Bank robbery, as well as the other myriad forms of criminality and brutality in which the IRA is involved. It seems clear to me that the IRA, in all this time was not serious about making any sort of meaningful progress towards ending violence or criminality, and certainly no progress in relation to putting its arsenal beyond use.

If anything, this has made it clear about what the IRA really stand for. If they refuse to accept that they are engaged in criminal activities, what hope do we have that the will is there to stop? A paradigm shift may be needed in that organisation before substantive progress is made. Appeasement, just as Neville Chamberlain discovered in the 1930's, simply does not work with certain organisations.

However, I love the delicious irony in this statement by Gerry Adams

"The two governments have opted for confrontation. They are engaging in the sterile politics of the blame game without any regard for the consequences,"

Villain

I'm very disappointed by the statement but not surprised, I think this was a pro-active statement before the IMC report which will probably recommend sanctions against Sinn Fein.

I do believe however that the IRA can't be declared guilty of the Northern Bank Robbery when we haven't seen one single arrest yet , or one single pound recovered. I mean if they are so sure why don't they lift a people and rattle a few cages.

The Taoiseach is going the wrong way about things here, instead of shouting at Sinn Fein he should be discussing how to get things back on track. Sinn Fein have worked hard to get the IRA to the position where they were about to disarm and it would be crazy to throw all that away because of the opinion of the PSNI Cheif and Garda Commisioner.

BuffyBot

"The two governments have opted for confrontation. They are engaging in the sterile politics of the blame game without any regard for the consequences"

High praise from an acknowledged master!

Sleepy

So if all offers are off the table, does that mean they're retracting their apologies for all the innocents they've killed?

The thread title is very apt.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

cdebru

they sound particularly pissed off

could be a result of being blamed for something they did not do

I would imagine the leadership are under pressure to respond to the attacks on them

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

cdebru

new statement from the IRA

they seem very pissed off the two governments seem to have touched a raw nerve with the provos
lets hope it doesn't all go arseways

mike65

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4234475.stm

The IRA has warned the British and Irish governments "not to underestimate the seriousness of the current situation".

Irish state broadcaster RTE reported a fresh statement from the organisation on Thursday.

It follows a statement on Wednesday in which the group withdrew its offer to put its weapons beyond use.

The IRA continues to deny claims it was behind the £26.5m Northern Bank raid in Belfast.

Thursday's statement said: "The two governments are trying to play down the importance of our statement because they are making a mess of the peace process.

"Do not underestimate the seriousness of the situation."

Mike.

mike65

Did anyone listen to Martin Manseragh this morning, if he is giving SF short shrift (and he did) then things are not going anywhere until SF breaks the link with the IRA. Or the IRA disarm and stop robbing banks.

Mike.

gandalf

Threads merged. So then its business as usual for the Chuckies eh !

gandalf

Actually this now means that the Chuckies are rolling back on their commitments to the GFA agreement. Does that mean the murderers released under it can be rearrested and made serve the remainder of their terms?