Interview with Irish Republican Army Spokesperson
• What changes in the political climate led to your latest cease-fire? IRA: The key elements which influenced our decision were that the new British Labour government moved with some speed after taking office to deal with the need for all inclusive negotiations and the new Fianna Fail-led government in the south moved to help put a peace process back on the rails from an Irish point of view.
The previous British government, under John Major, had imposed a number of blocking mechanisms or obstacles to prevent inclusive meaningful peace talks taking place. The new British government moved publicly and speedily to address these issues. They removed the precondition of decommissioning, they set a time frame for substantive talks of between now and May next year, they made it clear that such talks would be substantive and inclusive when they were convened on September 15 and that bilateral meetings would start almost immediately after any announcement of an IRA cessation. They also gave public commitments to move on a series of confidence-building measures, including POWs, the Irish lanand issues of equality of
Both London and Dublin governments also committed themselves to the start of negotiations on substantive issues from September 15.
Do you believe there will finally be allparty negotiations?
Well, I believe that all-party negotiations are absolutely necessary for the resolution of the conflict between the and the Irish people. I therefore believe them to be inevitable. Those elected representatives who would refuse to participate in all-party negotiations are wreckers trying to hold back the tide of history.
For our part, we took an initiative in
August 1994 to enhance the potential for a meaningful peace process. That think all Republicans should understand and support them as they do what they believe is right and necessary to bring about a lasting peace. Sinn Fein's stated commitment is to secure a peace settlement which both removes the causes of conflict and takes all the guns, British, Republican, Unionist, Nationalist and Loyalist, out of Irish politics. The Sinn Fein position actually goes beyond the Mitchell principles. Their affirmation of these principles is therefore quite compatible with
As to the IRA's attitude, well, we would have problems with sections of the Mitchell principles. But then the IRA is not a participant in these talks. • Britain insists that reform is conditional on "the consent of the majority of the people in Norther Ireland."
There is no doubt that the British and Unionists have quite deliberately muddled what should be a clear concept by interpreting consent to mean a political veto [for the Unionist Parties] In doing so they have tried to introduce a new precondition into the equation, in the same way as they previously tried to make decommissioning a precondition.
For Republicans any political consent requirement must have a straightforward 32 County [All Ireland] context. It must recognise the properly defined parameters of nationhood and self-determination as understood in international law. Any consent requirement must be defined within the context of
British withdrawal and encompass all the people of Ireland. It cannot therefore be shaped with regard to outside impediment or interference. The idea that a minority grouping in Ireland, situated within the Six Counties [of Northern Ireland], should have a veto over political progress in the island as a whole is anathema to Republicans
Unionists, after all, are in the majority in
Ireland * only three of the 32 counties of Ireland I have no doubt both the Unionists and the British would be among the first to object if someone was to pick any other three counties and suggest they be afforded a similar veto. • In the past the IRA have said there will be no decommissioning [of its weapons as a pre-condition of talks]. Has your position changed?
Not at all. And I don't think anyone has ever realistically expected us to agree to decommissioning before a political settlement. There is no historical precedent in Ireland for such a demand. Those who raised the issue in the first instance and who continue to hype it are interested only in creating an excuse for their own refusal to engage in meaningful negotiations. The seriousness with which they take the issue can be fairly well measured by their lack of focus on any need to decommission the guns of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the British army or the 100,000 and more other "legally' held guns in the Six Counties.
Decommissioning on our part would be tantamount to surrender. It was irresponsible of the last British government to try to use the opportunity provided by our initiative in August 1994 to secure an IRA surrender. It would therefore be doubly irresponsible if the present British government went on that same fruitless pursuit again. Decommissioning should not be allowed to become a distraction from the need for meaningful negotiations.
Those with a genuine interest in developing a peace process which has the potential for producing a just and lasting peace will have no interest in decommissioning beyond the point where all guns are silent. *
Source: An Phoblacht/Republican News - September
11, 1997 - www.irlnet.com/aprn/
Deportation looms for Rosin McAliskey historic opportunity was run into the sand. We now have a second opportunity. We have played our part in restor-
Germany extraditing Roisin McAliskey. Human ing the total cessation [cease-fire] of
August '94. It is for others to play their part and rise to the challenge this renewed opportunity presents them.
• Sinn Fein have affirmed the Mitchell principles. What does the IRA think?
Sinn Fein is a political party with a very substantial democratic mandate
What they do is a matter for them. But I
A last effort is being made to prevent The Royal Ulster Constabulary have fabricated evidence linking her to a bomb attack on British army barracks in Osnabruck, Germany.
The daughter of human rights leader and former British MP, Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, Roisin recently gave birth in a British jail to a baby girl named Loinnir.
Her case has been taken up by
Rights Watch/Helsinki, Amnesty International, Liberty (The British Council of Civil Liberties), and Germany's Society for Threatened People. [JD] * Send your appeals to: The German Justice Minister, Prof. Dr. Edzard Schmidt-Jortzig MdB, Heinemannstr. 6., 53175 Bonn, Germany. Fax: +49 228 58 4525. Email ‹schmidtjortzig@mdb1.bn.eunet.de>