Everyone hear that the IRA has said that they will not disarm. Hopefully this is the start of a better era for us.

Thursday February 3, 04:37 PM

Deadlock as IRA pulls weapons offer
By Alex Richardson


BELFAST (Reuters) - Hopes for a lasting political settlement between Northern Ireland's feuding communities have faded after the IRA withdrew a conditional offer to scrap its weapons.

But police chiefs do not believe the group is preparing to plunge the province back into the violence which plagued it for 30 years.



An angry statement from the IRA underlined the bleak outlook for Anglo-Irish efforts to return the running of Northern Ireland to its divided Protestant and Catholic communities. It did not explicitly threaten to end its 1997 ceasefire.

"We know they have the capability, we know they have the capacity, (but) we do not think they intend to return to what they would call the war," Chief Constable Hugh Orde told reporters in Belfast on Thursday.



The statement, signed with the IRA's traditional pseudonym "P O'Neill", came as London and Dublin leaders accused the group of blocking political progress after it was widely blamed for a massive Belfast bank heist.

"This is the IRA taking its ball home (sulking) because it has been accused of a bank robbery," said Eamon Phoenix, politics lecturer at Stranmillis College, Belfast.

The IRA, which killed around 1,800 people during a three-decade campaign, had offered in December to disarm as part of a wider deal to revive a provincial parliament in which Protestant and Catholic parties shared power.

That assembly, set up as part of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, which largely ended the violence, collapsed more than two years ago amid recriminations over alleged IRA activity.

Negotiations to revive it failed because Protestant unionists said IRA disarmament must be accompanied by photographic proof -- a demand rejected by the IRA as an unacceptable humiliation.

Hopes of completing the deal have since been dashed by police allegations -- supported by London and Dublin but denied by the IRA -- that the republican group carried out December's 26.5 million pound bank robbery in Belfast.

DISARMAMENT DEAL OFF

"We do not intend to remain quiescent within this unacceptable and unstable situation," said the IRA statement. "It has tried our patience to the limit. Consequently ... we are taking all our proposals off the table."

The IRA has indicated its displeasure with events in a similar manner during previous crises in the peace process.

"I don't read the IRA statement in a negative fashion, quite frankly," Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said.

"I think they are saying what is a fact -- that the negotiations have broken down, everything is off the table and that's the normal course of negotiations."

Political analysts were already predicting little movement on reviving the assembly before May's expected London election, which will be rancorously contested in the province. Now many are predicting a longer political freeze.

"The prospect ... is that the stalemate will continue indefinitely," said an editorial in Thursday's Belfast Telegraph



from www.yahoo.ie

I'm interested in your views on this.

In what way do you think this will be better than the GFA?

I think that we have a much better chance of getting a united Ireland without it. I dnt want to say why

Without the GFA there is only one route- the route of violence. :unsure:

Given that Gadaffi has given up on support for the IRA and that America, having experienced 9/11 will no longer turn a blind eye to IRA supporters in America I think that the routre through violence will prove more difficult in the past.

You may have some other solution in mind but IMO that's the only alternative to the peace process initiated by the GFA.

All the talk about a United Ireland is great. Lets get this straight: A united Ireland is one where alll the children of the island can live in harmony, that DOES NOT include anyone going back to where they came from!!

Indeed- The loyalists are as Irish as the Republicans. They regard themselves as Irish and British.

I think that many who post here and live in continental Europe cannot see that many of us who regard ourselves as British also regard themselves as Scottish/Welsh/English/. In a sense we regard ourselves as having dual nationality.

Interesting to read in this morning's newspapers that Dubya has decided not to invite DUP or Sinn Fein to the St Patrick's day bash at the white house.

Cilldara, I think you quite misunderstand our point. People who would have to go back to Great Britain are : soldiers (logical) unless they want to come and live there peacefully, not as soldiers but as citizens and anyone who participates in the ruling of Ireland by Britain : they could stay only if they abandoned these functions, which seems logical. As for simple citizens who are now unionists, well they can stay, but they would have to accept the fact that Ireland is Irish and now ruled by the Irish. As I said, born Belgian in France, I wouldn't expect France to become Belgian, why should they expect Ireland to be British? Just to please them? If they couldn't accept to be ruled by Ireland, then they'd have the choice to go back. Don't be silly, nobody spoke of deportation. This is only the normal features of the end of any war. American soldiers will have to leave Iraq also someday and everyone will think it normal. But if some American citizens decided to stay in Iraq, they could, so long they don't claim Iraq is American territory. I don't quite understand why this seems so difficult for you to comprehend.

Please Tom, don't make my task even more complicated. You can live in Ireland and consider yourself British if you want : I live in France and consider myself French and Belgian, but as I said, I do not ask French institutions to become Belgian and I accept to live under French laws. The status of the British who live in Ireland should be the status of any foreigner or citizen with foreign origins. You can be proud of your own country, you can like it, but you HAVE TO accept the laws of the country you live in. That's something I'm afraid many nations do not understand : they seem to like travelling so long they're home... Well I mean colonisation and I do not like the idea much. We all see all the wars and massacres that gave. Time for Britain (amongst others) to understand they can rule their own territory, not other people's ones.

Tom:

By this post you're actually stating you know about nothing about Europe and it's people.
I'm a Belgian, I'm also a Fleming. Flanders, you know? A region with it's own government and regional parliament (partial autonomy). Just as the Walloon region and Brussels Capital region (litterally translated i.e.).
What about Spain: Catalunia, the Basque country, Galicia, Asturias, Castilla la Mancha etc...
Did you know Spanish isn't Spanish but the language from Castilla la Mancha: Castillan?
What about France: Corsica, Britanny and -again- the Basque Country?
What about the Netherlands: Friesland?
Switserland: French-speaking part, Italian-speaking part and German-talking part.
Finland: Lappi?

Not to mention other countries in Europe! :blink:

Yes Christophe, I do know that "Spanish" is Castillian. Having visited Aragon and Catalunya I am aware of the spanish situation.
I have also travelled In parts of France, Belgium and Switzerland.
And to be honest Belgium, the swiss federation is and the devolved government of Catalunya are the only parts which come close to the British situation.

I did refer to Nationality in my posts. This is crucial to the difference I see between Britain and the parts you bring up. Your points are about regional identity in most cases.

In Scotland we have a legal system which is completely different from England's, an Education System which is completely different.

Do the parts of the Netherlands have different laws and education systems?
Does Corsica have different laws compared to the Vendee?

Charlotte you come close to the heart of the matter when you consider that Ireland is indeed a post colonial situation. Britain's record here is like that of France.
Reunion, Martinique French Guiana and Guadeloupe are parts of France because their people wish them to be so. They were colonies where the wish of the people was to remain part of France.
Mayotte is an interesting case in French colonial history. It is also French through the wish of its people though the UN has stated that it should be returned to the Comorro islands.
Post colonial settlements will never please everyone. Ireland is a classic example.

hmmm, you may notice it, and you may think it is good, or you may think it is bad...
you may be wish something other or you are wishing that it's like this...

the north is the path of the warrior... the path of CuChulainn, and we can't change it because its destiny. The crow is flying in the Ulster skies

Destiny is a concept used by Demagogues like Hitler and Stalin to pretend that horror is inevitable and by others to explain why they can't be bothered opposing such evil.
We write our own book of destiny- and nothing other than our death is inevitable.

what I mean is fate, you mean destination...
Hitler and Stalin believed, that it had to be like this because they could do it...

we can't write our own book of destiny, therefor the whole mankind has to work together... otherwise there would be something that wouldn't act like its planned
therefore we have to control nature, because a storm can wipe out whole landscapes with thousends of people living on it...
we would be gods if we could control or destiny...

Let's not get into metaphysical discussions, it's quite beside the point. I believe a united Ireland is inevitable, it has nothing to do with fate or destiny, it's just the way i see the course of History in this particular case.

I remember that last year my American Civilisation lecturer had given us as homework an essay. We had to answer to this question : Could the American Revolution have been avoided? The idea, I felt, was quite strange : we were asked to change the course of History, no less, but it was quite interesting to imagine what might have been. My answer was that this revolution might have been avoided if Great Britain's attitude had been different, but that in the end there would have been independance anyway.
I think there are many common points with Ireland. I just hope Great Britain will be wise enough to avoid a violent break out.

This post has been edited by Charlotte: Feb 16 2005, 02:33 AM