The IRA ceases its armed conflict with Great-Britain / L'IRA cesse le conflit armé avec la Grande-Bretagne

IRA LAYS DOWN ITS ARMS

Belfast -- The long-awaited announcement that the Irish Republican Army was declaring an end to its 36-year campaign of violence against Britain is being viewed as a profound turning point that could bring an end to a bloody and painful chapter.

The move, announced Thursday, could possibly shift Northern Ireland's destiny away from the sectarian strife that accompanied the republicans' opposition to British rule and that claimed more than 3,500 lives on all sides.

"This may be the day on which, finally, after all these false dawns and dashed hopes, peace replaced war, politics replaces terror on the island of Ireland," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a televised statement in London.

As other leaders spoke of the need for IRA actions to back up its declaration, Blair said the announcement "creates the circumstances" in which the province's power-sharing local government -- which was established under a 1998 peace accord but suspended in 2000 -- could be revived.

"This is a step of unparalleled magnitude in the recent history of Northern Ireland," he said.

A statement from the White House said, "This IRA statement must now be followed by actions demonstrating the republican movement's unequivocal commitment to the rule of law and to the renunciation of all paramilitary and criminal activities."

The group's statement said, "All IRA units have been ordered to dump arms. " It was read by Seanna Walsh, a member who spent 21 years in prison for his IRA activities.

The statement also pledged "to complete the process to verifiably put its arms beyond use" -- a reference to the IRA's reputedly vast hidden stockpiles of weapons. The IRA also invited two independent clerics, one Catholic, one Protestant, to "testify" to disarmament.

The statement by the IRA said that its leadership had "formally ordered an end to the armed campaign," as the organization calls its military activities, which are described by supporters as a freedom struggle and by critics as terrorism.

The statement did not say the group was disbanding and did not specifically mention the issue of crime by its members, who are blamed for a major bank heist in December and a brutal barroom killing and cover-up in January.

Some skeptics, moreover, recalled previous IRA statements that had failed to secure progress toward a revival of the 1998 Good Friday agreement establishing the province's power-sharing government.

But Britain's Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, said the wording of Thursday's statement was different. "The clarity of this statement is in contrast to its predecessors," Hain said. "It states in plain language that the armed campaign is at an end."

The IRA statement said: "Our decisions have been taken to advance our republican and democratic objectives, including our goal of a united Ireland. We believe there is now an alternative way to achieve this and to end British rule in our country," apparently referring to electoral advances by its Sinn Fein political arm in both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

The statement said all IRA volunteers had been "instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programs through exclusively political means. Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever" -- language taken by outsiders to refer to criminal operations.

Blair said unionists, who want Northern Ireland to remain part of Britain and have always opposed the IRA, would want to ensure that the "clear statement of principle is kept to in practice." In addition, he said, the statement will be taken "as a forthright denunciation of any activity, paramilitary or criminal."

Most unionists are Protestants and comprise the province's largest political group. They are likely to insist on a delay of at least a year before returning to share seats in the provincial legislature with Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing.

"The history of the past decade in Northern Ireland is littered with IRA statements which we were told would be historic," said Ian Paisley, a firebrand leader of the Democratic Unionists, the dominant Protestant political force. "These same statements were followed by the IRA reverting to type and carrying out more of its horrific murders and squalid criminality."

The statement came four months after Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, who denies repeated reports that he has been a IRA commander, called on the guerrilla group to embrace purely political and democratic activity.

Adams said at a news conference in Dublin on Thursday that the IRA move heralded a "new and peaceful mode" in Northern Ireland. "There is a time to resist, to stand up and to confront the enemy by arms if necessary," he said. "In other words, there is a time for war. There is also a time to engage, to reach out, to put the war behind us all."

It took the IRA leadership more than a decade to convince members, who the Irish government says number more than 1,000, that espousing a political strategy is not tantamount to admitting defeat.

The IRA announcement prompted concern that its members might join militant splinter movements, such as the "Real IRA."

That group killed 29 people by detonating a car bomb in Omagh in 1998 -- the deadliest terrorist attack on British soil until the bombings in London three weeks ago. The leaders of such dissident groups have been convicted in recent years after their ranks were infiltrated by undercover police.

Dismantling the IRA's huge stashes of weapons, which are hidden in underground bunkers in the countryside, has been the most stubborn obstacle to a functional power-sharing system between Catholic and Protestant political groups in Northern Ireland.

In August 1994, when the IRA declared its cease-fire, the people of Belfast broke into wild celebrations. On Thursday, the public response was more skeptical.

"I'm very hopeful, for the sake of our grandchildren," said Christine Nolan, 64, while shopping on the Falls Road in the IRA's west Belfast heartland. "But we have been hopeful before, and it's all fallen through."

All true europeans undoubtably feel exceedingly glad upon hearing this news. For europeans killing europeans is a sad and shameful thing and cannot be tolerated anymore!

This occasion is ideal, and I will take it then, to stress the current european need for capable men of strong will and fervent patriotic convictions.
So the IRA is a thing of the past, maybe an ERA is to be the thing of tommorow!

As the muslim hordes consistently grow in number, fanatical imperialism and daring, in our very mist, the people of Europe must unite, empower, educate, organize... and fashion itself into a symphony of shining swords and minds in action.

It would be a great tragedy if many of those who until now have served Ireland with admirable courage and zeal where to defect and collude (as has been alledged to a degree by the media) with such muslim imperialists as Al Qaida, Hizb'Allah, the Muslim Brotherhood and others like them, because of a lack of mission, combined maybe with a dubious sentiment of kinship spawned by some shared methods, and, perhaps above all, because of the difficulties of re-integrating "normal" society after years of a clandestine soldier's life.
Yet there is a mission. There is a war to be fought.
Our time is the dawn of the Age of Civilisations, and their ruthless competition for survival warrants a massive mobilization of resolute sage-soldiers with a will to combat.

Life? Europe!

L'Armée républicaine irlandaise déclare qu'elle renonce à la lutte armée

L'Armée républicaine irlandaise (Ira), organisation paramilitaire du Sinn Fein, a publié le 28 juillet une déclaration annonçant officiellement que cette organisation a décidé de mettre fin à la lutte armée et qu'elle chercherait désormais à parvenir, par le moyen politique, à une paix durable en Irlande du Nord et à réaliser l'unification de l'Irlande. Des analystes estiment que cette position exprimée par l'Ira, en tant qu'un des facteurs les plus importants influençant la situation en Irlande du Nord, permettrait au processus de paix en Irlande du Nord entré dans l'impasse il y a près de trois ans de créer une nouvelle situation.
Selon la déclaration de l'Ira, tous les services et tous les membres de l'Ira ne pourront plus utiliser des armes à partir du 15 heures GMT du 28 juillet et ils ne pourront atteindre leur objectifs que par des moyens pacifique et démocratique. L'Ira terminera le plus vite possible le travail de désarmement. Mais la déclaration souligne que l'Ira ne dissout pas.

Comme le désarmement de l'Ira a des rapports étroits avec le processus de paix de l'Irlande du Nord, après la publication de la nouvelle selon laquelle l'Ira a décidé de renoncer à la lutte armée, le Premier ministre britannique Tony Blair a exprimé son accueil. M. Blair a déclaré le jour même que cette décision de l'Ira revêt une signification importante sans précédent dans l'histoire. Le Premier ministre de la République d'Irlande Bertie Ahern a exprimé aussi sa satisfaction sur la déclaration de l'Ira. Les gouvernements britannique et irlandais ont publié encore une déclaration commune espérant que l'Ira transformera ses déclaration en actes pour promouvoir le processus de paix en Irlande du Nord.

Mais, en comparaison avec des dirigeants des gouvernements britannique et irlandais qui ont fait l'éloge de la décision de l'Ira, des dirigeants des formations protestantes d'Irlande du Nord ont réagi avec prudence vis-à-vis de la déclaration de l'Ira. M. Ian Paisley, dirigeant du Parti unioniste démocratique, première grande formation politique à l'Assemblée d'Irlande du Nord, a déclaré que nous devons attendre les prochaines semaines ou les prochains mois pour voir si les déclarations de l'Ira seraient sûres. Un autre dirigeant du parti politique protestant M. Reg Empev a exprimé un certain doute sur les déclaration de l'Ira.

En outre, comment l'Ira abandonne sa lutte armée, ça, ce n'est pas un simple problèmes technique. Au cours de quelques années écoulées, l'Ira avait mené, d'une façon clendestine et à plusieurs reprises, des « déarmements partiels » sous la surveillance d'une institution internationale neutre. Mais, le Parti unioniste démocratique qui s'oppose à l'Ira adopte une position dure. Il réclame que des photos du désarmement soient prises pour garantir un niveau de transparence qui serait nécessaire pour réellement assurer un désarmement total. Cette demande est considérée comme une « humiliation » par l'Ira et elle a été rejetée par celle-ci. C'est justement pour cette raison que la description des termes sur l'abandon de la lutte armée dans la déclaration publiée le 28 juillet par l'Ira a suscité une grande attention du public. Cependant, on ne trouve pas dans la déclaration le calendrier concret sur le désarmement. La déclaration dit seulement que des représentantrs de l'Ira coopéreraient avec l'institution internationale neutre qui superviserait le désarmement de l'Ira et qu'ils inviteraient des personnalités indépendantes participant au processus de paix à être le temoin du désarmement. On ne sait pas encore pour le moment si cette méthode pourrait être approuvées par les principales formations protestantes d'Irlande du Nord.

L'AEP se félicite de cette cessation de conflit intra-européen et espère que le sort de l'Irlande du Nord saura être réglé à l'amiable et rapidement.