[A-List] Sinn Fein chairman plans to be rid of IRA

["James Daly" <james.irldaly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,1220574,00.html

Sinn Fein chairman plans to be rid of IRA

Nicholas Watt, political correspondent

The Guardian

Thursday May 20, 2004

Sinn Fein is determined to "get rid of the IRA", a leading member of
the party has declared in remarkably candid comments about its armed
wing which waged a campaign of violence against British rule in
Northern Ireland.

To the likely horror of republican hardliners, who yearn for a return
to the "long war", the party's national chairman Mitchel McLaughlin
spoke of channelling the IRA's bomb-making "creativity" into politics.

"We are saying it is possible to get rid of the IRA," Mr McLaughlin
told the Guardian. "So how do you dismantle or decommission that kind
of technical expertise? You really have to change the political
circumstances so that people kind of close that chapter and apply that
type of commitment and creativity and innovation to a political
process or other forms of civilianised existence."

Sinn Fein leaders usually observe a vow of silence on the IRA. His
decision to highlight the Sinn Fein strategy of silencing the guns -
and the choice of such a clear phrase as getting rid of the IRA -
shows the party's nervousness about its paramilitary links ahead of
next month's European parliamentary elections.

Sinn Fein is widely expected to win the seat traditionally occupied by
the Social Democratic and Labour party in Northern Ireland and to
capture possibly two seats in the Irish republic. But the party is
deeply concerned that the recent report by the Independent Monitoring
Commission, which ruled that leading members of Sinn Fein direct IRA
violence as members of the body's ruling army council, may harm its
efforts to appeal beyond a traditional republican base. Gerry Adams,
the Sinn Fein president, yesterday launched a legal campaign against
the report in the high court in Belfast.

Mr McLaughlin, one of Sinn Fein's key strategists who is widely seen
as one of the party's most respectable faces, tried to appeal to
mainstream voters by saying that three acts of decommissioning by the
IRA in recent years were designed to bring down the curtain on the
IRA. "Our strategy would have continued that process to the point
where there were no further arms to destroy."

With an eye on republican hardliners, who believe that the impasse in
the peace process raises questions about the merits of the IRA
ceasefire, Mr McLaughlin said the IRA was an "undefeated army."

"The British army fought for 30 years with the IRA and they did not
succeed."

The report of the Independent Monitoring Commission "is quite simply a
regurgitation of the security briefings that are coming from anonymous
sources through selected journalists for a very long time".

The commission has helped to undermine the peace process, Mr
McLaughlin said. "The peace process is in quite significant peril."

He called on London and Dublin to implement key aspects of the Good
Friday agreement which did not need Unionist consent. These are:
changing the police service to bring it into line with the reforms
proposed by Chris Patten; reforming the criminal justice system, and
pressing on with the "equality agenda".