FOLLY OF AN AMNESTY FOR OFFENCES NOT YET COMMITTED
The folly of an amnesty for offences not yet committed was an assurance of an atrocity
Analysis by Kevin Myers
A COVERT political culture such as that of Sinn Fein/IRA, which has exalted violence for two-and-a-half decades, inevitably created acolytes who still believe in the old ways. Is this not the way humans behave, either in the mad liturgies of the worship of the gun and Semtex, or in the sedater habits of the Roman Catholic Church?
Under the McGuinness/Adams leadership the IRA had its Vatican II and the Real IRA is merely an insane terrorist image of the tridentine movement's affection for traditional liturgy.
So the emergence of the Real IRA was perfectly predictable - as was its decision to use the prevailing political and policing culture of niceness to start its war again. And so too was its decision to avail of the End-of-Hostilities Sale, Once in a Lifetime Offer, Three Years' Maximum in Jail for All Offences, once things started to go wrong with its campaign.
And that is what has happened. The folly of permitting offering an amnesty for offences not yet committed was an assurance of a terrorist atrocity, sooner or later - indeed, the probability of an amnesty-to-come almost certainly steeled the INLA to start the process with the murder of Billy Wright in the Maze.
Was three years certain jail worth it? Three years of free association, no work, self-catering, splendid educational facilities, occasional booze and sex and dope, in exchange for killing a man you hate, after which the State puts a few grand in your pocket and lets you go? Are you kidding? What honest to God terrorist wouldn't do such a deal?
So came the dawning realisation that this was the most perfect time to be a terrorist. For terrorists are like children; their greatest ambition is to misbehave without unpredictable consequence to themselves and this was the promise the British and the Irish Governments made to all terrorists: whatever you do, provided it is done by a certain date, you will only serve three years in jail.
Yet the Real IRA campaign was perfectly avoidable, for after the Good Friday Agreement, the referendums and the Assembly elections, the two governments had the ultimate moral authority to intern those who insisted on continuing the war. They did not need to intern many; actually, one would probably have done.
A Dubliner, he was formerly the master bomb-maker of the Provisional IRA. Without him the Real IRA probably couldn't have made a Halloween cracker. With him, they gave us Omagh.
Making bombs is what he does. It is what his movement has been doing for nearly three decades. The very first Provisional IRA bomb ever killed two policemen on August 15, 1970; the Omagh Holocaust fell on the 28th anniversary of that atrocity.
Others might choose new ways, but he stuck to the old methods in which he was led by those who are now so wide-eyed in their denunciation of him and his deeds. Others might forget - but he can remember so many IRA sub-Omaghs; Shankill Road furniture warehouse, Red Lion, Donegall Street, Newry Customs House, Three Step Inn, Mountainview Tavern, Bloody Friday, Claudy. Cole-raine, La Mon, Harrods.
And so on. They were Omagh on the instalment plan; Omagh merely came in a single atrocious payment.
The fertility of our Troubles is breath taking, endlessly giving fresh form to old disagreements. This terrible summer, with the incineration of the three Quinn boys and the Holocaust of Omagh, must have slaked even the most brutal and the most stupid of their appetite for more blood. But we have said that before.
No one is humanly capable of the forgiveness these unpunishable deeds demand; and therein lies the next lush harvest of distress. These Troubles, they haven't gone away you know.
Kevin Myers is an Irish Times columnist.
Analysis by Kevin Myers
A COVERT political culture such as that of Sinn Fein/IRA, which has exalted violence for two-and-a-half decades, inevitably created acolytes who still believe in the old ways. Is this not the way humans behave, either in the mad liturgies of the worship of the gun and Semtex, or in the sedater habits of the Roman Catholic Church?
Under the McGuinness/Adams leadership the IRA had its Vatican II and the Real IRA is merely an insane terrorist image of the tridentine movement's affection for traditional liturgy.
So the emergence of the Real IRA was perfectly predictable - as was its decision to use the prevailing political and policing culture of niceness to start its war again. And so too was its decision to avail of the End-of-Hostilities Sale, Once in a Lifetime Offer, Three Years' Maximum in Jail for All Offences, once things started to go wrong with its campaign.
And that is what has happened. The folly of permitting offering an amnesty for offences not yet committed was an assurance of a terrorist atrocity, sooner or later - indeed, the probability of an amnesty-to-come almost certainly steeled the INLA to start the process with the murder of Billy Wright in the Maze.
Was three years certain jail worth it? Three years of free association, no work, self-catering, splendid educational facilities, occasional booze and sex and dope, in exchange for killing a man you hate, after which the State puts a few grand in your pocket and lets you go? Are you kidding? What honest to God terrorist wouldn't do such a deal?
So came the dawning realisation that this was the most perfect time to be a terrorist. For terrorists are like children; their greatest ambition is to misbehave without unpredictable consequence to themselves and this was the promise the British and the Irish Governments made to all terrorists: whatever you do, provided it is done by a certain date, you will only serve three years in jail.
Yet the Real IRA campaign was perfectly avoidable, for after the Good Friday Agreement, the referendums and the Assembly elections, the two governments had the ultimate moral authority to intern those who insisted on continuing the war. They did not need to intern many; actually, one would probably have done.
A Dubliner, he was formerly the master bomb-maker of the Provisional IRA. Without him the Real IRA probably couldn't have made a Halloween cracker. With him, they gave us Omagh.
Making bombs is what he does. It is what his movement has been doing for nearly three decades. The very first Provisional IRA bomb ever killed two policemen on August 15, 1970; the Omagh Holocaust fell on the 28th anniversary of that atrocity.
Others might choose new ways, but he stuck to the old methods in which he was led by those who are now so wide-eyed in their denunciation of him and his deeds. Others might forget - but he can remember so many IRA sub-Omaghs; Shankill Road furniture warehouse, Red Lion, Donegall Street, Newry Customs House, Three Step Inn, Mountainview Tavern, Bloody Friday, Claudy. Cole-raine, La Mon, Harrods.
And so on. They were Omagh on the instalment plan; Omagh merely came in a single atrocious payment.
The fertility of our Troubles is breath taking, endlessly giving fresh form to old disagreements. This terrible summer, with the incineration of the three Quinn boys and the Holocaust of Omagh, must have slaked even the most brutal and the most stupid of their appetite for more blood. But we have said that before.
No one is humanly capable of the forgiveness these unpunishable deeds demand; and therein lies the next lush harvest of distress. These Troubles, they haven't gone away you know.
Kevin Myers is an Irish Times columnist.
Further Information
Publisher: BELFAST TELEGRAPH
Ref: BT/0135
Published Date: 20-Aug-98
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