RENEGADE REPUBLICANS WANT US BACK TO YEAR ZERO
Renegade republicans want us back to Year Zero
By SAM SMYTH
THE way some of them go on about it, you'd think 'the republican family' are first cousins of the Waltons.
It's really a benign euphemism, an umbrella cover name for the philosophical and physical force factions who make up contemporary Irish republicanism.
But as Provo violence gave way to ceasefires then peace talks, referendums and an election, even polite folk who once called them "terrorists and their political Godfathers'' began to refer to "the republican family''.
For months before Saturday's abomination in Omagh, there had been talk about the dysfunctional delinquents needing to be sorted out by the head of the family.
After a series of mishaps, car bombs in Newtownhamilton in June and Banbridge on August 1 showed their potential for murder and intention to blow away the Good Friday Agreement.
The argument goes that the Provos could eliminate the self-styled "Real IRA'' overnight, in some sort of out-of-season St Valentine's Day massacre.
After all, they were spawned, nurtured and learned their know-how in the Provisionals who have the ways and the means to cull their own renegades.
What they don't have is the will to take on their out-of-control former comrades in arms.
Yesterday, as the rest of the country was watching Omagh burying its innocent dead, republicans were taking stock.
First, they said, the bomb in Omagh was placed there by nationalists and designed to prevent the establishment of the all-Ireland dimension of the Good Friday agreement.
Reliable Sinn Fein sources point out that it was Sinn Fein who entered talks and negotiated the Agreement which was massively supported by the referendums and gave them the authority to take their seats on the executive.
If they did "sort out'' the "Real IRA'', ignoring the Mitchell principals of non-violence, it would give their enemies a legitimate reason to exclude Sinn Fein from participating in the assembly and executive.
But just as important is the worry about a feud: republicans know from bitter experience that the smaller faction usually benefits from internecine battles.
If the renegades murdered a prominent Sinn Fein leader, it would be an enormous propaganda victory and if the Provos wiped out the "Real IRA'' it could lead to further defections to the other renegade groups.
Just as their being seen to help the security services could provoke reprisals from the renegades.
This presents "the republican family'' with another dilemma: If Sinn Fein has entered the democratic process, surely it has the same civic duties as others to report potential crimes and suspicious persons to the security forces.
However other sources whisper that the security forces' successes stopping "Real IRA'' bombings and arresting members are the result of information supplied by other republicans.
But then "the republican family'' is as much a prisoner of its own history and mythology as the Loyal Orders, and the odium attached to informing, even if it is in their own interest, carries such a stigma among their supporters, it cannot be considered.
But a former Provisional spoke scathingly about the "Real IRA'', how they speak to no-one but themselves, and even in the hindsight of Saturday's carnage, how they are probably sat in a room convincing each other of the purity of their movement and intentions.
The unambiguous statements from Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and other Sinn Fein leaders condemning the bombing, illustrated how far they have come and that republicans are taking their new responsibilities seriously.
The rest of the country, many against their better judgment, invested a lot of trust in Sinn Fein and has tried to help them discard their violent past and follow a purely political future.
It took a lot of courage and a leap of faith and imagination for the Irish and British governments, and a US President, to painstakingly bring the peace process this far.
To its credit, Sinn Fein has played a positive and crucial role in the relative normality that had overtaken Northern Ireland until last Saturday's bomb.
Peace and a political settlement are not possible without the participation of the loyalist and republican paramilitaries through their parties.
That it has come so far, that we have come so tantalisingly close to realising a lasting peace based on social justice for all in Northern Ireland, seems almost miraculous.
Yesterday, a veteran republican said the Omagh bomb was as much a last kick of renegade republicans as the murder of the Quinn children in Ballymoney sounded the death knell for militant loyalism at Drumcree.
However, the source also said there would almost certainly be more bombings from the "Real IRA'' who want to bring Ireland back to 1969 the Year Zero for the perverted republicans.
It was no less odd that David Trimble was also coming under renewed attack from unionists demanding he refuse to sit with Sinn Fein in the Executive.
Yet it seemed cruelly ironic that the No-voting unionists share one aspiration with the "Real-IRA'' and their shadows in the 32-County Sovereignty Movement the end of the Good Friday Agreement.
By SAM SMYTH
THE way some of them go on about it, you'd think 'the republican family' are first cousins of the Waltons.
It's really a benign euphemism, an umbrella cover name for the philosophical and physical force factions who make up contemporary Irish republicanism.
But as Provo violence gave way to ceasefires then peace talks, referendums and an election, even polite folk who once called them "terrorists and their political Godfathers'' began to refer to "the republican family''.
For months before Saturday's abomination in Omagh, there had been talk about the dysfunctional delinquents needing to be sorted out by the head of the family.
After a series of mishaps, car bombs in Newtownhamilton in June and Banbridge on August 1 showed their potential for murder and intention to blow away the Good Friday Agreement.
The argument goes that the Provos could eliminate the self-styled "Real IRA'' overnight, in some sort of out-of-season St Valentine's Day massacre.
After all, they were spawned, nurtured and learned their know-how in the Provisionals who have the ways and the means to cull their own renegades.
What they don't have is the will to take on their out-of-control former comrades in arms.
Yesterday, as the rest of the country was watching Omagh burying its innocent dead, republicans were taking stock.
First, they said, the bomb in Omagh was placed there by nationalists and designed to prevent the establishment of the all-Ireland dimension of the Good Friday agreement.
Reliable Sinn Fein sources point out that it was Sinn Fein who entered talks and negotiated the Agreement which was massively supported by the referendums and gave them the authority to take their seats on the executive.
If they did "sort out'' the "Real IRA'', ignoring the Mitchell principals of non-violence, it would give their enemies a legitimate reason to exclude Sinn Fein from participating in the assembly and executive.
But just as important is the worry about a feud: republicans know from bitter experience that the smaller faction usually benefits from internecine battles.
If the renegades murdered a prominent Sinn Fein leader, it would be an enormous propaganda victory and if the Provos wiped out the "Real IRA'' it could lead to further defections to the other renegade groups.
Just as their being seen to help the security services could provoke reprisals from the renegades.
This presents "the republican family'' with another dilemma: If Sinn Fein has entered the democratic process, surely it has the same civic duties as others to report potential crimes and suspicious persons to the security forces.
However other sources whisper that the security forces' successes stopping "Real IRA'' bombings and arresting members are the result of information supplied by other republicans.
But then "the republican family'' is as much a prisoner of its own history and mythology as the Loyal Orders, and the odium attached to informing, even if it is in their own interest, carries such a stigma among their supporters, it cannot be considered.
But a former Provisional spoke scathingly about the "Real IRA'', how they speak to no-one but themselves, and even in the hindsight of Saturday's carnage, how they are probably sat in a room convincing each other of the purity of their movement and intentions.
The unambiguous statements from Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and other Sinn Fein leaders condemning the bombing, illustrated how far they have come and that republicans are taking their new responsibilities seriously.
The rest of the country, many against their better judgment, invested a lot of trust in Sinn Fein and has tried to help them discard their violent past and follow a purely political future.
It took a lot of courage and a leap of faith and imagination for the Irish and British governments, and a US President, to painstakingly bring the peace process this far.
To its credit, Sinn Fein has played a positive and crucial role in the relative normality that had overtaken Northern Ireland until last Saturday's bomb.
Peace and a political settlement are not possible without the participation of the loyalist and republican paramilitaries through their parties.
That it has come so far, that we have come so tantalisingly close to realising a lasting peace based on social justice for all in Northern Ireland, seems almost miraculous.
Yesterday, a veteran republican said the Omagh bomb was as much a last kick of renegade republicans as the murder of the Quinn children in Ballymoney sounded the death knell for militant loyalism at Drumcree.
However, the source also said there would almost certainly be more bombings from the "Real IRA'' who want to bring Ireland back to 1969 the Year Zero for the perverted republicans.
It was no less odd that David Trimble was also coming under renewed attack from unionists demanding he refuse to sit with Sinn Fein in the Executive.
Yet it seemed cruelly ironic that the No-voting unionists share one aspiration with the "Real-IRA'' and their shadows in the 32-County Sovereignty Movement the end of the Good Friday Agreement.
Further Information
Publisher: IRISH INDEPENDENT
Ref: II/198
Published Date: 19-Aug-98
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