February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
After years of bloodshed, and repeated pledges to take the gun out of the divided island’s political life, the republican movement raised hopes to new heights by disabling its vast arsenal and entombing it under concrete.
The final act of IRA decommissioning was revealed to the world by the group of international monitors led by Canadian general John de Chastelain.
And while it was immediately greeted with skepticism by hardline unionists, not least Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party, the IRA’s forsaking of arms was broadly welcomed by governments and political parties around the globe, in Ireland, Britain and the United States.
The U.S., through it special envoy to Northern Ireland, Ambassador Mitchell Reiss, has pledged to do what is needed to help bring the peace process to full fruition.
And the three governments that are party to the Good Friday agreement, Irish, British and U.S., are expected to combine their efforts in the coming months in pursuit of a return to power sharing in Belfast.
The dumping of all IRA arms will move the spotlight to the still armed and lately violent loyalist groups.
It will also lead to increased political pressure of Sinn F