February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Although many republicans are confused and demoralized at recent setbacks, there are also signs of the beginning of a fight back, with Sinn Fein intensifying campaign to ensure voters are registered in time for the expected May elections.
There are also signs of an internal debate within republican ranks about how to break the deadlock, with hints from both the Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, and the party’s chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, that the IRA is going to have to take huge steps itself.
The IRA has already expelled three of its members, two of them high-ranking, for their involvement in McCartney’s murder, but there has been no decrease in the media and political criticism, unprecedented in recent years.
McCartney, a 33-year-old father of two who lived in the Catholic Short Strand enclave, was stabbed to death outside a Belfast city center bar on Jan. 30.
The McCartney family said that the expulsion of three members did not go far enough and that the IRA should order the killers to hand themselves in to the police. They have implicated at least 12 IRA members in the murder.
About 500 people attended a rally Short Strand on Sunday. McCartney’s sister Paula told the crowd that if those involved did not hand themselves in, then they should be “pressurized” to do so.
Some of the McCartneys say they would like to visit to the U.S. in the run-up to St. Patrick’s Day to highlight their demand that the IRA turn over those responsible to the police.
No details are set, but the SDLP’s deputy leader, Alasdair McDonnell, said he had raised the case with congressmen and senators during a recent visit to Washington. He says they were sympathetic and that a visit by the McCartneys to the United States “would be very useful indeed to highlight their campaign for justice for Robert.”
Also attending the Short Strand rally were Sinn F