Irish Echo Editorial: Answering for the IRA

Sinn Fein’s president, Gerry Adams, who has enjoyed almost unfettered access to Capitol Hill since 1994, has now been cast as a political pariah. Members of Congress who only last year were tripping over each other to shake his hand are now shunning him. Even Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd, two senators who in the past could be counted on to support Sinn Fein having a role in a devolved Northern assembly, have canceled meetings with Adams that they had scheduled for this week.
The twin pillars upon which this recent demonization of Sinn Fein rests are the December robbery of the Northern Bank, which many believe was the work of the IRA, and the brutal stabbing death in late January of Robert McCartney by prominent Belfast IRA men. Complicating matters was the IRA statement last week in which it admitted to having offered to kill the IRA members responsible for McCartney’s death, if that’s what the man’s family wanted.
Given the sordid nature of these crimes, and the apparent callousness of IRA response, American political leaders are right to demand an explanation from Sinn Fein. And the cacophony of voices now calling for the IRA to disband, especially from those who previously would have been seen as apologists for the group’s activities, will be hard for Sinn Fein to ignore. But bullhorn diplomacy combined with personal disengagement, though they may play well politically, are hardly ways to get either satisfactory answers or to make real progress.
Sinn Fein has clearly been caught off-guard by the vehemence of the anger directed at the party and the IRA. For once the masters of spin have been outmaneuvered by their political adversaries North and South of the border — adversaries, it must be said, who have been indecently keen to exploit the current crisis for their own partisan advantage. The clearly orchestrated visit to Washington by McCartney’s grieving family is a slice of political theater that Sinn Fein’s enemies will be only too happy to sit back and watch play out as Adams and Co. squirm.
But once that smug satisfaction of having humiliated an opponent wears off, there will still be tough negotiations and hard political decisions to be made in order to get Northern Ireland’s political process back on track. That, after all, is the real prize, the one that every politician in Ireland, Britain and the U.S. should keep well within their sights.
Will the disbandment of the IRA be part of the equation? No doubt. It must disband, and soon, because the times demand it, because it is the right thing to do: there is no place for paramilitary armies in Northern Ireland today. If the IRA made such a move, however, it is vital that no other participant in the peace process should be allowed to delay or equivocate. Clearly, it would be essential that other parties would also remove the obstacles that they themselves have erected. Such a momentous declaration by the IRA would have to be seen to represent the final closure of the conflict.
Sinn Fein has become the dominant nationalist party in the North. It is making significant inroads in the Republic. Not surprisingly, its political enemies are thick on the ground. The party has much to answer for. And getting those answers is important, even necessary. But allowing an already teetering peace process to be manipulated for political gain, as Sinn Fein’s foes seem prepared to do, is unconscionable.