Is IRAs statement really a farewell to arms?
01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, August 30, 2005 BELFAST THE IRISH Republican Army’s July 28 statement ordering the end of its decades-long terrorist campaign has been hailed as “historic” by many commentators. Everyone hopes that this statement signifies the end of the beginning in Ireland’s quest for peace. But it may not pass the most crucial litmus test: the trust of that majority of Northern Ireland’s citizens who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom. Many of these Unionists (as they are known here) are disillusioned by what they see as the IRA’s failure to follow through on earlier pledges to disarm. There is also concern about a statement that, for all its apparent lack of ambiguity, employs a symbolism that — in the internecine and paranoid politics of Northern Ireland — could be divisive. Such worries notwithstanding, other recent events suggest that, at the moment, the IRA could not use its weaponry if it wanted to. Like their Unionist counterparts, those who
