‘Full weapons list must be revealed’
FIRST minister Peter Robinson has demanded that the government publish a full inventory of weapons decommissioned during the peace process.
Yesterday the quango responsible for decommissioning said that it will not be making public the lists of arms and explosives destroyed by terror groups including the IRA, UVF and UDA.
Instead, the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) said that it would give the information to a foreign government to hold.
Mr Robinson said that the coalition government was reneging on a commitment by Tony Blair’s government that the IICD would provide inventories of destroyed weapons to both the British and the Irish governments.
In a statement yesterday, secretary of state Owen Paterson acknowledged that “many will be expecting an inventory to be included in the report”.
He added: “The IICD did not provide the British and Irish governments with an inventory when they submitted their final report.
“This was rightly a decision taken independently by the commission.”
He said that the commissioners, who were led by retired Canadian general John de Chastelain, believed that to make public a list of the weapons could endanger former paramilitaries who have decommissioned weapons.
Mr Paterson said: “The IICD has made arrangements for the safe retention of the records of decommissioned arms by the United States Department of State in Washington who will hold them securely.”
The re-emergence of guns on both the loyalist and republican sides of the Short Strand interface in east Belfast last month has raised questions about whether decomissioning was ever as complete as made out by the government at the time.
Mr Robinson said: “It is vital that the public gets to see just how much terrorist weaponry has been decommissioned,” he said.
“Decommissioning was one of those issues that took a long time to be resolved: it soured the political atmosphere because of the foot dragging of those associated with criminal organisations to rid themselves of arms and support the police and rule of law.
“People will want to see just what has been achieved by the IICD in regard to putting the arsenal of illegal organisations beyond use.
“The public has a right to know what has been achieved and I would urge the secretary of state to ensure the inventory, which should have been passed to our government and the government of the Irish Republic, is published.
“There is also a wider issue about the logic of this move: only a week or so ago we witnessed guns being used on the streets of Northern Ireland.
“People will be naturally nervous that such arms are still in circulation and it is up to the government to justify their decision to abolish the body responsible for dealing with these issues.”
Ulster Unionist leader Tom Elliott also expressed his concerns at the lack of an inventory of weaponry surrendered.
“The failure to provide a detailed inventory of the illegal weaponry surrendered by terrorist groups is simply not acceptable.
“This mistake is compounded by the fact that the IICD says it has made arrangements for the records of those arms that were decommissioned, to be retained by the US State Department.”
He added: “I cannot understand why the US State Department has been involved in this way.
“The bulk of these weapons were stored in Northern Ireland and used to murder, maim or threaten the people of Northern Ireland. I would have thought that they are entitled to know the facts ahead of the US State Department.”
TUV leader Jim Allister said that if the lists of decomissioned weapons were published, he believed it would show that the process had been “a con job”.
He said that the security force estimates of weapons and actual decommissioning figures should be published and added: “Failure to publish full inventories confirms the suspicion of many that the true extent of decommissioning was exaggerated, if not fabricated, for patent political purposes. If there is nothing to hide, let us have full publication now.”
Meanwhile, paramilitary watchdog the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) has published its final report.
It said that despite ‘peace’ there had been 21 paramilitary murders in the seven years since its inception. During that same period there were more than 800 “reported casualties of paramilitary violence”.
It described dissident republicans as “brutally active”, particularly against the PSNI, but said that it did not believe that there was the likelihood of a repeat of the Troubles.
It also said that members and former members of terrorist gangs remain involved in crime.
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Weather for Belfast
Tuesday 29 May 2012
Today
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