Alex Kane: It is absurd to think terror groups will resolve legacy, but the governments think the peace process is too big to fail

In 1994 the IRA and CLMC issued ceasefire statements.

Yet a quarter of a century later MI5 (according to figures published for 2018-19) still spends 20% of its resources on ‘Northern Ireland-related terrorism’.

That’s an astonishing figure in financial terms: and it’s also an astonishing and unsettling figure for a succession of UK governments which, beginning in 1998, had dared to hope Northern Ireland would plummet quickly down their list of political/security priorities.

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But no. In the past week alone there has been updated confirmation from leaked ‘intelligence’ documents about the continuing role of paramilitarism in Northern Ireland; as well as news the Archbishop of Canterbury has facilitated a legacy dialogue which hasn’t included victims’ groups.

Archbishop Justin Welby has been at the forefront of yet another process to reach a breakthrough on legacy. It will, of course, end in ongoing impasseArchbishop Justin Welby has been at the forefront of yet another process to reach a breakthrough on legacy. It will, of course, end in ongoing impasse
Archbishop Justin Welby has been at the forefront of yet another process to reach a breakthrough on legacy. It will, of course, end in ongoing impasse

The dialogue doesn’t surprise me at all.

It’s the sort of thing which assorted clergy have been involved in for decades. Indeed, between 9-11 December 1974 a group of Protestant clergy (Presbyterian, Methodist, Church of Ireland, British Council of Churches and the Irish Council of Churches) became the first to host secret discussions with the IRA in Feakle, Co Clare.

Nothing came of the discussions, although the then secretary of state, Merlyn Rees (who met with some of the clergy on December 18), issued a statement saying, ‘if there were a genuine cessation of violence there would be a new situation to which the British government would naturally respond’.

This past year Archbishop Justin Welby has been at the forefront of yet another process to reach some sort of breakthrough on the legacy impasse.

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It will, of course, end in continuing impasse. And that’s because it is built upon the absurdity — a brutal and unjust one — that it is paramilitary groups who are promoted and feted as the key players in resolving the legacy dilemma.

Meanwhile, many victims of paramilitarism are, too often, regarded as some sort of embarrassing, impossible-to-please collateral damage, making unreasonable, pesky demands for truth and justice.

They’ve had to endure the decades-long equivalent of a news blackout about atrocities inflicted upon them or their families during the Troubles, while regularly hearing of ‘discussions’ about what paramilitaries require to secure their silence or acquiescence.

I acknowledge some paramilitary groups played a crucial role pushing the 1998 peace/political deal over the line: but at that point their formal involvement should have ended.

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It would have been too much to expect their immediate disappearance from the scene: that said, it is asking far too much of us to tolerate the news they’re still playing a part — and making demands — 22 years later.

The latest paramilitary assessment — revealed in Tuesday’s Spotlight programme — suggested there are about 12,500 members of various loyalist groups.

That’s the hell of a lot of members: and let’s not forget that members are only acquired if they are being recruited.

I tend to the view that quite a few are probably ‘paper’ members only, ‘persuaded’ into membership in exchange for some sort of regular fee.

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Yet the fact remains that a decision has been made by the leadership of some loyalist paramilitaries to recruit into their ranks.

The additional, more worrying fact, is that a significant number of theses recent recruit are, almost certainly, being trained and prepared for possible ‘service’ at some point in the future.

A 2015 assessment stated the IRA’s Army Council remained in place, albeit in the form of an overarching advisory structure linking what would previously have been recognised as the ballot-box and armalite wings of Sinn Fein. That assessment remains the same today.

Which means that what Sinn Fein does politically is still done with the imprimatur of those who judge progress by a yardstick for success which first saw the light of day in the early 1980s.

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The latest assessment also claimed there were 79 criminal gangs, a third of which are loyalist/republican in nature (although some of the other gangs probably operate with a nod-an-a-wink relationship with them).

Rogue elements within loyalism have regularly issued death threats against journalists (some just this week); and Lyra McKee was killed last year by a New IRA gunman.

It has been reported MI5 has a few hundred operatives involved in counter-terrorism here: and in January 2019, former MI5 boss Baroness Manningham-Buller noted, “Throughout the time there have been those who don’t agree with the peace process, who are continuing to mount attacks — generally small-scale. But I don’t think it’s over in Northern Ireland. The danger is that it gets much worse again.”

So there’s still a lot of paramilitarism about 25 years after the formal ceasefires.

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There have been two Noble Peace prizes and a clutch of other peace prizes handed out along the way; not forgetting the huge amounts of money to fund a raft of peace and community projects. But reconciliation, genuine power-sharing, legacy and victims’ issues, along with a host of issues identified in 1998 as needing resolution, remain unresolved.

Meanwhile, the political centre is barely holding: and it is known that lack of stability at the centre is usually reflected by breakdown, division and new barriers further down the societal line.

The UK/Irish governments still operate on the basis that the peace process is too big to fail and so they bend over backwards to keep the big two on board — all the while trying to placate shadowy elements which should have been removed rather than rehabilitated.

All of which begs a question: how much would it take to tip us over the edge again?