Unity

From Unity, 21 March 2009

Shooting yourself in the foot

by Jimmy Stewart

The PSNI has arrested and is questioning eleven people in connection with the killing of two British soldiers outside Massereene Barracks and a policeman in Craigavon.
     In the estate where the policeman was murdered, stones and petrol bombs were thrown by young people at the PSNI when they were making arrests and carrying out searches. In both of these incidents it was obvious that the rioters were orchestrated by dissident republicans.
     Both the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA claim that their use of arms against the British Army and the PSNI is justified so long as Britain bases troops in Northern Ireland and denies a united Ireland to the Irish people.
     However, they ignore or refuse to learn the lessons of the thirty-odd years of armed struggle carried out by the Provisional IRA.
     The Provisional IRA was born out of Unionist governments’ use of armed force and internment without trial of its political opponents.
     It was the result of the force used by the Unionist oligarchy against the mass movement of the Civil Rights movement’s democratic demands.
     At the beginning of the Provisional IRA’s paramilitary activity, and as it continued, the Communist Party of Ireland opposed its actions and argued for continuation of the political action of the Civil Rights Movement.
     The CPI pointed out that Republican violence only fed the sectarian politics which the Unionists had used to divide Ireland and to create deep divisions amongst the working class.
     Over a number of years before the IRA ceasefire and later disarmament Republican leaders such as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness courageously debated and led Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA away from the armed struggle and onto peaceful politics which retained, as it does now, the objective of a united Ireland.
     Political experience had taught them that armed actions stood in the way of their objective, because it fed the sectarian politics of their opponents. In other words, they realise that to win a united Ireland they must overcome the sectarian politics which Unionists have used to divide the working class.
     Instead they have to convince the majority of those who support unionist ideology that a united country is also in their interests.
     Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness demonstrated their political courage and ability when they achieved an end to the IRA’s paramilitary campaign. They are currently demonstrating the same in their clear opposition to the dissident republicans’ recent murderous actions.
     The dissidents should stop and see that the vast majority of the population in this island are totally opposed to them—all political parties, the trade union movement, and the churches.
     Their actions, if continued, will hold back the perspective of a united island for decades to come; it’s like shooting yourself in the foot!

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