IMC lies
about
IRA
decommissioning
The Independent International
Commission on Decommissioning (IICD), headed by Canadian General John de Chastelain, is the body responsible for supervising the
decommissioning of paramilitary weapons in
A separate body, the Independent
Monitoring Commission (IMC), was set up by the British and Irish Governments in
January 2004, at the request of Unionists, to monitor paramilitary activity in
On
This was an extraordinarily
irresponsible thing for the IMC to do, given the
existing scepticism about the IRA decommissioning amongst Protestants in
The IICD
report
The IICD document begins by
reporting the continuing refusal of Loyalist paramilitary groups to disarm and
holds out little prospect that this situation is going to change in the
immediate future.
The document then goes on to give
an account of the IICD’s investigation of reports
suggesting that the IRA had held on to arms.
To be precise, the IICD says that in the week beginning the 9 January
2006 it received information, from what it describes as “security sources in
Northern Ireland”, that “some individuals and groups within the IRA have
retained a range of arms including handguns”.
However, “there was no suggestion” in these reports that “these arms
(purportedly kept for personal protection and area defence) have been retained
with the approval of the IRA leadership or as part of a strategy to return to
violence”.
This information entered a
question mark against the IICD’s conclusion in its
report of 26 September last year that “the IRA has met its commitment to put
all of its arms beyond use in a manner called for by the legislation”. At that time, the IICD qualified this conclusion
by saying that a small number of arms might have gone astray over the years as
individual custodians died or the locations of some caches were lost.
The IICD says that they discussed
this intelligence assessment with “senior officers in the Garda
Siochana”, who informed them that “what they regard
as reliable sources in relation to the IRA and its weaponry, have produced no
intelligence suggesting any arms have been retained”. On the basis of this Garda
intelligence, and after discussions with the IRA representative to the IICD,
they concluded:
“We are re-assured by
the fact that none of the various intelligence assessments suggest the IRA
leadership is moving away from its July 28 commitments [to end their armed
campaign and engage in exclusively peaceful activity]. We conclude that in the absence of evidence
to the contrary our 26 September assessment regarding IRA arms is correct”.
The final paragraph of the IICD
report states:
“We have informed the
Independent Monitoring Commission of the substance of this report so they are
kept aware of developments in our area of responsibility.”
So, by 19 January the IMC was aware
that Garda intelligence did not confirm reports from
“security sources in Northern Ireland” that the IRA had held on to weapons over
and above what had previously been believed possible by the IICD. This is important in what follows.
The IMC
report
To turn now to the IMC report, in
Paragraphs 4.4 to 4.7, it paints a picture of ongoing Loyalist paramilitary
violence, and very little Republican paramilitary violence (and none by the IRA),
in the period under review (1 September 2005 to 30 November 2005).
For example, according to the IMC,
22 individuals were shot and 9 assaulted by paramilitaries in this period, and
all the shootings and all but one of the assaults were by Loyalist
paramilitaries. The IMC attributes the
other to a dissident republican group, not the IRA.
The IMC attributes the one death
in the period (of Jim Gray), to the UDA, and all but one of the 18 paramilitary
killings in the nearly two years since
Clearly, the paramilitary problem
in
Indeed, contrary to many media
accounts, the IMC seems to believe that the IRA as an organisation has lived up
to its undertaking of 28 July last year to end its armed campaign and engage in
exclusively peaceful activity. Here are
some extracts from it about the IRA, which you may not have come across in
media accounts:
“We are of the
firm view that the present PIRA leadership has taken the strategic decision to
end the armed campaign and pursue the political course which it has publicly
articulated. We do not think that PIRA believes that terrorism has a part in
this political strategy. It has issued instructions to its members about this
change of mode, and has engaged in internal consultation to support the
strategy.” (Paragraph 3.16)
“We believe that
the organisation as a whole is being deliberately
restructured to something more suited for the times and no longer designed for
terrorist purposes.” (Paragraph 3.17)
“We have no
evidence of recruitment for paramilitary purposes or of paramilitary training,
though non-paramilitary briefings appear to continue. We believe that currently
there is no intention to target members of the security forces for the purposes
of attack. We have no evidence that PIRA has carried out any authorised paramilitary attacks in the period under review
in this report. The PIRA leadership has given instructions that members should
not be involved in rioting.” (Paragraph 3.18)
“PIRA members
have been instructed to offer their services to Sinn Féin
and to pursue political activities, as was indicated in the 28 July statement.”
(Paragraph 3.18)
“…we have no
reports of PIRA sanctioned robberies in the period under review.” (Paragraph
3.21)
All this indicates that the IMC
believes that the IRA is doing what its leadership said it would do on 28 July
last year.
*
* * * *
As has been widely reported, the
IMC qualifies this picture in a number of ways.
First and foremost, the IMC report
challenges the judgement of the IICD, expressed in its report of
“We have since
received reports that not all PIRA’s weapons and ammunition were handed over
for decommissioning in September. These reports are not able to indicate
precisely what is the nature or volume of any remaining weapons but suggest two
things: first, that there is a range of different kinds of weapons and
ammunition; second, that the material goes beyond what might possibly have been
expected to have missed decommissioning, such as a limited number of handguns
kept for personal protection or some items the whereabouts of which were no
longer known. We recognise that if these reports were confirmed the key
question would be how much the PIRA leadership knew about these weapons.”
(The report goes on to say:
These same reports do
not cast doubt on the declared intention of the PIRA leadership to eschew
terrorism. For our part, we are clear that this latter is their strategic
intent.”)
Clearly, these “unconfirmed”
reports were what the IICD received from “security services in
However, despite being informed
of all this by 19 January 2006 at the latest (see above), the IMC went ahead
and published a report on 1 February which suggested that the IRA had retained
arms contrary to the IICD report of 26 September 2005. The IMC did this in the full knowledge that Garda intelligence told a different story. Not only that, the IMC allowed this view to
gain currency, without qualification, after the publication of their report,
while knowing that there were contrary indications. Putting into the public domain, and publicly
defending, what you know to be untrue is generally known as lying.
As a consequence of this, and
with the assistance of the DUP, there are now very few Protestants in
You can take your pick as to
whether the IMC broadcast this misleading information out of incompetence or
bias. Either way, they should be
composing letters of resignation.
*
* * * *
Other “less satisfactory
indicators both of the behaviour of PIRA as an organisation and of the conduct
of some of its members” are described in paragraphs 3.19 to 3.22 of the IMC
report.
One thing needs to be nailed at
the outset: a paramilitary organisation, with a system of discipline up to and
including the execution of members who step out of line, can reasonably be held
responsible for the behaviour of its members.
But, now that the IRA has ceased to be a paramilitary organisation, it
cannot be held responsible for the behaviour of its members. It’s like holding the Conservative Party responsible
for the behaviour of Jeffrey Archer.
Critics of the IRA cannot have it
both ways: they cannot demand that the IRA cease to be a paramilitary
organisation, and at the same time demand that it discipline its members, let
alone its ex-members. So, anything in
the IMC report that makes allegations about the behaviour of members and
ex-members should be discounted as irrelevant.
The IMC does make some
allegations about the behaviour of the IRA as an organisation. We are told (paragraph 3.19) that it is engaged
in “intelligence gathering”. In the public
mind, this phrase means activity with a view to paramilitary action. Since the IMC specifically rules this out in
paragraph 3.19, its use of this phrase is grossly misleading. Insofar as one can make any sense of the
MI5-speak that the IMC regurgitate in this paragraph, it seems to be that the
IRA is gathering information for political purposes like other political
organisations. Journalists sometimes do
something similar.
Then, there is the “accusation”
that
“PIRA has used other
methods of exercising community control such as ‘naming and shaming’ and we
believe the organisation has encouraged members to engage in community
restorative justice as a means of exerting local influence”. (Paragraph 3.20)
If another political
organisation, or a local community organisation, was engaged in such
activities, it would probably be generally approved of.
As for criminal activity by the
IRA as an organisation, the IMC says that it has “no reports of PIRA sanctioned
robberies in the period under review”. The
only hint of IRA sanctioned criminal activity is in paragraph 3.22, where the
IMC says:
“… we also believe that it [PIRA] looks to the long term
exploitation of the proceeds of earlier crimes, for example through the
purchase of property or legitimate businesses. … PIRA also seems to be using
experts and specialists able to assist in the management of illegal assets.”
Prosecutions will do doubt come
along shortly – together with the flying pigs.
Irish
Political Review
www.david-morrison.org.uk