IRA's lesson:
Don't get soft on terror
U.S. wants Hezbollah to take part in election, but at what cost?
By Steven Edwards
With the IRA under fire over a series of recent crimes (among them the murder of a Roman Catholic family man, the staging of the world's biggest bank robbery and the laundering of huge sums of money), Mr. Adams is finally getting the cold shoulder many believe he has long deserved.
After personally working with Mr. Adams to try to re-start the stalled peace process, President George W. Bush felt sufficiently disgusted by the IRA's actions to "disinvite" him from Washington's official St. Patrick's Day celebrations tomorrow.
Prominent Irish-American politicians such as Senator Ted Kennedy told him not to call during his current U.S. visit; Republican Congressman Peter King of New York, who once described the IRA as "freedom fighters," said the organization has outlived its usefulness.
That's a pretty powerful list of snubs in a country where the IRA, for three decades, tapped into misguided Irish-American romanticism about the nature of the group's struggle and clandestinely raised untold millions to finance its post-1969 attacks on civilians and soldiers in Northern Ireland and the British mainland.
The lesson surely is that placing too much trust in political wings of terrorist organizations – as the legal Sinn Fein party is to the outlawed IRA -- will eventually backfire.
Yet the Bush administration -- contrary to its zero tolerance instincts for terrorist causes – is reportedly going along with France and the United Nations on the need for a softer approach toward Lebanese-based Hezbollah.
Senior State Department officials have said over the past week – on condition they not be identified -- that political elements of Hezbollah will be encouraged to participate in May elections.
This is although the same department's latest report on global terrorist organizations says the military wing of Hezbollah is "known or suspected to have been involved in numerous anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli terrorist attacks."
Examples include the 1980s suicide bombings of U.S. embassy compounds in Lebanon and the U.S. Marine base at Beirut airport, killing about 270 Americans; kidnapping Americans in Beirut during the 1975-90 civil war; and the attack on the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992.
Indications of what State Department officials are calling a "tactical" tolerance of Hezbollah came after the group showed the extent of its political strength in Lebanon by organizing two huge pro-Syria demonstrations over the last eight days.
The thinking went that softening the administration's approach would have the advantage of not antagonizing a group that could potentially return the country to civil war.
But if the administration feels disappointment with Mr. Adams, it may end up seriously regretting opening the door to Hezbollah.
While Mr. Adams's typical defence of the IRA's activities has been to "refuse to criminalize those who break the law in pursuit of legitimate political objectives," statements by Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah are far more threatening.
"America will remain the dreadful enemy and Israel a cancerous growth that should be uprooted," he declared in his first public appearance after his election as Hezbollah chief in 1992.
Time does not seem to have mellowed the Sheik, who said just last month: "This American administration is an enemy. Our motto, which we are not afraid to repeat year after year, is, 'Death to America.' "
The statement, monitored and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, prompted the crowd to burst into equally enthusiastic chants of "Death to America."
Under pressure to clarify the U.S. position on Hezbollah, Mr. Bush yesterday called it a "terrorist organization," but added, "I hope that Hezbollah would prove that they're not by laying down arms and not threatening peace."
The IRA has pledged to lay down its arms -- through the process of decommissioning -- umpteen times since the start of the 1998 peace initiative. At a breakfast meeting in New York on Monday, Mr. Adams called decommissioning a "red herring." That was the same day Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, gave a word of advice to the five sisters of Robert McCartney, the victim of the Jan. 30 bar-fight murder IRA leaders are accused of covering up.
On the eve of their departure for Washington as Mr. Bush's guests, Mr. McGuinness said the sisters should be "very careful" they "don't step over the party political line and allow themselves to be used or manipulated" by others opposed to Sinn Fein.
Mr. McCartney's family has deep Republican roots and supported the IRA's goals, and maybe its past methods. With friends like that....
Wed Mar 16 2005
© 2005 Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved.
Illustration: • Black & White Photo: Jonathan Ernst, Reuters / The sisters and partner of murdered Northern Ireland Roman Catholic Robert McCartney, from left: Gemma, Catherine, Paula, Bridgeen Hagans and Claire. The women have denounced the IRA for its apparent role in the man's murder.
On his annual U.S. visit ahead of St. Patrick's Day, Adams admitted the cold shoulders were a "disappointment," but added Northern Ireland's problems would ultimately be worked out ``on the island of Ireland,'' not in the United States.
"Do I interpret (the snub) as a movement by this administration away from the peace process? No, I don't," Adams told an invited audience at the Council on Foreign Relations.
But Council president Richard Haass – who served as U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland during the first administration of President George W. Bush – warned the Sinn Fein leader that his optimism may be misplaced.
"No one, as yet, is ruling out dealing with Sinn Fein," Haass said. "But with the passage of months or even years, that could very well happen."
As leader of the legal political wing of the outlawed Irish Republican Army (IRA), Adams has been under fire for not sufficiently distancing his party from a slew of alleged IRA crimes, including the January murder of a Catholic man outside a Belfast bar.
The victim, Robert McCartney, was from a family that had strong republican roots, but his five sisters and fiancee are demanding his killers be brought to justice in defiance of what they say is IRA intimidation to silence witnesses.
Adams blamed the murder on a minority who "behave like thugs,'' adding Sinn Fein had earned the right for continued U.S. support by helping launch the peace process in 1998. ``I think our record speaks for itself," he said. "There was conflict. There is no longer a conflict. It isn't a perfect peace. But it is a peace process."
Haass, however, said Adams should severe Sinn Fein's ties with the IRA before the White House ostracizes him in the way it did Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
"Gerry Adams does not want to become a Yasser Arafat. He does not want to become someone who's unwilling to choose, (as) in Mr. Arafat's case, between the olive branch and the gun," Haass said.
Despite refusing to see Adams, President George W. Bush, has added McCartney's sisters and fiancee to the guest list for Thursday's St. Patrick's Day celebrations. To drive home that his snub of Adams is directed at the IRA, and not the Irish people, Bush has also invited Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland Bertie Ahern.
Adams has in the past used his annual visit to raise funds for Sinn Fein, but told U.S. authorities he would not do so this year out of concern visas would not be granted. Bush has banned Sinn Fein from raising new funds in the United States, the Times of London reported Monday.
Bush's tolerance for Sinn Fein dipped dramatically after it appeared planning for a $50 million US Belfast bank robbery, blamed on the IRA, took place at the same time the White House was encouraging Adams to relaunch the power-sharing deal in Northern Ireland.
Ireland's Justice Minister Michael McDowell has charged that Adams and at least two other Sinn Fein elected officials are secret members of the IRA's ruling council, although Adams has always denied being a member of the organization.
The Irish Republic's police also suspect the IRA of laundering huge sums of money, but Adams said Monday funds had yet to be traced back to the paramilitary group.
Weekend criticism of Sinn Fein by Kennedy and King reflect fading support for hardline Irish republicanism even among ordinary Irish Americans, who, in the 1970s and 1980s, provided huge clandestinely raised funds used by the IRA to carry out attacks in Northern Ireland and the British mainland.
Kennedy spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner said the senator had decided not to meet with Adams because "of the IRA's ... contempt for the rule of law."
King, a New York Republican, who in the past has described the IRA as "freedom fighters," skipped Sinn Fein's annual conference in Dublin this month, telling Irish state radio Americans find it "hard to see what the justification is for the continued existence of the IRA."
Tue Mar 15 2005
CanWest News Service
© 2005 Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved.
Illustration: • Black & White Photo: Jonathan Ernst, Reuters / The sisters and partner of murdered Northern Ireland Roman Catholic Robert McCartney, from left: Gemma, Catherine, Paula, Bridgeen Hagans and Claire. The women have denounced the IRA for its apparent role in the man's murder.
Sinn Fein leader faces U.S. snub
By Steven Edwards
NEW YORK - Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams put on a defiant face in New York Monday following snubs by the White House and a growing number of traditional U.S supporters of Irish republicanism, including Senator Edward Kennedy and Congressman Peter King.On his annual U.S. visit ahead of St. Patrick's Day, Adams admitted the cold shoulders were a "disappointment," but added Northern Ireland's problems would ultimately be worked out ``on the island of Ireland,'' not in the United States.
"Do I interpret (the snub) as a movement by this administration away from the peace process? No, I don't," Adams told an invited audience at the Council on Foreign Relations.
But Council president Richard Haass – who served as U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland during the first administration of President George W. Bush – warned the Sinn Fein leader that his optimism may be misplaced.
"No one, as yet, is ruling out dealing with Sinn Fein," Haass said. "But with the passage of months or even years, that could very well happen."
As leader of the legal political wing of the outlawed Irish Republican Army (IRA), Adams has been under fire for not sufficiently distancing his party from a slew of alleged IRA crimes, including the January murder of a Catholic man outside a Belfast bar.
The victim, Robert McCartney, was from a family that had strong republican roots, but his five sisters and fiancee are demanding his killers be brought to justice in defiance of what they say is IRA intimidation to silence witnesses.
Adams blamed the murder on a minority who "behave like thugs,'' adding Sinn Fein had earned the right for continued U.S. support by helping launch the peace process in 1998. ``I think our record speaks for itself," he said. "There was conflict. There is no longer a conflict. It isn't a perfect peace. But it is a peace process."
Haass, however, said Adams should severe Sinn Fein's ties with the IRA before the White House ostracizes him in the way it did Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
"Gerry Adams does not want to become a Yasser Arafat. He does not want to become someone who's unwilling to choose, (as) in Mr. Arafat's case, between the olive branch and the gun," Haass said.
Despite refusing to see Adams, President George W. Bush, has added McCartney's sisters and fiancee to the guest list for Thursday's St. Patrick's Day celebrations. To drive home that his snub of Adams is directed at the IRA, and not the Irish people, Bush has also invited Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland Bertie Ahern.
Adams has in the past used his annual visit to raise funds for Sinn Fein, but told U.S. authorities he would not do so this year out of concern visas would not be granted. Bush has banned Sinn Fein from raising new funds in the United States, the Times of London reported Monday.
Bush's tolerance for Sinn Fein dipped dramatically after it appeared planning for a $50 million US Belfast bank robbery, blamed on the IRA, took place at the same time the White House was encouraging Adams to relaunch the power-sharing deal in Northern Ireland.
Ireland's Justice Minister Michael McDowell has charged that Adams and at least two other Sinn Fein elected officials are secret members of the IRA's ruling council, although Adams has always denied being a member of the organization.
The Irish Republic's police also suspect the IRA of laundering huge sums of money, but Adams said Monday funds had yet to be traced back to the paramilitary group.
Weekend criticism of Sinn Fein by Kennedy and King reflect fading support for hardline Irish republicanism even among ordinary Irish Americans, who, in the 1970s and 1980s, provided huge clandestinely raised funds used by the IRA to carry out attacks in Northern Ireland and the British mainland.
Kennedy spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner said the senator had decided not to meet with Adams because "of the IRA's ... contempt for the rule of law."
King, a New York Republican, who in the past has described the IRA as "freedom fighters," skipped Sinn Fein's annual conference in Dublin this month, telling Irish state radio Americans find it "hard to see what the justification is for the continued existence of the IRA."
Tue Mar 15 2005
CanWest News Service
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