sign in sign up
<<
Home , Battle of the Bogside, IRA Army Council, Kingdom of Ireland, Mitchell Principles, Peace lines

INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Paper on "NORTHERN CONFLICT" By: Tariq Al-Ansari

I. Introduction

1. Throughout history, the island of Ireland has been regarded as a single national unit. Prior to the Norman invasions from In 1169, the were distinct from other nations, cultivating their own system of law, culture, language, and political and social structures. Until 1921, the island of Ireland was governed as a single political unit as a colony of Britain. A combined political/military campaign by Irish nationalists between the years 1916 to 1921 forced the British government to consider its position. Partition was imposed on the Irish people by an Act of Parliament, the Act (1920), passed in the British legislature. The consent of the Irish people was never sought and was never freely given.

2. With the objective of “protecting English interests with an economy of English lives” (Lord Birkenhead), the was conceived. Proffered as a solution under the threat of ''immediate and terrible war'' (Lloyd George, the then British Prime Minister). The Act made provision for the creation of two states in Ireland: the '''' (later to become known as the ), containing 26 of Ireland's 32 counties; and '''' containing the remaining six counties.

3. Northern Ireland (the Six Counties) represented the greatest land area in which Irish unionists could maintain a majority. The partition line first proposed had encompassed the whole province of (nine counties). Unionists rejected this because they could not maintain a majority in such an enlarged area. http://www.sinnfein.org/documents/freedom.html

4. The historical and contemporary existence of the Irish nation has never been in dispute. For centuries, Britain has sought to conquer, dominate and rule Ireland. For centuries, the Irish people have sought to free Ireland from British rule. Britain, a large, powerful and ruthless colonial power, was able to defeat the numerous and sustained efforts of the Irish people to liberate themselves. In the course of the , as a result of British oppression and famine, the population of Ireland was halved.

Séan MacBride S. C, recipient of the 1983 Nobel and Lenin peace prizes

5. In , a confrontation between Catholic residents of the and police in following an march led to a large communal riot now referred to as the – three days of fighting between rioters throwing stones and petrol bombs and police who saturated the area with CS gas. This confrontation didn’t happen accidentally, it was a result of many years of

1 discrimination by the Protestants against the Catholic minority. The conflict was also a spark that detonated the powder keg of decades and almost two centuries with debate on the legality of the act of the UK when it partitioned Ireland, the emergence of what so called unionists who wanted to liberate Northern Ireland from the UK, and the others “loyalists” who refused that move. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwcsSHF3A9w

6. A peace agreement was signed in 10th April 1998 between the parties of the conflict, the UK, the Republic of Ireland and the Irish Republican Army. It was called “The ”. This agreement has provided Northern Ireland’s divided society with a political framework to resolve its differences. A model of governance based on ‘parity of esteem’ has replaced the old divisive system of majority rule. The two political traditions of unionism and nationalism have agreed to proportional inclusion of each group in government. Legislators in the Stormont Assembly designate themselves as unionist, nationalist or other and the voting system works to ensure that unionists and nationalists cannot vote against each other’s group interest. The Agreement respects the right of each political tradition to pursue its goal to remain part of the or to join the . http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/northern_ireland/understanding/events/good_ friday.stm http://peacemaker.un.org/uk-ireland-good-friday98

7. This paper will prove that the use of constructive ambiguity in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and the spirit of compromise, formed an essential cornerstone to resolve the violent conflict of Northern Ireland, however, the agreement didn’t resolve the root causes to the conflict that can not be buried or ignored forever. Even if the agreement achieved a formal ceasefire, it will not be sufficient enough to deter the danger of relapsing in violence again, due to the factors elaborated in this paper.

II. Facts

BACKGROUND

8. is the common name for the ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that spilled over at various times into the Republic of Ireland, England and mainland . The Troubles began in the late 1960s, precisely in August 1969 - as mentioned in paragraph 5 above - and was considered by many to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. However, periodic violence has continued since then.

9. The conflict was primarily a political one, but it also had an ethnic or sectarian dimension, although it was not a religious conflict. The key issues at stake were the constitutional status of Northern Ireland and the relationship between its two main communities. Unionists and loyalists, who are mostly , generally want Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom. Irish nationalists and republicans, who are mostly Catholics, generally want it to leave the United Kingdom and join a . The former generally see themselves as British and the latter generally see themselves as Irish. The main participants in the Troubles were republican paramilitary groups (such as the Provisional IRA), loyalist paramilitaries (such as the UVF and UDA), the British state security forces (the and the 2

RUC, Northern Ireland's police force), and political activists and politicians. The Republic of Ireland's security forces played a smaller role. More than 3,500 people were killed in the conflict.

10. The Sinn Féin party split along the same lines on 11 January 1970, when a third of the delegates walked out of the Ard Fheis in protest at the party leadership's attempt to force through the ending of abstentionism, despite its failure to achieve a two-thirds majority vote of delegates required to change the policy. Despite the declared support of that faction of Sinn Féin, the early Provisional IRA was extremely suspicious of political activity, arguing rather for the primacy of armed struggle.

11. There are allegations that the early Provisional IRA received arms and funding from the Fianna Fáil-led Irish government in 1969, resulting in the 1970 "Arms trial" in which criminal charges were pursued against two former government ministers. Roughly £100,000 was donated by the Irish government to "Defence Committees" in Catholic areas and, according to historian Richard English, "there is now no doubt that some money did go from the government to the proto-Provisionals".

12. The Provisionals maintained the principles of the pre-1969 IRA; they considered both British rule in Northern Ireland and the government of the Republic of Ireland to be illegitimate, insisting that the Provisional IRA's Army Council was the only valid government, as head of an all-island Irish Republic. This belief was based on a series of perceived political inheritances, which constructed a legal continuity from the Second Dáil.

13. The Provisionals inherited most of the existing IRA organisation in the north by 1971 and the more militant IRA members in the rest of Ireland. In addition, they recruited many young nationalists from the north, who had not been involved in the IRA before, but had been radicalised by the communal violence that broke out in 1969. These people were known in republican parlance as "sixty niners", having joined after 1969. The Provisional IRA adopted the Phoenix as symbol of the Irish republican rebirth in 1969. One of its common slogans is "out of the ashes rose the provisionals".

14. The Real Irish Republican Army or Real IRA, also referred to as the New IRA, is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation, which aims to bring about a united Ireland. It was formed in 1997 following a split in the Provisional IRA, which had declared a ceasefire that year. Like the Provisional IRA before it, the RIRA sees itself as the only rightful successor to the original Irish Republican Army and styles itself as simply "the Irish Republican Army" in English or Óglaigh na hÉireann in Irish. It is an illegal organisation in Ireland and designated as a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and the United States.

15. Since its formation, the RIRA has waged a campaign in Northern Ireland against the British Army and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), formerly the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). The RIRA is the biggest and most active of the "dissident republican" paramilitaries operating against the British security forces. It has targeted the security forces in gun attacks and bombings, as well as with grenades, mortars and rockets. The organisation has also been responsible for a number of bombings in Northern Ireland and England with the goal of causing economic harm and/or disruption. The most notable of these was the 15 August 1998 , which killed 29 people. After the bombing, the RIRA went on ceasefire, but began operations again in 2000. In March 2009, it claimed responsibility for an attack on Massereene Barracks that killed two British soldiers; the first to be killed in Northern Ireland since 1997, the year the ceasefire was agreed upon. 3

16. The Real IRA has also been involved in mainly against alleged drug dealers and organized crime gangs. In Dublin particularly, it has been accused of extorting and engaging in feuds with these gangs. In July 2012, it was reported that Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) and other small republican militant groups were merging with the Real IRA. As before, the group continues to refer to itself as "the Irish Republican Army".

III. Analysis

STRATEGY OF IRA

17. The IRA's initial strategy was to use force to cause the collapse of the government of Northern Ireland and to inflict enough casualties on British forces that the British government would be forced by public opinion to withdraw from the region. This policy involved recruitment of volunteers, increasing after the 1972 incident, in which the British military killed unarmed protesters, and launching attacks against British military and economic targets. Reports indicate that the campaign was supported by arms and funding from Libya and from some groups in the United States as well.

STRATEGY OF RIRA

18. The RIRA's ultimate objective is a united Ireland by forcing the end of British sovereignty over Northern Ireland through the use of physical force. The organisation rejects the Mitchell Principles and the Good Friday Agreement, comparing the latter to the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty which resulted in the partition of Ireland. The organisation aims to sustain an uncompromising form of and opposes any political settlement that falls short of Irish and independence

PEACE AGREEMENT – THE GOOD FRIDAY

19. The IRA ceasefire in 1997 formed part of a process that led to the 1998 Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement. One aim of the Agreement is that all paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland cease their activities and disarm by May 2000. But this agreement doesn’t fulfil the neither the strategy of the IRA nor the RIRA.

REACTING TO THE GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT

20. In July 1997, the Provisional IRA called a ceasefire. On 10 October 1997, a Provisional IRA General Army Convention was held in Falcarragh, County Donegal. At the convention, Provisional IRA Quartermaster GeneralMichael McKevitt, also a member of the 12-person Provisional IRA Executive, denounced the leadership and called for an end to the group's ceasefire and to the participation in the Northern Ireland peace process. He was backed by his partner and fellow Executive member, Bernadette Sands-McKevitt. The pair were outmanoeuvred by the leadership, and a key ally, Kevin McKenna, was voted off the IRA Army Council leaving the two dissidents isolated. The convention backed the pro-ceasefire line, and on 26 October 4

McKevitt and Sands-McKevitt resigned from the Executive along with several other members.

21. In November 1997, McKevitt and other dissidents held a meeting in a farmhouse in Oldcastle, , and a new organization, styling itself Óglaigh na hÉireann, was formed. The organization attracted disaffected Provisional IRA members from Derry and the republican stronghold of South Armagh, as well as other areas including Dublin and Belfast cities and Counties Limerick, Tipperary, Louth, Tyrone, Monaghan, and Kerry.

22. The name "Real IRA" entered common usage when members had a roadblock in Jonesborough, County Armaghand told motorists "We're from the IRA.

THE ROOT CAUSES REMAIN THE REAL CAUSES

23. On 26 July 2012, it was reported that Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) and other small republican militant groups were merging with the Real IRA. As before, the group would continue to refer to itself as "the Irish Republican Army". It issued the following statement:

“The leadership of the Irish Republican Army remains committed to the full realization of the ideals and principles enshrined in the Proclamation of 1916. In recent years the establishment of a free and independent Ireland has suffered setbacks due to the failure among the leadership of and fractures within republicanism. The root cause of conflict in our country is the subversion of the nation's inalienable right to self-determination and this has yet to be addressed. Instead the Irish people have been sold a phoney peace, rubber-stamped by a token legislature in Stormont. Non- conformist republicans are being subjected to harassment, arrest and violence by the forces of the British crown; others have been interned on the direction of an English overlord. It is Britain, not the IRA, which has chosen provocation and conflict. The IRA's mandate for armed struggle derives from Britain's denial of the fundamental right of the Irish people to national self-determination and sovereignty -- so long as Britain persists in its denial of national and democratic rights in Ireland the IRA will have to continue to assert those rights. The necessity of armed struggle in pursuit of Irish freedom can be avoided through the removal of the British military presence in our country, the dismantling of their armed militias and the declaration of an internationally observed timescale that details the dismantling of British political interference in our country.”

24. After the merger, the media began to refer to the group as the "New IRA". As well as RAAD, the alliance includes an east Tyrone group thought to be responsible for killing PSNI officer Ronan Kerr in 2011, and a Belfast group who badly wounded PSNI officer Peadar Heffron in 2010. The Continuity IRA, and the group often referred to as ONH, remain independent. The PSNI reckoned that the new group has a membership of "between 250 and 300 military activists, backed up by associates". In November 2012 it claimed responsibility for shooting dead a Prison Officer near Craigavon, the first prison officer to be killed since 1993.

25. On 3 September 2012 Real IRA member Alan Ryan was shot dead in Dublin. Gardaí believed that he had been involved in a feud with major crime gangs from whom he was trying to extort money. In the aftermath of Ryan's death an internal feud developed in the Dublin Real IRA. Ryan's replacement as leader and another associate

5 were shot, but not fatally, in November 2012, allegedly on the orders of the Northern leadership. In February 2013 several associates of Ryan were arrested for extortion in Sligo. In March 2013, another associate of Ryan, Peter Butterly from Dunleer, was shot dead; three Dublin men, who were also charged with membership of an illegal organization, were charged with his murder.

26. In February 2014 the group sent seven letter bombs to British Army recruitment offices in south-east England; the first time republicans had struck in Britain since 2001. The following month, a PSNI landrover was hit by an explosively formed projectile in Belfast. A civilian car was also hit by debris, but there were no injuries. The Real IRA claimed responsibility

POSSIBLE RETURN OF THE CONFLICT

27. Last March, Richard Haass, the well-known American Politician, has warned that violence could re-emerge in Northern Ireland if progress is not made in dealing with the legacy of the Troubles. Dr. Haass warned that without resolving the outstanding issues associated with the legacy of the Troubles, the passage of time would not heal society in Northern Ireland. He said it was premature to consider Northern Ireland as a "problem solved". http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-26535987 - Richard Haass warns NI violence could re-emerge without progress

BACK TO HISTORY – WHAT THE UK DID – POLITICAL ROOT CAUSE

28. The partition of Ireland (Irish: críochdheighilt na hÉireann) was the division of the island of Ireland into two distinct territories, Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, and the now Republic of Ireland, an independent state. Partition occurred when the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920 creating Northern Ireland and what was then Southern Ireland. From 1801 to 1920 the whole island had formed a constituent country of the United Kingdom. Before then it was the separate Kingdom of Ireland. Many Irish are still yearning for their legacy of this Irish Kingdom while in the same time they know that the UK constitutes the struggle in the face of this dream.

29. The Act of 1920 was intended to create two self-governing territories within Ireland that remained within the UK. The Act also contained provisions for co- operation between the two territories and for the eventual reunification of Ireland. However, partition was reinforced in 1922 when what was intended to be Southern Ireland separated from the United Kingdom as the Irish Free State. This act of dividing a country can be described as rubbery, piracy or stealing. Simply like what resulted from the Sykes-Picot secret agreement, but in Europe!

30. Since partition began, a key aspiration of Irish nationalists has been to bring about a united Ireland, with the whole island forming one independent state. This goal conflicts with that of unionists in Northern Ireland, whose objective is to remain part of the United Kingdom. The British and Irish governments have agreed, under the 1998 Belfast Agreement, that the status of Northern Ireland will not change without the consent of the majority there. Hence, this wording also sends signals of reopening the

6 issue again. It also invites aspirations of self determination to remain vigilant and viable.

THE RELIGIOUS ROOT CAUSE

31. The civil war is over and Northern Ireland has found peace, at least in theory. Yet the conflict is unresolved, and even today there is little talk of tearing down divisive walls built during the "Troubles". On the contrary, construction of new barriers continues. They are not to be missed on any trip to Belfast: the combined monstrous barriers of walls and fences, some up to eight meters (26 feet) tall, that separate the city's Catholic and Protestant residential districts. Travel guides show the tourists the best painted stretches of wall and recount the turbulent history of the so- called "." There has officially been peace in Northern Ireland since 1997, but Belfast visitors' interest in the civil war hasn't waned.

32. "Peace wall" is a euphemistic term for the structures, which, for 40 years, have shaped the cityscape of the northern Irish capital. In 1969, British soldiers rolled out barbed wire between the Catholic Falls Road and Protestant . The first "peace wall" sprang up along the same route. The wall is now eight meters tall. The lower five meters are made of concrete and the top three consist of a wire fence "so that people can't throw anything over the top," explains Neil Jarman of the Institute for Conflict Research in Belfast. Yet this has had the perverse effect of people trying to catapult things over it instead. As Jarman adds, the wall is crying out to have things thrown over it. http://m.spiegel.de/international/europe/a- 779205.html#spRedirectedFrom=www&referrrer=https://www.google.com/

33. Cultural and religious dimensions played a role in flaming the situation in Northern Ireland conflict. Psycho-Cultural factor can be major element in such situations. Contemporary Conflict Resolution - Oliver Ramsbotham, Hugh Miall, Tom Woodhouse

34. Catholic community felt that the majority of protestants and the ruling party are discriminating against them in terms of employment, opportunities and other aspects of their social rights, based on their belief that religion was also contributing to or the driving force for such discrimination.

THE RISE OF IRISH IDENTITY

35. The 2012 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey (NILT) saw a marked rise in the percentage of people describing their national identity as Irish, rising from just over a quarter (26%) in 2010 to almost a third (32%) in 2012. This is the highest proportion recorded since the survey began in 1989.

36. The biggest impact appears to have been in the reduction of the proportion of people describing themselves as Northern Irish from a historic high of 29% in 2010 to only 22% in 2012. Given the census of 2011 recorded a sharp increase in these numbers, the events of 2012 may well have played a significant part here.

7

37. Broken down by religion, there has been a sharp jump in the percentage of Protestants calling themselves British, from 60% to 68%, which is also reflected among those describing themselves as of no religion. Change has been even more rapid among Catholics. Whereas in 2010, 58% of Catholics described themselves as Irish, this figure had jumped to 68% in 2012. In contrast, the number of Catholics calling themselves Northern Irish fell from 26% to 17% over the same period, the lowest figure in over a decade. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/debateni/blogs/northern-ireland-remains-sharply- divided-over-national-identity-but-with-no-strong-desire-for-irish-unity- 29332675.html

Current status of the peace process in Northern Ireland

38. Northern Ireland's modern period of conflict started in the late 1960s and lasted more than three decades. It involved mostly Protestant "loyalists" who wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom against mostly Catholic "republicans" who wished to unite with the Republic of Ireland. (Protestant "unionists" and Catholic "nationalists" shared their respective communities' goals, but tended not to support violence.) An accord reached in 1998 helped contribute to a sharp reduction in violence, with the annual conflict-related death toll, which peaked at 479 in 1972, dropping to single digits in recent years. The Good Friday Agreement provided a framework for political settlement and was cantered on a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland that would require cross-community support for important decisions, ensuring that no single community or party could dominate the assembly. Certain governing authorities were transferred from the UK Parliament at Westminster to the devolved assembly in Belfast, and paramilitary groups committed to abandoning their weapons and joining the political process.

39. Yet distrust persisted. Political jockeying over devolution—the transfer of police, judicial, and other local government powers from to Belfast, as well as the decommissioning of paramilitary groups' weapons—hindered the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and contributed to the electoral losses of moderate parties in 2003, to the benefit of the more hard-line republican—Sinn Féin—and unionist—Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)—parties. London reinstated direct rule of Northern Ireland in late 2002 when the sides failed to agree on implementing important aspects of the Good Friday Agreement. Northern Ireland's assembly wasn't restored until 2007.

40. Compromises have been struck since the Good Friday Agreement, notably a fifty-fifty recruitment scheme between Catholics and Protestants for a police force that had been predominantly Protestant and viewed by Catholics as an enforcer of unionist domination. That program ran from 2001–2011 and increased the percentage of Catholics in the police force from 8 percent to 30 percent. The 2010 Hillsborough Agreement finalized the devolution of policing and justice functions from Westminster to the Northern Ireland assembly—a major achievement. It also outlined a process for replacing the Parades Commission (the body with the power to regulate parade schedules and routes), which many Protestants saw as biased against their interests. That process was never implemented, however, amid deep political disagreement. In May 2013, the Sinn Féin–DUP governing coalition unveiled the "Together: Building a United Community" strategy, a legislative program for the forthcoming session that seeks to address, among other things, persistent sectarian segregation in education and 8 housing and economic inequality. Intercommunal tensions remain, especially with regard to expressions of religious, political, and community identity and differing interpretations of the past.

41. Armed republican and loyalist groups still constitute a threat. Paramilitary organizations on both sides are capable of disrupting the peace, but security experts say they have been significantly weakened since the Good Friday Agreement and lack the capacity to derail Northern Ireland's overall political stability. Security officials say they cannot sustain a violent campaign on the scale of the Troubles from the 1970s to the 1990s.

IV. Conclusion

42. The conflict of Northern Ireland between the three main parties was contained by ceasefire based on a multiparty kind of agreement. However, the environment is still conducive to the relapse in violence again.

43. The nature of the GOOD FRIDAY PEACE AGREEMENT didn’t take into consideration the vision needed to provide the changes required very much on the ground. The deal was a compromise that kept all options open to debate again the issue of Northern Ireland integration into the Republic of Ireland or the United Kingdome, as open-ended question that can be revisited with an agreement by the parties and subject to the willingness of the people.

44. The real root causes of the conflict are yet to be resolved. The leadership of the Irish Republican Army remains committed to the full realisation of the ideals and principles enshrined in the Proclamation of 1916 that proclaimed Ireland's independence from the United Kingdome.

45. The persistent stubbornness of the United Kingdom to keep Northern Ireland part of its territory is not in favour of all the people in the Region. It will remain a major source for hatred, radicalization, violence and losses of more souls and causalities even among the themselves, because of their government’s policy towards the question of Northern Ireland.

46. The partition of Ireland in 1920 by the United Kingdome was a mistake and will remain a reason for triggering instability in that Region, until the people of the Region, in particular the Irish, choose where they belong and where to head based on the principles of self-determination and in accordance with International Law.

######

9