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Show The Salt Lake Tribune OPINION Sunday, November1, 1998 AAT SALT LAKE TRIBUNE ~ Six Months After Accord, Not One IRA SERVICE STARS Bullet, Gun Has Been Decommissioned BY SEAN MCDOUGALL HISTORY NEWS SERVICE The decommissioning of weapons in Northern Ireland ought to be a simple enoughaffair. Theparties which previously spoke for terrorist organizations on both extremesof the political spectrum are nowlocked in dialogue and committed to principles of nonviolence. All but one of the myriad terrorist organizations has now declared a ceasefire. An international decommissioning body has been appointedto help with the disposal of weapons. Moreover,the British and Irish governments are in complete agreementas to how to preceed. It seemsstrange, in that light, that six monthsafte r the parties negotiated a peaceful framework for pro- gress — now known as the Good Friday Agreement — not one of the millions of bullets, thousands of rifles or tons of explosives has been removed from the terrorist arsenal. The reason is that historical factors are at work. But asso often happensthey are as much a hindranceas a help. On Oct. 11, in the republican village of Rosslea, Northern Ireland, a plaquelinking a rebellion that occurred in 1798 and the present IRA's campaign since 1969 was unveiled. Many republicans — including mostof those who support the IRA — see the last 800 years as a period of continual resistance to British rule in Ireland. Contemplating an endto violence, they feel they must not do anything that would result in the struggle being seen as having ended in defeat. By handingin weapons, many feel that they would, in effect, be surrendering. However, as the Irish president, Mary McAleese, said recently, it is not our job to unwrite history,it is merely to script a new history. The refusal of the main republicanterrorist group, the IRA, to decommissionits weapons andjoin with othersin shaping a peaceful futureis the most worrying aspect of the currentsituation, for it holds forth the prospect of a return to violencein the future. It is already clear that the detonators used in the recent bombing atrocity in the village of Omagh, Northern Ireland, were taken from an IRA arms dump by dissidents. Twenty-nine people died and more than 300 wereinjured in this unprovokedattack. Such piracy should have been anticipated. The presentIRA is itself a breakaway faction which, in 1970, armeditself by raiding other groups’ arsenals. Sean O'Callaghan, a former senior IRA officer turned informer, recalls thathisfirst task upon joining up was to dig up some Second World War Lee Sea Enfield rifles: they were in perfect condition, we'l greased and securely stored — just as two tons of Libyan-supplied Semtex explosive and thousandsof East European rifles are today held in secret loca- tions all over Ireland. By refusing to reveal the location of these weapons, the modern IRA, andits republican sympathizers, effectively reserve the right of a future generation to take up arms again. One breakawayfaction, calling itself the “Real” IRA, has already caused the death of dozens of people. Can webe surethat they will not be followed by others? Each generation rewrites the past accordingtoits owninterests. Political activists sometimes explain the refusal to decommission terrorist weaponry by claiming that such an action is without precedent in Ireland. But are precedents relevant whenlivesare at stake? Moreover, politicians should be corrected when they make such inaccurate claims. In fact, thereis a history of arms decommissioningin Ireland, but it is not one which would appeal muchto the IRA or its republican sympathizers. In Easter 1916, as others began the Rising in Dublin, the Cork contingent of the Irish Republican Brotherhood handedits weapons over to members of the clergy known to have beenin discussion with the British authorities, Following the Irish War of Independence, which led to the partition of Ireland between the north and south, the British Army handed weaponsoverfor the use of the embryonic Irish Army. Throughlocal and unofficial agreements many IRA weapons likewise madetheir wayinto the arsenal. Other weapons were handed in onloan in 1939, on the eve of the Second World War,neverto be reclaimed. Thereare other precedents to be found elsewhere. In the 1980s one branch of ETA, the Basqueterrorist organization, simply destroyed its own weapons. In the early 1990s, the various factions in El Salvador decommissioned their weapons by using the United Nations as an intermediary. Loyalist terrorists in Northern Ireland have offered to decommissionin parallel with their republican counterparts. The time has now come for the TRAto begin that process.If it does not, then people whoare not yet born maydie as a historic conflict entersits ninth century. Sean McDougall is Research Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary British History, University of London. He co-edited The Northern Ireland Question in British Politics (1996). HERPES STUDY NEW GEL FOR THE TREATMENT OF GENITAL HERPES If you are healthy, between 18 and 60, havea history ofgenital herpes, and are interested in participating in the study of a new treatment gel, please call to see if you will qualify for this new study. Compensation provided. University of Utah approved research. 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