Commission condemns violence since peace deal

Terrorist violence in Northern Ireland has surged since the Good Friday peace deal was signed six years ago, a scathing new report claimed today.

Paramilitary chiefs on both sides of the sectarian divide are continuing to order recruits to wage a savage campaign of shootings, beatings and bombings, the ceasefire study has found.

The Independent Monitoring Commission’s damning appraisal has led to the British government financially punishing Sinn Féin and the Progressive Unionists because of their links to two of the worst offenders, the IRA and Ulster Volunteer Force respectively.

But if the Stormont power-sharing regime was operating, the penalties could have been even more severe.

The IMC said it considered the illegal activity so serious it would have recommended expelling both parties from the Assembly.

In a damning assessment of levels of violence, the commission found murder rates approaching one a month.

The four-man watchdog, drawn from Britain, Ireland and the US, also backed chief constable Hugh Orde’s verdict that the IRA were behind the abduction of dissident republican Bobby Tohill in February that sparked a political crisis in Belfast.

“The operation was one planned and undertaken by the Provisional IRA,” it concluded.

Even though that level of killing is still well down on the bloodiest days of the Troubles, the report said shootings and assaults have been considerably higher since the April 1998 Agreement was struck.

Figures for 1999-2002 totalled 1,119 (721 loyalist and 398 republican) - nearly double the rate for 1991-94.

“Paramilitary activity as a whole is at a disturbingly high level, and violence short of murder is at a level which would cause outrage in the rest of the UK or in Ireland,” the commission said.

Descriptions of the assaults as so-called punishment beatings, lending them “spurious respectability”, were rejected by the commission.

“The victim of one PIRA attack was beaten about the head with pick-axe handles and then shot nine times in the lower legs,” it said to illustrate the barbarity involved.

“A UVF victim was so severely beaten that after a period of intensive care he has been left in a permanently brain-damaged state, unable to communicate or lead a normal life.”

The study found 12 paramilitary killings since January 2003, with loyalists responsible for at least eight.

Only one has been attributed to the Provisionals, but the commission accused it of eight punishment shootings so far this year, along with three abductions and an exiling in recent months.

This forms part of a pattern where IRA chiefs can order the attacks to stop at times such the Assembly elections in November.

The republican organisation remains active and in a high state of readiness, the report claimed.

“It has been undertaking training in the early part of this year,” it said.

“It maintains a capability on intelligence, both on political events and on potential targets, and on weaponry.

“This provides ample evidence of an organisation maintaining its capacity to undertake acts of violence or to participate in a terrorist campaign if that seemed necessary to it.”

The commission’s recommendation for action against Sinn Féin was based on an analysis which claimed some senior members of the party were also, in certain cases, top-ranking IRA men.

Leading Sinn Féin representatives were in a position to considerably influence the Provos’ major policy decisions, it added.

The report said: “We recognise there might not have been a PIRA ceasefire in the first place without influence from the leadership of Sinn Féin.

“By the same token, Sinn Féin must bear its responsibility for the continuation by PIRA of illegal paramilitary activity and must recognise the implications of being in this position.”

Outside the violence, the IMC accused the IRA of extensive cigarette smuggling and hijackings to fund their terrorist operations.

It also described the main loyalist terror organisations as being deeply involved in the drug trade and extortion rackets.

Claiming the PUP was aware of the UVF’s paramilitary activities, the IMC insisted: “It has not sufficiently discharged its responsibility to exert all possible influence to prevent illegal activities on the part of the UVF.”