Police backing 'signals end of IRA paramilitarism'

Sinn Féin’s decision to endorse the police service in the North is a major step forward in the IRA’s move away from paramilitarism, a report said today.

As Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British prime minister Tony Blair prepared to review in Downing Street their plans for reviving devolution, the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) gave a glowing assessment of how the Provisionals had abandoned terrorism and violence.

However, while the report stressed the organisation no longer sanctioned criminality, it noted some individuals continued to be involved in fuel laundering, smuggling and tax evasion and a small number had also considered arming themselves in defiance of their leadership.

The IMC said it was clear from Sinn Féin’s decision to get involved in policing that the republican movement remained firmly committed to a strategy of pursuing its objectives only through politics.

The ceasefire watchdog said: “The decision of the ard fheis (special party conference) held on January 28, 2007 to support policing and the criminal justice system was a very major development.

“That decision and the efforts invested by the leadership of the republican movement in presenting the arguments in favour of the change were further substantial evidence of their commitment to the democratic process.”

The four-member commission said during months of consultation about its policing plans, republican leaders encountered some resistance to its proposal to back Hugh Orde’s Police Service of Northern Ireland.

However this had been expressed politically rather than through violence.

“Some people left the movement but we have no reason to believe that they were threatened with violence,” he said.

“In addition to the two groupings we have previously mentioned – eirigi and the so-called Republican Defence Army – a new loose-knit one emerged calling itself both Republican Congress and Concerned Republicans which has focussed particularly on the issue of policing.

“The leadership engaged in dialogue with this grouping, as it did with the movement generally in advance of the ard fheis.”

As the North’s politicians prepared for a March 7 election, today’s IMC report was viewed as another crucial piece of the jigsaw leading to devolution on March 26.

If power sharing is to be achieved, Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists have said they must be convinced the republican movement has turned its back on crime and terrorist activity for good and is showing on the ground support for the police, courts and the rule of law.

The IMC report said the Provisionals were no longer involved in attacks nor preparatory acts such as recruitment, training, weapons procurement and development or targeting.

The commission said the organisation continued to disband paramilitary structures, although some members had tried to acquire small arms for their own purposes in contravention of the leadership’s instructions.

The report said they did not appear to have been successful.

The authors observed a number of Provisionals had taken up political roles in Sinn Féin.

The Provisionals (PIRA), they said, had also resisted community pressure to carry out so-called punishment beatings, shootings and expulsions.

While the organisation had not invited people it had exiled in the past to return to the North, there was evidence some people were coming home.

“We believe that PIRA has neither directed not sanctioned reprisals in such circumstances,” the report said.

While republicans continued intelligence gathering, the commission said it did not believe it was for paramilitary or other unlawful purposes.

“It does gather information to support its political strategy and it continues to receive information from sympathisers,” the IMC noted.

“Within communities members are sometimes involved in gathering information about alleged criminal or anti-social behaviour but there is no indication that such information is then used for violence or other improper purposes.

“The organisation continues to gather information about suspected informers or dissidents but again there is no indication that it has been used to support illegal activity.”

The commission said the Provisionals were not engaged in any sectarian violence and intimidation, nor was there any evidence that the organisation was using criminal means to raise funds.

“Terrorism and violence have been abandoned,” the IMC concluded.

“Members have been instructed not to be involved in paramilitary activities such as weapons procurement, in criminality or in the use of force.

“The organisation had already moved a very long way and it has continued to move in the same direction in the three months under review.”