IRA must disband, Britain and US insist
BELFAST, Thursday (Reuters) Outraged by an IRA offer to shoot a group
of suspected murderers, Britain and the United States said the guerrilla
group must disband and called on its political ally Sinn Fein to
renounce criminality.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the offer defied description
while the U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland declared: "it's time
for the IRA to go out of business."
Their condemnation came as the family of Robert McCartney, fatally
stabbed by a gang including IRA members after a bar fight in January,
said fear of retribution was still preventing witnesses from going to
the police.
"There were 70 people in the bar ... no one has come forward with
anything to the police that they can act upon," his sister Catherine
told reporters.
Police arrested a man over the crime after he voluntarily went to a
police station with his lawyer, but they later released him without
charge pending further enquiries.
Local media said he was one of three people expelled from the IRA
over McCartney's killing. Ten people have previously been arrested and
released without charge over the murder of the father-of-two.
The McCartney family has mounted a highly effective campaign for the
killers to be brought to justice, accusing the IRA of intimidating
witnesses and cleaning the bar of evidence.
But potentially the biggest loser in the furore over the murder and a
huge bank robbery blamed on the IRA is Sinn Fein, Northern Ireland's
largest Catholic nationalist party, which has been widely condemned for
failing to distance itself from the IRA.
Its critics say the idea of a political party with what many regard
as effectively an armed wing is increasingly unacceptable in a 21st
century democracy.
Tuesday's demands from Blair and President George W. Bush's special
envoy to the British-ruled province, Mitchell Reiss, are yet more blows
to its democratic credentials.
"It's time for Sinn Fein to be able to say explicitly, without
ambiguity, without ambivalence, that criminality will not be tolerated,"
Reiss told BBC radio. "You can't sign up for the rule of law a la
carte."
Blair condemned the republican movement - the IRA and Sinn Fein - in
his weekly questions session in Britain's parliament.
"The IRA statement yesterday frankly defies any description, it was a
quite extraordinary thing to say," he told legislators.
"There is a stark choice facing republicanism. They can either
embrace the democratic and peaceful route or be excluded from the
political process."
In a statement to the media on Tuesday, the IRA said it had gone to
McCartney's five sisters and fiancee and offered to shoot those
responsible for his death, but that the family had insisted they wanted
the perpetrators brought to court.
Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness said it would have been
"very unfortunate" if the IRA had shot anyone, but party colleague Gerry
Kelly insisted the statement was positive.
"Yesterday's IRA statement should have removed concerns witnesses
might still have had about coming forward," he said. |