Heavily Patrolled Town Seeks Peace: Alleged IRA Bastion Endures Scrutiny
by Jim Dee
Boston Herald, Tuesday, July 3, 2001

CROSSMAGLEN, Northern Ireland - With condemnation raining down on the Irish Republican Army for refusing to begin disarming Saturday to avert Sunday's resignation of the head of the North's government, yesterday a dozen heavily armed men rushed into the border village of Crossmaglen.

As the British soldiers disappeared around a corner a couple of hundred yards away, Tom Morgan, 68, smiled and said: "Nobody here is talking about IRA disarmament. You'd want to get these British Army fellahs away though. They're on the streets all the time."

Stepping into his house, Morgan drew back a window curtain to reveal a huge British Army base in his back yard - one built partially on land confiscated from him in the mid-1970s. He said Army choppers going into it awaken him at all hours of the night.

Outside, 75-year-old Joe Brennan stopped his electric wheelchair to address British claims that Crossmaglen, and all of south Armagh, is a dissident IRA stronghold, making the heavy military presence vital for peace.

"That's British propaganda. Sure, aren't they masters at it?" he said, noting the dissident "Real IRA" has never launched a single attack in the village. He said pro-British loyalist paramilitaries are regularly pipe-bombing pro-Irish nationalist homes across the North, and asked, "Why isn't the Army in loyalist areas stopping that carry-on?"

Troops will likely be patrolling one of those areas next weekend. Yesterday, a British-appointed commission announced that, as has been the case since July 1998, the Protestant Orange Order won't be allowed to march Portadown's overwhelmingly nationalist Garvaghy Road next Sunday.

Britain has called in 1,600 extra troops to deal with possible loyalist rioting this weekend. Any disturbances could exacerbate political uncertainty spawned by Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble's Sunday resignation as first minister of the North's cross-community Cabinet over the IRA's refusal to disarm.

Britain and Ireland have six weeks to break the political deadlock over IRA disarmament, British Army demilitarization and police reform before Trimble's post must be filled. If there's no deal, Britain will either suspend the government, or dissolve the assembly and call a new election.

"The whole focus has been on poor David Trimble," a south Armagh IRA volunteer told the Boston Herald in a wide-ranging interview yesterday. "My personal opinion is: the hell with David Trimble. If he disappears off the planet, it's irrelevant. We need to negotiate with (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair."

Stressing he was speaking in a personal capacity, and not for the IRA leadership, the long-serving IRA volunteer said he's sure the IRA will honor its May 2000 pledge to put its weaponry "beyond use" - when all unresolved peace process issues are settled.

"The Brits have shafted us here. They've shafted us on policing, on demilitarization, on letting Trimble do as he pleases. They're the ones holding up the whole deal - not us," the IRA member said.

He said the IRA's first peace process cease-fire of August 1994, "made the peace process. The peace process was nothing, absolute zero, without the IRA cease-fire or the participation of Sinn Fein."

He claimed the British Army was caught off-guard, "So they panicked, thinking, `How can we handle this when the IRA aren't blowing us up and killing us.' So what do they do? They develop this ruse about decommissioning and stretch it on for seven years."

"The war at the moment is on hold. Nothing is happening," the IRA volunteer said, adding the IRA's current cease-fire is four years old. "And unless something really rank happens to the IRA, nothing will happen. And the Brits know that. Everybody and his mother knows that. So what is decommissioning about? They're trying to make us surrender. That's not going to happen."

He said the dissident "Real IRA," which killed 29 people in August 1998's Omagh bombing, isn't supported in the area. He claims they're also British intelligence puppets.

"The Coca-Colas (derogatory slang for the RIRA) are just a gathering of hobos who'd do anything for a buck," he said. "They are tiny, with no support. They've never killed a soldier, or a policeman - and never they will. Basically, the Brits use them to undermine us."

He said there was "massive frustration" about British army patrolling in south Armagh. "We're still getting hassled from the cops, we're still getting followed, we're still having our phones and houses bugged."

"And when we had the first cease-fire, I remember thinking, `Jesus, this is it. They'll disappear.' But they're still tramping through fields, breaking down fences and stopping cars."

"The only thing that keeps us together is that we know we're winning," he added. "We're getting stronger. Our leadership is getting wiser. Our people are getting more confident politically. We will unite Ireland."

During the war, south Armagh was one of the IRA's most deadly strongholds.Of the 654 British soldiers killed since 1969, 114 died here - 52 within a five-mile radius of Crossmaglen.

Back in Crossmaglen Square, Sean Comiskey, owner of Comiskey's Hardware, said despite its lethal reputation the town has always gotten a bad rap.

"It's an ordinary little town with ordinary little people, getting on with their ordinary little lives - except we're surrounded by British soldiers."

"I guess this is the last outpost of the British empire," he smiled.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - Bloodletting between the North's main pro-British loyalist paramilitaries looks set to continue after yesterday's burial of Samuel Rocket, the last of three men killed last week in feuding between the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defense Association/Ulster Freedom Fighters.

"I can't see it ending right now," a leading UVF member told the Sunday Herald. "Anger is too high."

"We've fought the Irish Republican Army for 25 years and survived," said a senior UDA/UFF source, "but suddenly, we're in more danger now then ever - from our own.

"If a republican came from the Falls Road to kill you, he might be recognized as a stranger, and alarm bells will go. But now it could be a fella you had a drink with last week that's going to shoot you," he added.

The feud is rooted in a 1996 UVF split, when the Belfast-based UVF leadership expelled Portadown hardliner Billy "King Rat" Wright over his violent opposition to the peace process.

Wright then formed and led the renegade Loyalist Volunteer Force, until he was assassinated by Irish republican prisoners at the end of 1997 while jailed in the Maze Prison.

Last December, UVF members attacked an LVF party commemorating Wright's death, sparking a bloody UVF-LVF feud that has seen six men die since January.

Relations between the UDA/UFF and the UVF plummeted when the UDA/UFF's lower Shankill unit, led by Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair - who had been freed from jail last September under the peace accord - openly sided with the LVF.

Numerous UDA/UFF and UVF sources said Adair and his close ally John White of the UDA/UFF-aligned Ulster Democratic Party have sought supremacy in the Shankill district, the North's most prized loyalist stronghold.

One leading UVF member claimed the White/Adair alliance with the LVF was based on drug trafficking. "The LVF are utterly anti (peace) agreement. The UDA say they are pro-agreement. So why the alignment? It's certainly not political. It must be something else. And that something else is drugs," he claimed.

Things came to a head eight days ago when 10,000 UDA/UFF members and supporters paraded the Shankill. When the last band passing a UVF bar unfurled an LVF flag, UVF supporters attacked them. Adair then led a 400-strong mob in an assault on the bar, in which three patrons were wounded by gunfire.

That night, UDA/UFF members attacked the houses of UVF members and their political allies in the Progressive Unionist

Party, including the home of UVF founder Gusty Spence.

In retaliation last Monday, the UVF killed a UDA/UFF member and, mistakenly, a UVF member with him at the time. The UDA/UFF hit back two days later, killing the UVF-linked Samuel Rocket in front of his baby daughter.

One of the UVF's most senior members said the UVF had long resisted responding to UDA/UFF provocation, and likened the feud to "when Hitler invaded Poland. The rest of Europe had to decide whether to stand up or let him roll over them. It's the same with Adair."

Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson has claimed Tuesday's re-jailing of Adair has begun to calm the situation.

"Mandelson's made a big mistake," said one UDA/UFF source. "People will say, `You think lifting Johnny's going to sort things out? We'll show you that it's not.'"

The UVF was formed in 1966, the larger UDA in 1971. The Ulster Freedom Fighters emerged in 1973, first as a UDA cover name (the UDA remained legal until 1992) and later as the UDA's most violent wing.

Another factor in the feud is the groups' responses to peace process developments.

Unlike the IRA, which supplemented the spoils of bank robberies with donations from sympathetic Irish-Americans, loyalists ran extortion rackets at building sites and businesses for cash.

Since the 1994 loyalist cease-fires, the UVF and its allies in the Progressive Unionist Party have tried to "go legit" by throwing themselves into political constituency work. But the UDA/UFF paid scant attention to developing the UDA-allied Ulster Democratic Party.

In 1998's assembly elections, the PUP took two seats in the 108 member assembly. The UDP came up empty. Since then, UDA/UFF peace pact support has waned, with many in its ranks believing the accord has weakened links with Britain.

By contrast, the UVF, while at times angered by the political demands of the IRA-allied Sinn Fein party, still believes the peace accord strengthens British rule.

Most loyalist sources said the feud won't spill over into attacks on pro-Irish nationalists. But with much of the Shankill-area UDA/UFF now opposing the peace accord, nationalists remain wary.

One UDA/UFF member said that, while the bulk of both organizations across the North oppose the feud, "the Shankill's different. There's an awful lot of hard men in it. Nobody wants to be weak."

"We live next door to each other," he added. "We've got families with sons in different organizations, some families with the father in the UDA and the son in the UVF, or vice versa. It's a tragic situation."

A UVF source predicted mediation would eventually end the feud, but said, "It's a question of how many dead bodies there are first. We'll have to wait and see who blinks."

BELFAST, Northern Ireland "Fergal" joined the Irish Republican Army 20 years ago a violent era when many comrades were dying in ambushes set by elite undercover British soldiers, and the IRA believed only armed struggle would unite Ireland.

Now, echoing sentiments of the IRA's landmark May 6 disarmament offer, he believes the peace process, not war, will deliver the reunification of Ireland. " Twenty five years ago, the republican movement may have envisaged a massive victory AKs (rifles) firing off in Crossmaglen or on the Falls Road. We don't envisage that now," said Fergal (not his real name).

"We will unite Ireland. But it will be a roll on scenario I think sooner rather than later but not necessarily with a bang," he said. Fergal calls the IRA offer to begin a process of putting its weaponry "beyond use," and let international observers inspect certain arms dumps "a master stroke.""It's brilliant," he said. "David Trimble can't wriggle out of this one." Throughout the peace process, he said, Trimble's pro British Ulster Unionist Party has found "excuse after excuse" to stall.

He likened unionists to a child "complaining of a sore stomach every Monday morning. And you know it is because they don't want to go to school."

Admitting that some IRA members are "nervous," Fergal rejected reports that the guerrillas are in turmoil over the offer.

"It's human nature that people would say, `What the hell?' That's natural," he said. "But they're not going to jump up and down and scream and shout unless they have good reason to.

"If the IRA turn around tomorrow and say `We're going to hand over 1,000 AKs (AK47 rifles) or a half ton of Semtex (explosives),' then there would be jumping up and down and screaming about the place."

"But it hasn't," Fergal said. "The IRA is undefeated and never will be defeated. The IRA always said that all guns British and Irish should be taken out of Irish politics."

Still, he added, "To show an arms dump to an enemy is a major gesture. The IRA doesn't have to do this. The IRA could have stuck to its guns literally and said `Go stuff yourselves.'"

He predicted that the IRA would stay united because the leadership had worked hard to keep people on board. " We're constantly briefed and updated not necessarily the nitty gritty of: `Boys, tomorrow morning, we're telling them we're going to open a couple of arms dumps.' But we would be aware of the leadership's game plan and goals," he said.

Most IRA volunteers knew negotiations involved "bargaining chips. You also have to create space be one step ahead of your opponent. Our people have always been that way."

Media portrayals of IRA members as "hard men" with itchy trigger fingers, were "foolish," he said. Most are more eager to spend time with family and friends than risk their lives attacking heavily armed British soldiers. But, he said, Britain's garrisoning of thousands of soldiers with an endless array of military hardware to keep the North British, made the IRA a necessity. " The Brits only understand force," Fergal said. "They have always been that way. That's how they operate themselves."

Before the IRA's first peace process cease fire of August 1994, Fergal and other south Armagh IRA volunteers executed their war aware that chances of violent death or imprisonment were high.Twenty British bases and mountain top spy towers gave the Army a commanding view, supplemented by constant helicopter patrols scouring the countryside for any sign of IRA movement.

Despite this, the south Armagh IRA's guerrilla tactics proved so effective that, from the late '70s, the Army rarely moved through the area by road, instead ferrying troops about by helicopter.

But the war was a stalemate. Now Fergal thinks republicans must politically persuade unionists to voluntarily back Irish unity.

He said demographic projections that nationalists will be a majority in the North within decades, able to vote themselves into a united Ireland, aren't good enough for the "inclusive" Ireland republicans want. " That would be too weak," he said. "You really have to convince unionists they'll get a better deal in a united Ireland."

Noting that the Celtic Tiger's economic boom has brought streams of unionists South to shop, Fergal said, "The border has fizzled economically."

He said IRA dissidents have "lost the plot," and have no support in the broad republican community, support essential to the IRA's survival for 30 years. Speculation Gerry Adams may fall prey to a dissident assassin's bullet is "nonsense."

"Proof of the pudding is in what they're doing now and what they've done in the past. What have they done?" he said, pointing out that dissidents have yet to battle British soldiers. " And if they haven't the nuts to take on a Brit, or kill a Brit, or kill an RUC man, who are a dime a dozen which they haven't done since the split why should they kill Adams?" said Fergal.

He said dissidents emerged over a clash of egos not principles, "It was never about politics. It was about personalities. If this works, which it probably will, they will become even more irrelevant than they are now," he added.

Still, he acknowledged that, even though the IRA's disarmament offer emphasized that the end of British rule is the key to lasting peace, many republicans will remain apprehensive.

"People have been nervous from the start. It's far easier to make war than it is to make peace," he said, "because the Brits have been notoriously clever for centuries in the tricking about they've done in other countries."

As an example, he cites Britain's announcement last Tuesday that it would fully dismantle Newry's Cloghogue checkpoint garnering worldwide publicity only to announce the next day that more than half the base will remain. " They've constantly double crossed people, they've constantly gone back on their word. So people would be very, very wary about anything the Brits say or do. That hasn't changed," said Fergal.

"But the republican leadership have been 10 times more clever than the Brits this time light years ahead of them. That's why we're at where we're at today," he said. "And our leadership will bring this conflict to a permanent end, in the result of a united Ireland."

CREGGAN, Northern Ireland - As a biting wind cut across farm fields surrounding this south Armagh hamlet, 1,000 Irish Republican Army supporters marched in darkness last week to honor two fallen heroes, and to hear talk of whether the Irish peace process will survive.

The gathering commemorated two local IRA legends, Brendan Burns and Brendan Moley, killed when a bomb they were readying for use against the British Army exploded prematurely in February 1988.

They'd also come to hear Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly, a former IRA prisoner and one of the most senior figures in Irish republicanism, the movement backing the IRA's fight for Irish reunification.

Kelly, whom Burns and Moley hid after he and 37 other IRA prisoners staged a 1983 break from the North's Maze Prison, spoke of republican anger at Britain's Feb. 11 suspension of the North's brief stab at self-government.

Speaking in what is considered a hardline IRA stronghold, Kelly seemed to counsel patience with the political process, urging "strategic" thinking in the days ahead.

Britain outraged republicans when it suspended the North's two- month-old Cabinet last month to head off the threatened resignation of the body's first minister, Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble. His party backs continued British rule over the North.

Trimble had demanded the IRA begin to give up its arms by Jan. 31 as the price of his party's dropping its 18-month refusal to join the IRA's ally, Sinn Fein, in a four-party coalition government in December.

Suspension of the Cabinet prompted the IRA to sever contact with an international commission trying to disarm the North's paramilitaries by May 22.

The IRA also withdrew an offer to put weapons "beyond use" in the context of an overall settlement, an offer both Britain and unionists say must be clarified before the Cabinet can be reinstated.

Kelly's message matched the mood of current and former members of the IRA and of Sinn Fein interviewed by the Herald in recent weeks.

"It's a real body blow," one IRA source said about the suspension of the Cabinet. "People are very, very angry."

He said only negotiations will end the war.

"There's nobody under any illusion that there's going to be any military victory, on any side - although I sometimes believe that the Brits think they can win."

The source said the danger is that people might decide "politics don't work" if Britain and Trimble refuse to budge, "and that's the whole thing out the window."

He said he didn't think the IRA's cease-fire was in imminent danger of collapse, adding "even if people were thinking of going back, it would be a process of exhausting every avenue possible to get the institutions reinstated first."

"Republicans have been bending over backwards to facilitate the peace process," said a formerly imprisoned IRA member. He contrasted the IRA's 31-month cease-fire with the 16,000 British army foot patrols in the Connecticut-sized North last year - an average of 44 a day.

This source opposes IRA disarmament, saying if dissident pro- British paramilitaries saw republican areas defenseless, "they'd be very, very dangerous. If they see that they can get away with something, they'll chance it."

He likened the IRA's weapon stocks to "the nuclear arsenal in the world. It's never going to be used, but it does keep the peace."

Many blamed British Prime Minster Tony Blair for the current crisis, believing he directed Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson to suspend the Cabinet.

"Tony Blair is telling the world and his mother: `We're so concerned about Ireland. We're the peacekeepers,'" another IRA source said. "The reality is the British government couldn't give a toss.

"They look at the Irish as second-class citizens and unionists as second-class citizens. They look at the world as second-class citizens. The British think they're the master race."

He said the IRA, "an army that hasn't been defeated and hasn't surrendered," has repeatedly and openly stated its support for the peace process.

"Any government with half a brain would say, `Great stuff! Peace is better than war,'" he said. "But the Brits have squandered it. They're basically saying, `The hell with peace. We want war.' "Like a lot of people, I'm angry. But there's nobody getting carried away with it," he said.

Describing the situation as "fluid," this source doesn't see the IRA ending its cease-fire soon. Still, he added, the IRA's greatest strength is that "it's unpredictable."

"People are living on hope that something will emerge to pull us back from the abyss," a senior Sinn Fein member said.

He said that while Britain helped solve past crises by pressuring unionists to compromise, this time it has openly sided with unionists.

"And that's what makes this crisis more deadly to the peace process than any that we've seen so far," he said.

He said Mandelson likely thought "he could squeeze more blood from the republican stone. His miscalculation was in believing there was any blood left."