Trimble Demands British Govt. Action Against IRA

Reuters ^ | 10/4/02 | Alex Richardson

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BELFAST (Reuters) - Northern Ireland's Protestant First Minister David Trimble called on the British government on Friday to act against the Irish Republican Army after a police raid on the offices of the group's political ally Sinn Fein.

Trimble told journalists he believed the raid on a Sinn Fein office at the province's devolved parliament at Stormont, east Belfast, was in response to "an IRA intelligence operation directed against the upper echelons of the government."

"The challenge today to (Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary) John Reid is...you have a duty to act, you have a responsibility to act, we expect you to act, and we are saying you must act," Trimble said.

Sinn Fein denounced the police operation, which comes as three IRA suspects were due in court in Colombia accused of giving bombmaking lessons to left-wing guerrillas, as "highly political" and aimed at smearing the party.

The party has two seats in the power-sharing Catholic/Protestant executive set up under the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.

"Police investigating the activities of republican terrorists in Belfast searched a number of premises in the north and west of the city," a police spokeswoman told Reuters.

"A number of people were arrested and items seized, and we can confirm the office of a specific individual at Parliament Buildings, Stormont, was searched."

Allegations of ongoing IRA activity have dented faith in the peace process among the province's Protestant majority and prompted some to demand Sinn Fein's exclusion from government.

WARNING

Trimble, whose Ulster Unionist Party is committed to maintaining ties with Britain, has already warned he will bring down the Stormont-based regional government if the IRA does not disband by mid-January.

"This comes in the wake of David Trimble talking about pulling down the institutions, now we have the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) acting very politically to support that," senior Sinn Fein politician Gerry Kelly told reporters.

"This is the offices of a political party which is signed up to the Good Friday Agreement."

In what was described as a big operation involving over 200 officers, police swooped on a number of addresses in north and west Belfast, as well as at Sinn Fein's offices in the Stormont parliament in the east of the city, and made several arrests.

A spokeswoman for Sinn Fein told Reuters one of those arrested was Denis Donaldson, the party's chief administrator at Stormont, who was picked up at his home in Belfast.

"He had his door kicked in at six o'clock this morning," the spokeswoman said, adding documents and computer disks relating to human rights and policing issues had been taken away.

A security source told Reuters the operation was not related to the investigation into the theft of intelligence files from the top security Castlereagh police station in March. The IRA is accused of stealing the files, but has denied any involvement.

The source said the raid was targeting intelligence gathering by the mainstream IRA, which has been observing a cease-fire in its war to drive Britain out of the province since 1997.

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[Cicero]

I know the IRA isn't very popular around here, but I would argue that (except for a few people in splinter groups such as the Provisional IRA) they do not have a record of deliberately killing innocent civilians. They regularly gave warnings before bombing buildings, unlike the Protestant extremists, who have frequently killed Catholic civilians deliberately and completely at random.

Moreover, the IRA has kept its ceasefire for five years, although the Protestants have given little or nothing in return.

There is little logic in this present request. Why must the British government act against the IRA because the Brits broke down a door at Sinn Fein headquarters? As yet, there is no evidence that they found any incriminating evidence, or that the IRA has done anything at this time to provoke retribution.

I won't defend everything the IRA has done. But lying behind it is more than 300 years of British oppression of the Irish, which unfortunately continues today.