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May 22, 2002 8:45 a.m. |
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uestion: What do the following four things have in common — last week's general election in the Irish Republic; a statement by the Russian security services; a trial in Colombia; and a meeting attended by pop-star Bob Geldof in the small northern English town of Warrington last Friday.
Answer: They are all signs that one major battle in the war on terrorism is currently being lost but that there is at least a chance that a tide of ordinary citizens, if not governments, will shortly turn against the terrorists.
Still baffled? Well, the battle in question is that against terrorism in Ireland. For further enlightenment, let us look at each of the four developments in turn.
Take the Irish election first. This marked a large advance for Sinn Fein — the political wing of the terrorist Irish Republican Army — in the Irish Republic. Its share of the vote increased from 2.5 to 6.5 and it elected five members to the Irish parliament. The IRA is still murdering and maiming people, mainly Catholics these days, but participation in the Northern Ireland "peace process" has made Sinn Fein respectable enough to vote for.
Admittedly, Sinn Fein did not get its dream result of a "hung parliament" in which it would have provided the swing votes needed to keep the present "soft nationalist" Fianna Fail government in power. Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, having come within two votes of an absolute majority, can choose much more respectable coalition partners from smaller parties and independents.
But Mr. Ahern was careful to keep open the possibility of a future alliance with Sinn Fein. He was, he said, "happy" that Sinn Fein had come away from the path of IRA violence and "into the democratic road," but that they had to go the rest of the way and "make sure there is no IRA."
That paints an optimistic picture of a Sinn Fein-IRA that has already chosen politics over terrorism and merely needs to complete the process. And that indeed is the official view in London as much as in Dublin and, more skeptically, in Washington.
Unfortunately for such optimism, however, the Russian Security Service last month reported that the IRA had purchased 20 high-tech AN-94 armor-piercing assault rifles in the fall of 2001. Even as it was publicly putting a handful of old bombs, grenades, and rifles out of commission, it was quietly replacing them with state-of-the-art weapons. Far from "decommissioning" its armory as it had promised in return for its role in the government of Northern Ireland, it was modernizing that armory.
In Colombia, meanwhile, three IRA munitions experts are on trial for assisting the anti-American Marxist FARC guerrillas to train recruits in car-bombings, mortar attacks, and other terrorist methods in return for heroin and cocaine money. Sinn Fein officials, including president Gerry Adams, repeatedly denied any connection with the three men. Under media pressure, they have now admitted that these denials were lies.
Adams's belated honesty gives credibility, if any were needed, to the claims by Colombian officials in U.S. congressional hearings last month that as many as 15 IRA members had traveled to Colombia to train terrorists in recent years. As a result of the increased military capability of the terrorists, 400 Colombian soldiers and policemen have been murdered.
Washington has at least reacted to these events. Rep. Henry Hyde (R., Il.) called hearings to investigate Sinn Fein-IRA's "Colombian connection" (Adams, anxious to avoid pleading the Fifth, refused to testify.) And President Bush's envoy to Northern Ireland, Richard Haas, warned Adams of severe U.S. retaliation if any Americans died as a result.
But London and Dublin have been strangely quiescent even in response to the news that the IRA was re-arming.
It is not hard to guess why. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern have a great deal invested in that appeasement of terrorism we call the "peace process." If it fails, they look like dupes. And to avoid its public breakdown, they become worse than dupes-they become accomplices. They turn a blind eye to every violation of the Good Friday Agreement committed by the terrorists-whether the Provisional IRA, the Real IRA, or the various Protestant paramilitaries.
One example of this blind-eyed officialdom is the failure of the authorities, North and South, to prosecute the Omagh bombers even though their identity is generally known. Now, however, victims of terrorism may have an alternative to relying on governments for protection and redress.
Last Friday the relatives of the 29 Omagh victims held a dinner in Warrington to raise funds to bring an action under civil law (as opposed to criminal law) against the Real IRA and the five named people they believe responsible. They chose Warrington because it was there that a Provisional IRA bomb killed two children, aged three and seven, in the town square in 1994. (The murderers have never been found, and even if they were tried and convicted, they would be released under the terms of the Good Friday agreement.) And their cause attracted an extraordinary level of public support from the last Northern Ireland Secretary and main inventor of New Labor, Peter Mandelson, to the Dublin-born singer, Bob Geldof, who organized the 1986 Live Aid concert for Ethiopian famine aid.
"Our Aug. 15, 1998, is the exact moral equivalent of Sept. 11," Geldof told United Press international. "If we in Britain and Ireland were prepared to support the victims of Sept. 11 in America, and then sent people into the caves of Afghanistan to get those responsible, we must be able to make those responsible for Omagh face up to what they did."
And not just those responsible for Omagh. The Omagh families and their lawyers are now seeking to work with other victims to establish an international organization that would use civil law against terrorism when governments fail to fight terrorism with the criminal law. We must hope they succeed.
For if they fail, it is not hard to imagine Sinn Fein ministers entering governments in both Dublin and Belfast while the IRA hard men continue to murder and kneecap with impunity in the streets of the same cities.
(Contributions can be made to the Omagh Victims Legal Trust at the Bank of Ireland, 25 Campsie Rd Omagh, Northern Ireland BT79 0AE (acct No. 30790971, sort code 905002); in London at 21 Southwick Mews, London W2 1JG (Acct. no 10084990); in the United States at Omagh Legal Fund, North Fork Bank, 5977 Riverdale Ave, Riverdale, New York 10471, USA (Acct No.8944015588 Sort Code 021407912.)
— John O'Sullivan is editor-at-large of National Review. This column first appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times. It is reprinted here with the author's permission.