| Boston Globe Editorial - reprinted without permission 4/29/87
Dishonoring Ireland
The murder of Sir Maurice Gibson, a senior Northern Ireland judge,
and his wife in a carbombing by the Irish Republican Army has certain
similarities to the killing of Lord Mountbatten in 1979. In both
instances, the crime was committed by means of a planted bomb that
was detonated at the critical moment by a radio signal sent by the
killers from a nearby field.
In each case, the principal victim had been casual about security
arrangements. Lord Mountbatten had been vacationing every summer
for decades at his family's estate in County Sligo in the Republic
of Ireland. He was well-known to local people and had no specific
reason to believe himself in danger. Judge Gibson had booked a
vacation in France four months ago through a Belfast travel agannncy,
using his own name and giving exact time of his arrivals and
departures. This was not in accord with the evasive action that
senior officials are urged to take in their travel arrangements.
Unpredictability in one's movements is a potential victim's best
defense.
The IRA hated Gibson because of his decisions in IRA-related cases.
Presumably, it hated Mountbatten, who had no involvement in Northern
Ireland affairs, because he was a British war hero and an uncle
of the queen. In each case, in addition to the target of the attack,
other persons who had no political role also died. Did the IRA
also hate Mrs. Gibson? Or the 15-year-old Irish boy who died piloting
Mountbatten's boat?
The members of the IRA and its American sympathizers have to ask
themselves what is being accomplished by the murder of all these
people, political figures and innocents alike. Is Ireland any closer
to unity today than it was when Mountbatten was killed eight years
ago? Will the judge and his wife be remembered a month from now?
Or will their deaths make a particle of difference in the future
decisions of the British government?
In its Easter message last week, on the 71st annniversary of the
Dublin rebellion of 1916, the IRA had recourse to the old fanatical
language: "The British will only be talked out of Ireland through
the rattle of machine guns and the roar of explosives."
This may sound romantic or even plausible until the historical
realities are examined. Eamon DeValera, Michael Collins, Patrick
Pearse and the other heroes of 1916 organized a military revolt.
The survivors later fought a guerilla war. They did not assassinate
old women and young boys. There is a considerable moral difference
between guerrilla warfare and random terrorism.
The original IRA fought the Irish War of Independence from 1919
to 1921 and won because it had the moral and political support of
an overwhelming majority of the nationalist community. Because
today's pseudo-IRA lacks that majority support, it has to resort
to cowardly strikes against isolated victims. These hit-and-run
murders are despicable; they do nothing to advance any Irish cause
or interest. They only bring dishonor to the good name of Irish
men and women everywhere.
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| Boston Globe Editorial - reprinted without permission 5/4/87
The myths and the realities of Northern Ireland's troubles - Peter Maas
At dinner parties and similar affairs I hear a great deal of heated
talk about the situation in the Middle East, in South Africa and
in Central America, and every so often I ask "What about Northern
Ireland?"
Immediately, I see a lot of eye-rolling around me, and later, at
home, my wife says: "You know, maybe you should lay off. It seems
to make people uncomfortable."
Well, granted Northern Ireland isnn't in the geopolitical thick
of things, although there are any number of military deep thinkers
who speak of Ireland's strategic position astride the North Atlantic
sea lanes and conjure up dark visions of a united Ireland in
revolutionary hands becoming another Cuba. Now, anything is possible,
but I wouldn't bet the farm on this one.
I should say that my interest is more than passing. My ancestral
mainstreams are Dutch and Irish. The Dutch, though, managed to
throw off the Spanish yoke some three centuries ago and have since
put it all together. So my heart naturally goes out to the Irish,
whose own rebellion against another invader around that same time
met with devastating defeat at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690,
and who have suffered ever afterward.
Not long ago, I spent time in Belfast with an active service volunteer
of the Irish Republican Army, who, upon inquiring about my antecedents,
said, "Ah, you know what Bismark said. Bismark said if the Dutch
had conquered Ireland, it would have become the breadbasket of Europe.
On the other hand, if the Irish had conquered Holland, it would
have sunk into the sea."
The reality today in Northern Ireland is not amusing. Since the
current round of "troubles" began, in August 1969, after Catholic
civil rights marchers - inspired by similar efforts here in the
South - protested widespread discrimination in housing, education,
job opportunities and voting rights, there have been nearly 2600
bloody deaths in a population of a million and a half. A comparable
figure here would number close to 400,000, rivaling the mortality
rate of the Civil War. One out of every 20 households in Northern
Ireland has experienced a death or an injury from shooting and
bombings.
Liberals have a tough time getting a handle on all of this. For
one thing, all the antagonists are white. For another, while they
worship the same God, the troubles come off as a sort of bizarre
sectarian strife right out of the Reformation. And, not least,
there is our love affair, from jurisprudence to Princess Di, with
Ireland's conquerors - the Brits. It makes you wonder why Adams,
Jeffersonn, and Washington went to all that bother.
There's also another reason. As seenn through American media coverage
of the Irish agony, Britain is sweet reason and light: once a majority
in Northern Ireland votes to be unified with the Irish Republic,
that's it. This, of course, conveniently ignores the fact that
when Ireland was being partitioned after the 1916 uprising, the
electoral will was overwhelmingly for unification. Or that in carving
out Northern Ireland, Britain originallyo intended to include all
nine counties of Ulster, but, on reflection, realized that this
would create a loyalist majority a bit too close for comfort, so
in the end only six counties were included, thus guaranteeing a
two-to-one edge to those swearing allegiance to the crown.
Never mind the tyranny of regional majorities; what, for instance
do you suppose would have happened if the South alone had been allowed
to vote on desegregation in the United States.
Indeed, as a maker of myths, the sad truth is that American reportage
on Northern Ireland by and large has become an adjunct of the British
Foreign Service. The Provisional IRA, as a result, has been
routinely lumped in with various Middle East "terrorist" groups,
with Italy's Red Brigades, West Germany's Red Army Faction, and
France's Direct Action. Never mind a secret British Army
Intelligence report that says Provo links to such outfits are "elusive"
that there is no indication that the IRA has "either the intention
or the ability to foster" these connections and that the Provos
are simply "committed to the traditional aim of Irish nationalism;
that is, the removal of the British presence from Ireland."
There's the notion as well that everything boils down to a kind
of mindless holy war between Protestants and Catholics. Although
the fundamentalist minister Ian Paisley has done his simplistic
best to churnn up religious hatred, the issue is far more complicated,
innvolving unique political, economic, ad cultural factors rooted
in Britian's subjugation and subsequent colonization of Ireland,
beginning with absentee landlords and the importation of Scottish
settlers, primarily in Ulster.
Not so incidentally, that acknowledged godfather of Irish
republicanism, Wolfe Tone, as not only Scottish but Protestant,
and Charles Stewart Parnell, one the legendary heroes of the republican
movement, was both English and Protestant. These days, whatever
else you might think of the IRA, it can hardly be described as part
of a papal conspiracy.
The US government has bestowed to British pressure. An Ian Paisley,
for example, can come to this country on speaking tours anytime
he wants. So can Andy Tyrie, who runs the Ulster Defense Association.
So can John Hume, the articulate head of the republican (and Catholic)
Social Democratic and Labor Party, who has accepted the idea of
a majority vote to determine Ulster's future. But an equally
articulate Gerry Adams, chief of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political
wing, and like Paisley and elected member of the British Parliament
(although he refuses to take his seat), is denied entry.
Even more pernicious, the US Senate voted last year to remove the
plitical offense exception clause form our extradition treaty with
the United Kingdom - a cluase that was, and still is, standard in
90 similar treaties between the United States and other nations.
The clause states that an extradition will not be granted to anyone
who can prove that he is wanted "with a view to try and punish him
for an offense of a political nature."
After Irish republican fugitives won a string of victories against
extradition in US courts, a massive British lobbying effort, with
the Reagan administration's full support (as a partial payoff for
Margaret Thatcher's agreement to let US bombers use England as a
base on their way to Libya in April 1986), changed the rules not
only for the future but also retroactively.
Just to show how powerful the pressure was, among those who voted
the bill out of committee were Joseph Biden of Delaware, who wants
to run for president, and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and John
Kerry of Massachusetts, who are so eloquent about the administration's
disastrous adventure in Nicaragua.
[Peter Maas is the author of "Serpico" and "The Valanchi Papers".
He is writing a novel that involes Northern Ireland]
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| Leaprechauns are distant.
Re .1
This editorial like the second contains many truths and many
falsehoods.
E.G. The reference to Pearse Collins and De Valera, and their military
uprising in 1916 and then to their guerilla war later.
Pearse was executed by firing squad in May 1916, four days after
he surrendured his insurrectionists. 1916 was an open declared conflict
that would be akin to the sioux nation today occupying a large Western
city in the U.S. and declaring war on the U.S. army. However they
were treated as rebellious traitors not prisoners of war, and many
of the leaders were executed. Collins played a very small role in
1916. However to describe the warfare from 1918 - 1922 as guerilla
is to give it a level of "respectability". It was more like present
day El Salvador. Now to hurt some feelings, the truth is that Michael
Collins was a ruthless leader of a military movement that was referred
to then as "Terror Mongers". Yes my friends, they were terrorists,
they shot policemen in reprisal for hangings. Their tactic was to
kidnap the policeman first and hold him as a hostage for the condemned
man, then "execute" him if the hanging proceeded. Many died in this
faahion. Michael Collins had one remedy for informers - one bullet
behind the left ear after a "republican court hearing". No
knee-cappings in those days. Many innocent people died in this
fashion. Much use was made of explosive and people died in their
use, and property was razed without warning in "discipline" actions.
Michael Collins was a callous ruthless and totally effective soldier.
He has come to be revered as a saint which he obviously was not,
mostly because he died within six months of the Treaty. He had a
short day in the sun, he was almost unkown before 1919 and he was
dead on Aug 22 1922. He was a great soldier, a poor politician,
and a man who played the hardest game the hardest way he knew how
to. That warfare was not much different than what goes on today.
All that's really different is how its portrayed. Innocents will
always die in conflicts, one side will always try to show that its
the other side that kills innocents, thus justifying their actions
by type of default.
Re .2
He writes from a more biased stance, having been to Belfast and
as he said, having spent time in the company of paramilitaries.
Although it might be asked whether the first writers were ever to
Northern Ireland to write so authoritatively. I beleive he is
correct in his analysis of the U.S. administration's stance towards
their British counterparts. I also can associate with his portrayal
of the British image as "lily-white peacemakers" in the popular
propaganda of the media. The old injured innocence of the hurt
oppressor. He mostly blames the uneven approach of the U.S. towards
this conflict. He might be argueing on a higher plane than .1 in
that he's trying to get access to a solution rather than trotting
out the useless hackneyed condemnations that so bedevil this situation
and prolong the agonising. However he is distant from the problem
though I welcome his interest. He makes little or no mention of
the internal strifes within the factions, nor to the brutal slayings
that have happened. He is effective in his use of metaphor but not
graphic enough.
Snake wanted to say that.
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