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THE IRA MAN
"I was in this prison 20 years ago and now I am back. Those 20 years
have just flown. I think the next 20 will pass just as quickly."
The words are those of a leading republican strategist speaking as he
faces a long sentence in the Maze, Ulster's highest security prison.
A strict regime means that no notes can be taken of conversations,
but some phrases burn themselves into the mind. He had been asked
if he believed the IRA campaign could continue for another 20 years.
The view from the H-block cell is one of a continuing stalemate.
He speaks of the sacrifices republicans have made and are willing
to go on making, of the impossibility of stopping when so much
has already been ventured. "How could we turn around and say it
was all a waste of time? We would end up shooting each other."
He is an agile man, fitter and leaner since imprisonment. In the
past his easy, ironic manner have led some journalists to see
him as a moderate, a political thinker rather than a military
figure. This is not the case. From his perspective, the 23 years
of violence has not been a waste of time - they have been the
slow process of wearing down Britain's will to retain its
presence in Northern Ireland.
The leading edge of the battle is, for the time being, the IRA
campaign on the British mainland, where be believes public opinion
will eventually become tired and sickened by the battle to defeat
the IRA.
In the past, IRA offensives in Britain have come quickly to a peak,
ending with the arrest of the volunteers sent over to wreak havoc,
but this time it is different. The IRA has learnt from its
experience and is ready for a long haul.
Each successful bombing is followed by a series of hoax calls
aimed a causing maximum disruption to IRA volunteers. However
long it takes, the IRA is confident that its war of attrition
will in the end tell on a public which has had enough.
The greatest military asset the IRA has acquired in the past
20 years has been Semtex. Unlike previous home-made explosive
Semtex does not deteriorate. It can be hidden and lifted for
use when the time is judged to be right. Stocks are now
being conserved but the RUC estimate there are still four
tons, all supplied by Libya in 1985 and 1986 - twice as much
as has been used for seized by the security forces.
The Libyan consignments are the backbone of the IRA armoury,
leaving it with about 1M rounds of ammunition, 1000 rifles,
10 surface-to-air missiles, 30 RPG-7 rocket launchers, six
or seven flame throwers and a number of heavy machineguns.
There have also been piecemeal importations of smaller
quantities from the United States, and thefts of arms mainly
Scorpion machine pistols from the Irish Peoples Liberation
Army.
The jailed IRA man offers no estimates of the total arsenal
but concedes that some of the heavier weapons can only be
used with difficulty because of the problems of using them
and making a quick getaway. The IRA controls no territory
and has no safe base from which to launch major offensives
but, pointing to his forehead, he says "The real territory
is here, in the minds of the people."
It is also beyond the capacity of the IRA to make full use
of general purpose machine guns or to take on detachments
of the British army. "You need to put together maybe 20
people and to be sure that none of them are touts [police
agents]", he says.
He denies that weapon availability dominates IRA political
calculations. "I have never heard anyone saying that because
we have something we must use it, or because we don't, we
must stop."
However, evident political constraints exist. Sinn Fein has
failed to make a breakthrough in the republic, and in the
North its vote has fallen to about 10%. This, he believes,
is unlikely to be eroded much further and is sufficient
to allow the IRA to continue.
Despite apparent conciliatory statements from some republican
leaders, the bottom line for Sinn fein and the IRA remains
the same - the campaign will continue until Britain shows
a readiness to withdraw.
This would not, he believes, lead to a Lebanese situation:
"We are not like Hezbollah, we don't believe that when we die
we go straight to heaven. I don't subscribe to that theory.
I have still one life and this is it."
He believes that the IRA will not lush its campaign too far
or precipitate a full-scale civil war. It draws the line at
some actions, like shooting journalists. Its role is to
keep up the pressure, to keep itself in the political
calculations of everybody else and to wait to see as the
inevitable weakening of wills.
"You could criticise our position and say it is Micawberish.
We are waiting for something to turn up. We may make
concessions in the end, but you never show your hand too
early in negotiations - that is fatal", he says.
The IRA believes it is negotiating withdrawal with Britain
- if not round a conference table, then at the point of a
gun.
- Sunday Times, 13/9/92
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THE UVF MAN
The UVF man agrees with the IRA man on one point - British withdrawal
is inevitable in the face of both sets of terrorists, although their
reaction to the prospect differs.
"I grew up as a Unionist, but my experience has taught me that the
the British government will eventually pull out of Ireland. So the
Protestant community has to learn to fend for itself, either in a
United Ireland or an independent Ulster. I favour a form of
independence, but I don't say that is how it will end up. It may
be a united Ireland that we will have to deal with", he says.
The UVF man has secured the agreement of his leaders in Belfast
to speak, although he emphasises that he is not speaking for the
organisation. A leading activist in Portadown, he has been blamed
in the Press and in local graffiti for a string of murders in mid-
Ulster, some of which he denies, others about which he makes no
comment.
Well-built, with cropped red hair and a colourful turn of phrase,
he talks at times like a leftwinger, peppering his conversation
with mention of "working-class alienation" and middle-class
betrayal. Fiercely loyal to the working-class community, he
takes pride in the achievements of the UVF and other groups
in matching the killing power of the IRA.
He dismisses claims of organised police collusion with the
murder squads, recounting the times he was interrogated
and, he claims, mistreated by the RUC.
"Republicans cry about collusion because they believe Protestants
are inferior, and indeed the security forces had the belief that
Protestant terrorists wern't as effective as repubicans, that
they just made a mess of it and got the wrong people. Then
along came a new generation who didn't make a mess of it any
more. Then what happened? The RUC couldn't catch them. What
has happened is that, after 20 years, loyalist terrorism has
eventually come of age and the IRA are now paying the price."
He lists several alleged IRA leaders who, he says, have fled
across the border for fear of the UVF in his area.
"They have cleared off. They don't want to fight. They are
full of crap when their own lives are on the line. The
UVF hasn't cleared off, they are still here."
He expresses abhorrence of the random killing of Catholics,
quotes the Bible and says he would play the Good Samaritan
to a Catholic if he saw one in trouble or injured.
Yet when it comes to individaul killings, he defends each
one. The murder of Dennis Carville, a Catholic shot dead
as he sat in a car with his girlfriend, was a good operation,
he says. It sent a message to the Catholic community not
to support the IRA, who had shot dead a young UDR soldier
in similar circumstances a short time earlier.
The basic motivation is tribal defence, the determination
that the UVF and its supporters will be a force to be
reckoned with, whatever the eventual political framework.
"Even in a United Ireland, we will survive as a community."
he says.
"UVF volunteers are motivated by love of their community.
They lose their private lives, they lose their reputations,
quite often they lose their families, and there is nothing in
it for them.
"They don't live in big houses, they live in the back streets."
Despite the talk of sacrifice and a hard life, he appears, like
the imprisoned IRA man, happy and at ease with his precarious
lifestyle. He is aware of being top of IRA hit lists and has
been warned by the police that his personal details are in the
hands of rival terrorist organisations. "Sometimes I think
it suits the police to set the IRA against the UVF", he says.
Unlike the IRA, the UVF does not draw the line at shooting
journalists. He names two whom he says "are under dire threat
from the Protestant community. My personal opinion of those
two men is that the sooner they are dead the better. That is
how I feel about them and that is how they feel about me.
It is a sad state of affairs but that is how life is in
Northern Ireland."
There is, however, a keen political mind at work. He takes part
in talks on the Ulster Loyalist Co-ordinating Committee with
other loyalist terror groups on the political way forward.
He emphasises that last year they called a ceasefire to allow
the Brooke talks to continue, and they could do the same again
if the situation demanded.
He subscribes to the view that loyalist violence is essentially
reactive. "The IRA are being beaten. Eventually they will have
to stop, and when they stop, we will stop too. They won't stop
by winning, they will stop because they are scared to go on.
They will stop when we beat them into the ground."
- Sunday Times, 13/9/92
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