The governments of Britain and Ireland are warning Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army-linked party, it must end all IRA activities or face growing financial and political penalties. Britain announced Tuesday it was cutting $215,000 in annual taxpayer-provided funding to Sinn Fein as both governments jointly published an report on current activities of the IRA and a half-dozen other illegal groups in Northern Ireland. The Independent Monitoring Commission, which includes a former deputy director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, blamed the IRA for a range of violent activities this year — and said some Sinn Fein leaders were also IRA commanders able to influence the underground group's actions. "Sinn Fein must bear its responsibility for the continuation by PIRA of illegal paramilitary activity and must recognize the implications of being in this position," said the report, using the IRA's formal name of Provisional IRA or "PIRA."
Britain and Ireland empowered the commission in January to issue reports on paramilitary activity. Arguments over IRA activity have repeatedly undermined wider goals of Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord, particularly its hope of reviving a Catholic-Protestant administration that fell apart 18 months ago. In a surprising development, the four-member commission announced it plans in future reports to name the alleged commanders of the IRA and Northern Ireland's other underground gangs. John Grieve, a member who once directed London's anti-terrorist police unit, said it was essential to "shine a spotlight" on people he called "thugs."
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams — who, according to several histories on the subject, has been an IRA commander since the early 1970s — responded with fury. "We don't accept any of the recommendations of this puppet commission," said Adams, who called moves to restrict his party's rights and privileges "the road to nowhere."
| One word, Gerry: Rantissi. |
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