BELFAST, Sept 26: The IRA has scrapped the weapons it used to wage war on British rule in Northern Ireland, monitors said on Monday, but the historic move appeared to do little to reconcile opponents in the bitterly divided province.
An international monitoring group said it had seen put beyond use what it believed was the Irish Republican Army’s entire arsenal, including rifles, explosives and machine guns.
The move is unprecedented for an organization that has fought for a united Ireland since the island was divided more than 80 years ago.
The governments in London and Dublin hailed the event as a landmark, but it drew a sceptical reaction from the province’s main pro-British party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
The DUP has been pressing for photographic evidence that IRA guns and explosives have been destroyed and a full inventory of the material put beyond use. The IRA, anxious to avoid anything that could be portrayed as surrender, has refused.
“We do not know how many guns, the amount of ammunition and explosives were decommissioned, nor were we told how the decomissioning was carried out,” DUP leader Ian Paisley said.
Without DUP support, the restoration of a regional government in which pro-Irish Roman Catholics and pro-British Protestants share power, seen as key to lasting political stability in Northern Ireland, is impossible.
The IRA was believed to have one of Europe’s largest illegal arsenals. Two months ago it pledged to get rid of its guns in a move aimed at unblocking years of political distrust between pro-British unionists and Irish nationalists.
“We are satisfied that the arms decommissioned represent the totality of the IRA’s arsenal,” disarmament watchdog, the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD), said in a statement on Monday.
The IRA is blamed for more than half of the 3,600 deaths during conflict in Northern Ireland over the last three decades after it launched a military campaign to end British rule.
Republicans have focused increasingly on political activity through the IRA’s Sinn Fein ally in recent years as the British and Irish governments attempted to broker a lasting peace.
London and Dublin praised the IRA move. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said disarmament had finally been accomplished.—Reuters
