Dr John Coulter with a piece on the Haass talks that initially featured in the Irish Daily Star on 21 October 2013.
Sinn Féin can wind up Unionists by using the Haass talks period to present campaign and service medals to former and serving members of the republican movement and their families.
The Shinners have been boxing clever and out-pointing Unionists at every turn, forcing Unionist politicians to defend hardline speeches about civil disobedience rather than trying to force republicans into a political corner.
Sinn Féin is playing an orchestrated tactical game. Clearly, the Shinners are relocating contentious IRA commemoration parades out of their traditional republican strongholds and into mixed areas.
The Castlederg Tyrone Volunteers parade and tribute to Shankill bomber Thomas Begley is firm evidence of the Shinners' deliberate 'taunt the Prods' campaign.
It's not that the Shinners want to egg Unionists into violent reprisals. Sinn Féin merely wants to goad Unionists into make daft statements, which force Unionists onto the back foot.
Unionists will then spend their time defending these statements, maybe even arguing among themselves as liberal Unionists clash with the more hardline loyalist elements as to what was really meant.
Sinn Féin can guarantee this knee-jerk reaction from Unionists with a series of campaign medal presentations.
Next month sees many Unionists commemorate Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day. Across the North, thousands of ex-servicemen and women will march alongside members of the security forces to the sound of their medal clinking on their breasts.
If republicans can create a mirror image of this, Unionists will not be able to contain their fury and will lose sight of the key focus of the Haass talks.
Using the 2016 Easter Rising centenary commemorations as a basis, key medals could be named after those executed by the British in 1916.
The Eamonn Ceannt Cross will recognise every republican who served in the Provisional IRA. The Thomas Clarke medal honours all those who served with Sinn Féin throughout the conflict. All former republican prisoners will receive the James Connolly Cross.
For those who carried out or even were involved in the planning of major IRA operations, such as the La Mon massacre, Brighton bombing which almost killed Maggie Thatcher, and the Kingsmills massacre will be awarded the Sean MacDiarmada Special Operations gong.
And the role played by republicans outside Ireland, especially in the England Division, the US, and in other attacks in Europe and in developing links with Palestinian and other terror groups will be awarded the Thomas MacDonagh Cross.
And any young people who served with Fianna na hEireann, they get the Patrick Pearce medal.
For those hunger strikers and dirty protest participants, there will be the Joseph Plunkett Cross, with the families of dead hunger strikers receiving posthumous medals.
And for the females, The Countess Markievicz Cross will remember those who served with Cumann na mBan.
The Provos always liked to boast they were an army, not a terrorist group, fighting a war, not engaged in mindless sectarian slaughter.
Let the republican movement have the brass neck to publicly reward those who served in their ranks, and at future republican parades let's hear the clink of medals rather than the stomping of feet out of step.
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John-
ReplyDelete" The Shinners have been boxing cleaver and out-pointing Unionists
at every turn "-
Well its hardly the hardest thing in the world to do this-
" Let the Republican movement have the brass neck to publicly reward those that served in their ranks "-
When people asked to be a Volunteer all they were promised
was the grave or prison-don't know any of them who would or could say different-
Will the Provisionals still be allowed to wear their 'Poopy' ?
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