Much of what was said by Sinn Féin president at critical juncture in stuttering peace process was crafted in Downing Street by Jonathan Powell.
A man who is now a key figure in Britain’s intelligence apparatus wrote key sections of a seminal speech Gerry Adams gave about the IRA’s disbandment, declassified files prove.
The Sinn Féin president’s words in October 2002 came at a critical point in the peace process where the IRA was on the back foot after a series of incidents.
It had got discovered smuggling guns in from Florida, got caught training FARC rebels in Colombia, faced a backlash over the post-September 11 war on terror, and was known to still be widely involved in criminality and so-called ‘punishment shootings’.
That had contributed to unionism deserting David Trimble for the DUP, with the First Minister clinging to office but lacking real authority even within his own party.
Against that backdrop, an IRA spy ring at Stormont was exposed at the start of October 2002, prompting the government to suspend the institutions before Trimble walked out.
Just three weeks later Adams turned to a highly unlikely source to help write a speech about the IRA: the Prime Minister’s chief-of-staff, Jonathan Powell.
Continue @ Bel Tel.
The Chameleon.
ReplyDeleteAh, the gentle art of negotiation!
ReplyDeleteBut then Gerry did flag up his propensity for suppleness back in '86.
"If I bend backwards any further I'll go up my own arse"
Adams led a supine surrender.
Was there any other option realistically HJ?
DeleteYes, Steve. The Provisionals in adapting, in agreeing to participate in partitionist Assemblies severed their links with Republican theology. They bent the knee before the Imperialists and the Colonialsts.In their folly the Provisional Movement embraced and entered into an often tried & failed strategy. They ignored the lessons of history. They discounted previous iterations of this type of aquiescense. Aquiescense as as exemplified by the original Treatyites, then by Fianna Fáil, then by Clann na Poblachtá, and followed next by the Workers Party, none of which achieved the Irish Republic.
DeleteAs Ó'Brádaigh predicted the establishment would say,"Ah, ah now we have them".
They've been well and truly had, truly had and now well up their own arses!
HJ - could they ever have won had they not have done all those things you correctly describe?
DeleteDepends what you mean by winning AM.
DeleteIs the current set-up what you and your comrades lost your freedom for? Is this what you endured, and some of your comrades too, wrapped only in a blanket for four years suffered for?
Probably not.
A more informed electoral strategy was called for, one that could be sustained in parallel with the armed struggle. Leadership in the army with a same leadership in the political sphere was/is incompatible.
Every politican's primary concern, alas is his or her reelection. Give up your post hoc rationalisation and justifications about events in '86
HJ - winning would be the achievement of the core objective - a British declaration of intent to withdraw.
DeleteThere is little I can find to lead me to think that the war could have been won.
The Brit objective was to either make SF as irrelevant as RSF or to have it thrive but only within a British constitutional framework of an internal solution.
Either way - the Brits secure their core objective.
I agree with you HJ, but militarily they could not have won?
ReplyDeleteHad a personality cult not emerged it would have been difficult to overcome the RA's resistance completely. The political participation model diminished the potentials for the long-war strategy. In military terms no complete victory was likely for either side. Yes, there would have been costs to sustaining a campaign. It couldn't have been otherwise. However, a leadership and a majority of those who had followed that flawed leadership, and all of whom had taken a solemn oath of allegiance to that indefeasable Irish Republic, effectively opted to abandon it and embraced partition.
DeleteThey followed principals ( their princes) rather than principles.
There are still people who refer to the resistance - as if there is something effective being done. They maintain that the resistance has not been overcome. Even to use the language overcome the resistance completely suggests they could have overcome it substantially. Which is what they did with the Provos. The Provos went the way they did because they reflected an essence that was not theological republicanism to use your term - less about the Brits being in Ireland and more about how they behaved while they were here. Even had the self serving careerist cabal not have won the day, the outcome was never going to be different - partitionist. The consent principle was the rock the struggle crashed on.
DeleteI remember reading a UK Govt file from the 1980s, the general crux of which was that the British public was sick of supporting NI, losing soldiers, having bombs in London and, crucially, appalled at the behaviour of those protesting the AIA. The briefing outlined that if the IRA could, for example, assassinate a member of the Royal Family, there would be overwhelming support for the UK to hand NI to the ROI.
ReplyDeletejust that they didn't have a say - the right to decide on that was firewalled within the North.
DeleteAnd keep in mind Brandon what was pulled off in Mullaghmore and Narrow water in one day! Another day like that, another few mortar bombs landing in Downing Street, more attacks on airports and things could easily have tipped another way.
DeleteMany of those who blindly followed the princes (Gerry & Martin) insist on holding on to their 'buyer's justifications' positioning. It's too painful, I guess, for them to consider alternative histories.
@AM
DeleteAnd every politican's primary concern is?
I recall asking Brian Keenan why they didn't simply repeat those type of operations - his response was 'if we were capable of doing it we wouldn't be on ceasefire.'
DeleteThe was was one of diminishing returns. More effort needed for less effect.
The Brits were so successful in isolating the North from British politics that few if any politicians were going to be voted out on what happened in the 6.
Delete"The briefing outlined that if the IRA could, for example, assassinate a member of the Royal Family, there would be overwhelming support for the UK to hand NI to the ROI."
DeleteI'd take that with a shovel of salt. Mountbatten was one thing but if they knocked off say a member "in line to the throne', the resulting 'patriotic' backlash would not be talking about handing anything over. Fundamentally and especially in the 80's the UK population was riding on a wave of patriotism after the Falklands. Had a Royal been knocked then, the border would have been hardened right around the North and draconian (internment) measures taken (though far more targeted as by then most of the players were identified). No sitting British Government would have countenanced surrendering NI due to the political suicide in such a hypothetical.
And by the 80's spook infiltration of the Republican movement at all levels was substantial as history has now shown.
Look at Gibralter. Even aside from BritIntel the establishment knew something was happening abroad when Farrell, McCann and Savage weren't seen for days so alerted Interpol ( though why the fuck would anyone send a 6 foot blonde Irish man 'undercover' is beyond me) and this wasn't even FROM the spooks just fieldcraft.
Someone once said of Adams that 'nary a sparrow falls from a tree in Belfast that he doesn't know about' when they should have added that the tree, apart from being full of Special Branches was under constant surveillance by lots of camouflaged men.
Keenan was right.
Not to get too pedantic about this, but to quote an old sticky acquaintance, those who were primarily focused on how the Brits behaved rather than getting them out were what he referred to as Advanced Nationalists. Seems there were countless more of them than Republicans.
ReplyDeleteAll water under the bridge now and we're all essentially partitionists, former Republicans but partitionists nonetheless.
(Yes the consent principle was the rock that holed the boat. GFA and changes to articles 2 & 3 put the tin hat on that).
It would be determined by the solution they sought to either Brit behaviour or Brit presence.
DeleteI long drew a distinction between a republican nationalism and a partitionist nationalism. Unity only by consent was a partitionist nationalist position. A republican nationalism saw a solution only in a British withdrawal not dependent on the power of veto by a majority in the North.
FFS!
DeleteAs it turned out there were as many partitionist nationalists in SF and the RA as there were in the SDLP.
If they consistently waddle and quack there most likely ducks.
in the end they showed the colour of their money when they bought into a partitionist nationalist solution. As you sometimes point out we can't be partitionists and republicans at the same time.
DeleteI'm not sure how the Provisionals could have won. When the Spooks allowed the Castlereagh break in ( and showed them EXACTLY where to go, what door codes to use, what filing cabinet to access, and rather touchingly check the pulse and condition of the RUC they tied up(!) ) once Storey read the file containing the list of all informers and agents ( or at least a large amount of them) it was clear that to them that the jig was up. Any attempt to purge the movement of turncoats would have been so humiliating given the sheer number of them that they would have lost all credibility.
ReplyDeleteBoth of you were Volunteers and I'm sure you both had raised eyebrows over some people though you've kept your thoughts to yourselves, nevermind the ones who've been outed.
Well, maybe not you so much Anthony! LOL
Appreciate your comments Steve. I'm reeling, punch drunk contemplating the idea that the Castlereagh break-in was all facilitated.
ReplyDeleteIn a similar vein, I'd love your thoughts on how the Northern Bank job fitted into the orchestrated end game.
At the screening of ‘We Only Want the Earth’ (a new film/doc about James Connolly) at the Feile last night, there was a Q+A session. Gerry, sitting in the audience, bemoaned the use of the "outdated" term 'Provo' in the film and proceeded to talk about how the Good Friday Agreement has given us the means by which we can achieve a united socialist republic...
ReplyDelete