Ireland's justice minister launched a blistering attack on the Sinn Fein-IRA movement, accusing its leaders of lying repeatedly and deepening divisions within Northern Ireland.
Michael McDowell's 3,000-word statement Thursday sought to dissect decades of Irish Republican Army policy -- and explain why the IRA is lying now about robbing the Northern Bank in Belfast, the biggest cash theft in history.
Earlier Thursday, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, a reputed IRA commander, repeated his denials of IRA involvement in the Dec. 20 robbery and criticized the Irish government for not believing him.
But McDowell said the IRA had had a lengthy track record of denying, then eventually admitting, responsibility for bombings and deadly robberies at politically sensitive moments. He quoted previous Adams denials that proved false, and said he was certain that senior Sinn Fein leaders also commanded the IRA -- and negotiated about ending IRA activity at the same time they were planning the latest, 26.5 million pound (US$50 million) robbery.
"Does any sane person believe that the IRA or Sinn Fein would now acknowledge that it had carried out the Northern Bank robbery?" McDowell said. "Sinn Fein and the IRA have lied repeatedly about criminality when it suited them."
Widespread acceptance that the IRA committed the raid has dealt serious damage to efforts to revive a Catholic-Protestant administration, the key goal of the Good Friday peace accord of 1998. Sinn Fein has grown in recent years to become the north's top Catholic-backed party.
But Protestant leaders increasingly argue that the IRA should have fully disarmed and disbanded by now as part of the deal. They are lobbying the governments of Britain and Ireland to back a new arrangement that would allow Protestants to share power instead with moderate Catholics from the Social Democratic and Labour Party.
In Belfast, Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble -- a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who led a previous power-sharing coalition that collapsed in 2002 -- said Sinn Fein and the IRA "only offer more process, not completion, and have repeatedly refused to reform themselves."
Trimble said Britain should not offer Sinn Fein "yet another `final' chance." Instead, he said, Britain and other parties should "draw a line under current experiments and go back to the basics of the [Good Friday] agreement."
The government of Prime Minister Tony Blair warned it planned to impose unspecified punishments on Sinn Fein if the IRA didn't come clean about the Northern Bank raid and promise to end all activities.
During past crises in Northern Ireland's peace process, Sinn Fein has been able to count on support from the Irish government -- but McDowell signaled this would no longer be the case. He said the IRA was still committing and threatening violence.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese