IN A season of dramatic events, one bit of news that has received little attention but signified a great deal emerged from Northern Ireland. John De Chastelain, the retired Canadian general whose task it was to supervise the Irish Republican Army's decommissioning of weapons, announced that the group had permanently destroyed its arsenal.
If true, this would be a historic, but not unexpected development. After decades of armed struggle, the IRA announced earlier this year that it would join the political process. Loyalists, who reject the IRA's call to reunite Northern Ireland with the Republic and wish to remain in the United Kingdom, were quick to dismiss Mr. De Chastelain's announcement. They pointed out that he offered no proof of the decommissioning. Moreover, given the IRA's past behaviour, there is every good reason to question any claims the organisation makes regarding its pacific intentions.
Nevertheless, this time around, there are grounds for believing the IRA really has abandoned the armed struggle. First, while Mr. De Chastelain admitted the IRA might still have weapons, the volume destroyed apparently corresponds to intelligence estimates of the group's stockpile.
More importantly, the political tide - within both Ireland and the world - has turned decidedly against the IRA's violent tactics. The road to rapprochement has been long and tortuous with the IRA, loyalist paramilitary groups, and the British security forces, each having been victim and victimiser, brutal and brutalised. The warring sides have committed atrocities against each other for decades in a sickening carnage of violence.
Political analysts suggest that the latest development has arisen because the republican leadership realised long ago that violent tactics were not the best way to reach their objectives. But by calling on all of its members to pursue the goal of a united Ireland via peaceful means, the IRA appears to be rejecting the violence, criminal activity, and authoritarian methods that were the hallmarks of a political struggle that claimed 1,800 lives.
Meanwhile, a realistic peace process is under way for it to join. The context has changed, and the IRA probably recognised that if it did not join the peace train, it risked being left behind.
It looks like a victory for the peacemakers. That alone is good news.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
