Principles decommissioned                                                       by Margaret McKearney

My brother is fond of repeating the famous line by Pastor Martin Niemoller
in which the pastor notes the failure of a well meaning but overly cautious
German to standup to the Nazi practice of annihilation of sub-groups within
society.  He refused to protest or object when the Nazis in succession came
for the Jews, the Gypsies, the disabled and the trade unionists. 
Eventually, when the Regime came for him, there was no one left to protest
on his behalf.
        For many years the Republican movement has swallowed and permitted every
infringement of traditional republican doctrinaire.  The leadership
masterfully dissembled and excused each new step as tactics and the ultimate
bluff.  The Republican movement whilst at times demurring, acquiesced.  Yes
they accepted the 1994 ceasefire, yes they could accept the principle of
consent and the scrapping of Articles 2 and 3, yes they could live with
having two GB(sic) ministers, yes they could quietly accommodate and work
with the new policing arrangements, even though it will logically lead to a
De Velara type confrontation with their former comrades. Slowly and surely
they came and took every tenet of Republican faith.
       These things were unimportant Republicans were told, some of them dismissed
as the outmoded values of the old brigade and had no place in the modern
movement.  Activists and the party faithful were assured that the bottom
line was that if things did not pan out then the IRA would simply resume the
military campaign.  On this and on this alone the Army would not shift, this
was the bottom line of republican morality.
        However decommissioning was always an accepted eventuality by sections of
the Republican movement.  To facilitate this eventual objective for several
years preceding the ceasefire, IRA weapons were not used to defend or
retaliate against loyalist attack, the rationale used was that it was
counterproductive electorally.  This resulted in the wearying and the
demoralisation of the Republican population.  In tandem with the general
demoralisation of the population it was also necessary to engineer a
consensus of agreement within the IRA itself, this was a slow process
involving the marginalisation and removal of key figures.  This also was
achieved.
        So just like Nazi Germany when they finally came for Republican guns they
were confident that there was no one left to stop them.  It was not the
weapons that they had decommissioned but rather the core values of the
Republican Movement itself.