INTERVIEW:The men who insist they are the Continuity IRA's new 'army council' say the dissident republican group will continue to target police officers
THE ELDEST of the four representatives of what they insist is the new “army council” of the Continuity IRA gave his description of the “old guard”, which they claim to have deposed. “They are tired, weary old men and women who want to think they are generals but don’t do anything. Who do they represent? They don’t represent the membership,” he said.
The four range in age from their 20s to their 60s and were speaking to The Irish Timesat a secret location in west Belfast. No names were disclosed.
The interview flowed from an Irish Timesreport last month when the purportedly ousted CIRA leadership said that a "CIRA convention" held in the early summer in Bettystown, Co Meath, was improperly called and represented an attack on the leadership. CIRA said it had "dismissed" members from the organisation, while a number of others were "suspended".
The four men however were adamant that it was a “legitimate” and “extraordinary army convention” called to form a new leadership to bring a lost “military” edge back to the CIRA and to deal with some alleged financial impropriety by a senior dissident republican in Belfast.
One of the spokesmen said the delegates represented 95 per cent of the “volunteers” who were fully behind the breakaway group.
The CIRA has been involved in many attacks since it became active in 1994 after the first Provisional IRA ceasefire. In March last year, one of its members shot dead Constable Stephen Carroll in Craigavon, Co Armagh.
It is separate from other dissident organisations such as the Real IRA, although the organisations have co-operated from time to time.
The CIRA has been also accused of playing a role in the Real IRA bombing in Omagh in 1998 in which 29 people were killed, including a woman pregnant with twin girls.
One of the four CIRA representatives said the organisation would continue to target police officers. “Police are legitimate targets because they are members of the British security forces,” he said.
Some senior people in the Irish and British political, security and intelligence world have wondered is there any way dissident republicans could be inveigled to join with their mainstream republican former allies and support the peace and political processes.
They would take no comfort from these four representatives of the purported new CIRA “army council” who acknowledged that their basic ideology remained “Brits out”.
“It is Brits out,” said a CIRA representative. “As long as Britain is involved there will be conflict, as long as there is even one person prepared to challenge the British presence there will be resistance, that is the tradition of all colonisation and occupation.”
They said they were absolutely confident that they had usurped the “old guard” or “pensioners” whom they view as virtually moribund, and that the bulk of “volunteers” are with the new leadership.
There is still some regard for Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, who recently stood down as president of Republican Sinn Féin (RSF), the political wing of CIRA. It was Ó Brádaigh, who, with the late former IRA leader Dáithí Ó Conaill who formed RSF in 1986 after Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness led Sinn Féin towards Dáil politics.
“We have the utmost respect for Ruairí Ó Brádaigh’s contribution to republicanism for over 60 years,” said the older man. “We are convinced that Ruairí allowed himself to become part of an inner circle, of a kitchen cabinet who would not have the best interests of the people at heart.”
Rows within republicanism down the years have led to bitter and murderous feuding. The CIRA representatives predict that would not happen this time because the purportedly ousted leadership is just too weak. “Logistically, I can’t see how it would be possible that there would be such a feud,” said one of the four.
Their main complaint was that the “old” leadership effectively had almost overseen the winding down of the CIRA. They said that previously it was a Southern-dominated leadership but that the new “army council” and executive is representative of the entire membership, but with a loaded Northern dimension.
“There were a number on the army council who have sat there for years, some of whom haven’t put a foot across the Border in years,” said one of the spokesmen. “They have no contact with volunteers on the ground. About two years ago, they nominated a man to be chief of staff from the South who was in his late 70s. In fact he was a phantom chief of staff because nobody knew who he was . . . that has led to the present situation.”
Another of the four denied that the CIRA helped fuel the recent rioting in Belfast and other areas but said some CIRA people were involved in the sit-down road protest on the Twelfth of July at Ardoyne. “Nobody wanted the rioting but it just got out of hand,” he said. “The Continuity IRA had members in the crowd but were not involved in the trouble. Violence continued because residents did not want it stopped they were so angry over the Orange parade.”
They said a growing number of young people are being drawn to the CIRA regardless of the fact that there are about 100 dissidents in prison in Ireland, North and South, with many of those at Maghaberry close to Lisburn involved in a “dirty protest”. Such are the level of arrests and convictions it appears clear there is a high level of security penetration of the dissidents through informants.
One of the representatives said that wouldn’t be a serious deterrent to recruiting. “I don’t see us as being very infiltrated. We were at one stage but a lot of that is gone now. There are new controls but we have to be always on our guard.”
They all made clear that they see themselves carrying on the flame of republicanism despite what they describe as the “betrayals” of Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and others.
One of the four recalled that he was involved in republican paramilitarism for most of his life, served time in prison and knew some of the hunger strikers, and had seen some of his colleagues die or suffer severely both physically and psychologically. “My duty to them is to carry on that struggle,” he said.
The people of Ireland voted for the Belfast Agreement of 1998, but in their view that has no legitimacy in terms of Irish people having determined their own political future. “People were corralled into voting for something they knew nothing about; there is an agreement but it can be overruled at any time by the Westminster government,” said one of the four.
He added: “The existence of the Northern Executive is in the gift of the British government; they would take it away if it was in their interests to do so . . .it is now in the interests of Britain to have that junta at Stormont.”
They said they didn’t want to bomb a million unionists into a united Ireland. “There is no sectarian element in our organisation. We hold to the line of what Wolfe Tone said: ‘we act for Protestant, Catholic and dissenter’,” said one of the men.
