Sir, – The headline in the recent article by BBC journalist Jennifer O'Leary asks the question, "Did British spies force the IRA to renounce violence?" (September 22nd).
Quoting unnamed sources in the British security forces, she says the IRA leadership was heavily compromised by “agents of influence”. Their purpose was “to influence its strategy at the highest level”. She then asks whether this strategy forced the IRA to renounce violence, and did “spies within its own ranks bring the IRA in from the cold?”
However, there is a problem. During the early days of the peace process the policy of the British government was the exact opposite of what Jennifer O’Leary says the security forces and agents were pursuing.
Far from bringing republicans “in from the cold”, the policy of John Major’s government was to exclude Sinn Féin from the political talks process.
From the very inception of the peace process, starting with the Hume-Adams talks in 1993 that ultimately led to the Belfast Agreement, the then British government reacted with total hostility to it. The subsequent talks between Dublin and London that led to the Downing Street Declaration were bedevilled by attempts by the British to subvert them, simply because of the central idea of bringing republicans“in from the cold”. They wanted to defeat the IRA militarily. The peace process ran counter to that policy, with the 1994 ceasefire being a particularly unwelcome development.
Despite the suggestions by Jennifer O’Leary, British policy actually undermined the political elements in the republican movement. The lack of movement by the British after the first ceasefire and the demand for prior decommissioning led to its collapse.
It also led to the reinstatement of a hardline leadership and the marginalisation of Gerry Adams and the political line he had been advocating.
The success of the peace process was a defeat for all the reactionary elements within the British establishment. They were unable to wreck it, so now they are trying to claim ownership of it with these historically refutable canards. – Yours, etc,
OWEN BENNETT,
Dublin 2