IRA forced to abandon arms to stay relevant

Keith Miller Senior foreign correspondent • Profile

LONDON - The Irish Republican Army announced Thursday it will abandon its “armed campaign” and resume disarmament.

NBC News’ Keith Miller discusses how the IRA’s announcement may revive the Northern Ireland peace process, despite the hurdles that still lie ahead, and why it's a crucial move for the IRA to make in order to stay politically relevant. 

What is the significance of Thursday’s announcement by the IRA that it will abandon its “armed campaign” and resume disarmament?
There is no doubt that it is a historic point for the conflict in Northern Ireland. You have Sinn Fein, the political arm, and the IRA, the military arm, all saying that this is now a time for peace, that the time for war is over. 

But, there have been other efforts in the past, and other promises to lay down arms, which have not come true.

The real sticking point here — which causes a lot of skepticism on the part of the Unionists, those who want to stay united with Britain — is the verification process.

In the past the IRA said it would give up its weapons, but they could never agree about how to do that. It may seem like a very small point, but it was a major point for people who still want to have a union with Britain and even among some Catholics who are opposed to the IRA.

It is the verification process — to really show the dismantling and the destroying of the enormous arsenal that the IRA has — that they could never come to an agreement on. and they still haven't. 

We have a statement by the IRA that they are laying down their weapons. But until we actually see the process being verified by an international group, people will continue to be skeptical and probably a lot of people who will not pay it much attention.  

How is this different from previous declarations by the IRA and the cease-fire that it committed to in 1997?
The cease-fire still holds. It’s just that the political cease-fire has never been declared. On the political side, you have a political war, if you will.

Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA, obviously feels that it is in a politically strong position now to push its campaign forward for the unification of Ireland. 

This is probably as much a political as a military move, on the part of the IRA, feeling that politically, they are much stronger than they are militarily.

Nonetheless, there is a lot of skepticism about just how much this will affect people on the streets.

With the IRA, as well as with the Protestants, you have these paramilitary groups, which are very powerful and enforce their own laws. We’ll see how many of those characters actually want to give up their weapons, which gives them the power to basically rule some streets within Belfast and in Northern Ireland itself.  

How will the IRA’s statement that “Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever," affect accusations that the IRA is now largely a criminal organization?
Well there is criminality among both the Catholic and the Protestant military groups. The problem for the IRA is that it has been splintered in the past. And when it does splinter, especially over issues of cease-fires, it has disastrous consequences for civilians.

I think back to the Omagh bombing in 1998.  It was carried out by the provisional arm of the IRA and that resulted in 29 deaths. It was a brutal attack on a shopping center in a small town. 

So, there is the real danger that there are hard-core members within the IRA who will not lay down their arms and will have a splinter group effect off of it and continue what they think is an armed struggle — which also tends to be lucrative for many members.

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