Page 207 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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184———Irish Republican Army

In the years that followed, the British government in many of the cases eventually led to most of the
began to change its antiterrorism tactics. It abolished supergrass convictions being overturned and the
internment and launched a new “criminalization” prisoners freed.
strategy—reducing military presence by restoring Although the supergrass cases had damaged the
civil authority in the form of the RUC and treating IRA’s military capabilities severely, it was still able to
terrorist offenses as criminal acts to be handled by carry out one of the most spectacular attacks in the
criminal courts, not as a form of political rebellion to conflict’s long history, the October 1984 Brighton
be put down militarily. bombing, which killed five people and very nearly
killed Prime Minister Thatcher and her entire cabinet.
Between August 1985 and September 1986, the
THE LONG WAR
IRA received approximately 150 tons of weapons and
By this time, the IRA had settled in for a war of attri- explosives in four shipments from Libya. Using the
tion, known informally as the “Long War.” Informants new arms supply, the IRA began attacking RUC sta-
within IRA ranks had enabled the British to foil sev- tions in the rural counties of Armagh, Fermagh, and
eral attacks during 1975 and 1976. In response, the Tyrone. The aim was to drive security forces from the
IRA undertook serious reforms, abolishing the struc- countryside, and thus establish a secure area from
ture of brigades and battalions, instead establishing which to attack the cities. However, British counterin-
small independent terrorist cells that were much more telligence was able to thwart the campaign by
difficult to penetrate. ambushing an IRA active service unit on May 8, 1987,
In support of criminalization, in 1976 the British at RUC station in Loughgall, County Armagh. Eight
government had revoked certain special privileges IRA members were killed, the most casualties the
IRA and other paramilitary convicts had enjoyed IRA has suffered in a single attack.
owing to their status as political prisoners. Republican
prisoners launched a protest, eventually known as the FROM STALEMATE TO PEACE, 1993–1998
Dirty Protest or the Blanket Protest because of the
prisoners’ refusal to wear prison uniforms or empty Recognizing that the armed campaign had come to an
their cells’ chamber pots. The British government of impasse, IRA members began to seek a political
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher refused to negoti- solution. Beginning in 1988, the leader of Sinn Féin,
ate with the prisoners. Gerry Adams, started meeting with John Hume, leader
In March 1981, after the failure of the Dirty Protest, of the nonviolent Irish nationalist Social Democratic
prisoner Bobby Sands, an IRA member, led a hunger and Labor Party. In September 1993, Hume and
strike. Soon joined by dozens of Republican prisoners, Adams released a joint statement outlining the IRA’s
Sands and the others began to attract international position on peace.
attention. In April, Sands was elected to Parliament for The British government, however, could not openly
West Belfast. By September, he and 10 other prisoners negotiate with the IRA, because the IRA had not
had died, and the British government acquiesced to declared a cease-fire and was conducting a bombing
some of the prisoners’ demands. The political suc- campaign in London at the time—it had already deto-
cesses of the hunger strike, particularly the election of nated a one-ton bomb in central London’s financial dis-
Sands, would prompt the IRA to become politically trict in April 1992, causing an estimated £750 million
involved, using Sinn Féin to field candidates in ($1.32 billion) of damage. Prime Minister John Major
elections; in the 1982 and 1983 elections, Sinn Féin did begin talks with the Irish government and Unionist
secured more than 40 percent of the nationalist vote. politicians, talks that resulted in the December 1993
Militarily, the IRA had begun to suffer from the “Downing Street Declaration,” a document that estab-
defections of the “supergrasses,” a succession of lished important principles for opening peace talks.
captured IRA men who informed on their comrades in In August 1994, the IRA declared a cease-fire. This
exchange for sentencing leniency. During 1982–1986, preliminary move would allow Sinn Féin to participate
when the British security force relied most heavily on in peace talks. Major’s government then asked the IRA
this tactic, hundreds of IRA men were arrested and to begin a limited decommissioning, or disarmament,
convicted based solely on information supplied as a good-faith gesture. The IRA refused. For the next
by supergrasses. The lack of corroborating evidence 18 months, negotiators fruitlessly tried to achieve