The Irish Replubican Army Essay Research Paper — страница 2

resulted in an agreement that provided for a new Northern Ireland Assembly. With the agreement reached it was known as the good Friday accord because it was reached on Good Friday. Which by coincidently was pushed along with the help of Bill Clinton. Here are some of the details of the accord. The Northern Ireland accord will create three interconnected bodies of government within Northern Ireland, between the North and rest of Ireland, and between the Irish Republic and United Kingdom as a whole. NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY Elections in June for a 108-seat assembly at Stormont, former center of a Protestant-dominated parliament abolished in 1972. Checks and balances require Protestants and Catholics to share power and responsibilities. Powers now administered by Britain’s

Northern Ireland Office will not be handed back to local politicians until early 1999 — and only if the assembly members agree on how to participate in the North-South Council. NORTH-SOUTH COUNCIL A forum for ministers from the Irish Republic’s government to promote joint policy-making with the new Northern Ireland assembly. Areas of potential common interest include agriculture, transportation links, policing and relations with the European Union. Will have powers to implement all-Ireland policies — but only with the approval of both the Northern Ireland assembly and the Irish parliament in Dublin. EAST-WEST COUNCIL Lawmakers from the Irish Republic will meet regularly with members of the British Parliament from London, the Northern Ireland assembly, and with

representatives of the new parliament for Scotland and assembly for Wales. It will have no administrative or legislative powers. IRISH CONSTITUTION Republic of Ireland will hold referendum on amending the country’s constitution, which now claims the territory of Northern Ireland. Recent Headlines With the threat of violence still lingering in Northern Ireland and the cease-fire still in effect, some wonder what will happen to the peace accord now that Bill Clinton is going to be out of office and crazy George Bush will be our new president. If you think about it Clinton was the only one to get something done in Northern Ireland but not in the Middle East. Some say that since Bush wants to mend ways with the democrats he could offer Clinton the post of special envoy to Northern

Irish peace process, and of all the proposed post-presidential roles for the still-popular Clinton, this is the area in which he could do the most good, and, from Bush’s point of view, the least harm. With the split in the IRA some of the top experts went into hiding and now some people believe they are the top terrorists in Europe now. The following article was posted on September 29th in the London Times. THE Real IRA, a rag-tag group formed after its clumsy 1997 split from the Provisional IRA, is now regarded as one of the most efficient terrorrist groups in Europe. Its recently acquired bomb-making and weapons skills have so far enabled it to run a new campaign without causing the mass civilan deaths that brought it such universal odium after the Omagh car bomb in 1998.

Then it was dependent on only a handful of former members of the Provisional IRA and had virtually no infrastructure, with a bombing team which gave cack-handed warnings and killed 29 people, most of them Catholics. Now, its bombmaking skills have improved and the number of members grown. The Real IRA, working on the fertile ground created by the Provisional IRA ceasefire, has increased its recruiting rate significantly. Every attack in London helps to increase the number of ex-Provos willing to defect. One factor of the new campaign has been the very few people who have been arrested for the 16 incidents attributed to the IRA breakaways in Northern Ireland and England so far this year. The way in which the Real IRA campaign has been masterminded from the Irish border town of

Dundalk – the name of the group’s leader is widely known – has convinced the British Government that it is being planned as a mirror image to that run by the Provisional IRA. The Provisionals are understood to be anxious to avoid another internal feud. They have also been trying to keep their men in a state of readiness and to maintain supplies of up-to-date weaponry in case the peace deal collapses. Recent intelligence has shown, however, that a stream of Provisional IRA men have been defecting, increasingly disillusioned by the decision in May to allow international inspection of a number of arms dumps in the Irish Republic. A BBC Northern Ireland poll hinted at the splits to come when it found that 22.5 per cent of Sinn Fein voters believed that the initiative was