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IRA still exists but in 'much reduced form', says official report IRA's 'army council' still exists and influences Sinn Féin strategy – report
(about 3 hours later)
The Provisional IRA still exists albeit in a “much reduced form”, according to a new “make or break” report into ongoing paramilitary activities in Northern Ireland. The Provisional IRA’s decision-making body – the “army council” – still exists and exercises influence over Sinn Féin’s political strategy, a new report has concluded.
However, the Northern Ireland secretary, Theresa Villiers, stressed on Tuesday that the PIRA of the Troubles was “well beyond recall” – a comment that suggests the republican paramilitary group does not pose a threat to the overall peace process. Based on current MI5 and police intelligence, the report’s authors claim: “PIRA members believe that the PAC [army council] oversees both PIRA and Sinn Féin with an overarching strategy.”
Introducing the report written by three legal and security experts, Villiers told the House of Commons that the PIRA’s army council – the organisation’s supreme decision making body – also still exists. But the investigation into claims of the continued existence of the IRA and other paramilitary groups found that the army council has a “wholly political focus” and poses no threat to the British state or the peace process.
The reports authors, including Lord Carlile, successive governments’ reviewer of anti-terrorist legislation in the UK, have focused heavily on the murder of ex-PIRA prisoner Kevin McGuigan in August. Despite the revelations that the army council is still in operation and that some PIRA members are engaged in large-scale smuggling and other criminal activities, the report appears to have at least temporarily defused the political crisis at Stormont.
The DUP, the largest unionist party, announced on Tuesday afternoon that its ministers who had resigned from the four-party power-sharing coalition would go back to their jobs following the report.
The DUP said: “It confirms the [PSNI] chief constable’s August statement rather than the contradictory implications that flowed from the arrest of [Sinn Féin northern chairman] Bobby Storey, and on that basis ministers will be appointed to office later today.”
One possible measure to completely defuse the tensions threatening to bring down power-sharing government in Northern Ireland may be the continued independent monitoring of paramilitary activities.
Referring to the negotiations to solve the crisis among the main parties at the Stormont, the Northern Ireland secretary, Theresa Villiers, said: “A formal ongoing verification process to monitor paramilitary activity will be an important part of the successful outcome of current talks.”
Other unionists on Tuesday seized upon the conclusion about the PIRA army council’s existence as evidence of republicans’ continued bad faith in the political process.
Mike Nesbitt, the UUP leader, said: “This blows a hole in Sinn Féin’s argument. They demand we respect their political mandate, but they now need to make clear the extent to which that mandate is shaped by a group of unnamed shadowy figures who in the past have overseen the most lethal terrorist force on the planet.”
The report also investigated the continued existence of other paramilitary groups including the Ulster loyalist paramilitaries. It found that the UDA also holds on to some arms, despite claiming to have decommissioned its weapons in 2010.
The report said the same was the case for the other main loyalist terror group, the UVF. Members of both organisations continued to be engaged in crime including drug dealing, while the rival LVF exists now as a purely criminal enterprise operating in the Antrim and Mid Ulster areas.
The findings about the loyalists prompted Alliance party assembly member Trevor Lunn to challenge unionist politicians to “seriously reflect on the findings around loyalist paramilitaries” and said they needed to clarify their positions urgently.
Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, rejected any idea that his party answered to a secretive grouping such as an army council.
“Sinn Féin is the only republican organisation involved in the peace process, in democratic politics and in political activism. We take no instructions from no one else,” he said, following the report’s release.
The report’s claims about the army council go much further than the assessment of George Hamilton, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), in August following the murder of former republican prisoner Kevin McGuigan.
Hamilton blamed individual PIRA members for the murder and said the organisation’s leadership did not sanction the killing. The PSNI security analysis at the time also played down the continued existence of the seven-strong army council as PIRA’s ruling command body.
The report’s authors agreed with Hamilton that, while individual PIRA members killed McGuigan, the 53-year-old’s murder was not given the go-ahead by the army council.
The army council element of the independent report, written by legal and security experts Lord Carlile QC, Rosalie Flanagan and Stephen Shaw QC, also raises questions about a security assessment this year given by the Irish Republic’s top police officer, Nóirín O’Sullivan.
In February the Garda Síochána commissioner instructed her personal assistant to write a letter to a Sinn Féin member of the Irish parliament stating that the force “hold no information or intelligence … that the Provisional IRA still maintains its military structure”.
This letter followed a raft of reports in Dublin that PIRA’s military structures remained in place including the army council.
Tuesday’s report also says that while the PIRA engaged in arms decommissioning between 2001 and 2005, it “continues to have access to some weapons”. It also claims that the PIRA has stored away weapons to prevent them falling into the hands of hardline republican dissidents and is also gathering intelligence on the anti-peace process republicans.
Overall the PIRA of the Troubles “is far beyond recall” and no longer targets or conducts attacks “against the state or its representatives”, the report says.
Sinn Féin continues to insist that the IRA has “left the stage” and no longer poses a threat to anyone. The party claims the current crisis was manufactured by certain unionists because of election rivalry and the desire to appear more hardline than each other.
Many unionists believe the IRA is still out there operating in the shadows and its presence is a clear breach of faith between republicans and them reached in 2007. Devolution was restored then on the basis that the IRA would dissolve as a paramilitary force and republicans would support the PSNI and the rule of law.
Related: Death of an assassin: how the killing of Kevin McGuigan reawakened Belfast’s political strifeRelated: Death of an assassin: how the killing of Kevin McGuigan reawakened Belfast’s political strife
His killing prompted the current political crisis at Stormont particularly after Police Service of Northern Ireland chief constable, George Hamilton, said individual IRA members killed McGuigan in retaliation for the murder of their IRA colleague Gerard “Jock” Davison in May.
Hamilton stressed that the murder was not sanctioned by the IRA leadership – an assessment that many republican sources and long term observers of republicanism regarded as incredulous given the organisation’s reputation for centralised leadership and discipline.
The security assessment for the three independent figures chosen to write the report – Carlile, Rosalie Flanagan and Stephen Shaw QC – is based on briefings from both MI5 and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Among its other findings are that while PIRA took part in an arms decommissioning process between 2001 and 2005, “It continues to have access to some weapons”.
The report’s authors emphasise that the PIRA had not tried to procure any new weapons since 2011. It also finds that PIRA members are gathering intelligence on dissident republicans and still seeking out informers from within their own ranks.
In terms of its leadership, the report concludes that the PIRA’s army council oversees the overall political strategy of the republican movement, including Sinn Féin. This will provoke claims from Sinn Féin’s opponents not only within Northern Ireland but also the Irish Republic that the party has to answer to a secretive, unelected militarily-structured seven-person leadership.
On the crucial question of the McGuigan murder, the report agrees with the analysis of Hamilton that while individual PIRA members carried out the execution-style killing of their one-time comrade the fatal shooting was not sanctioned at leadership level. Overall the report points out that the PIRA and its leadership remained wedded to the peaceful political strategy of Sinn Féin.
The report also investigated the continued existence of other paramilitary groups including the Ulster loyalist paramilitaries. It found that despite claiming to decommission its weapons in 2010 the Ulster Defence Association also holds onto some arms. The report said the same was the case for the other main loyalist terror group, the Ulster Volunteer Force.
Members of both organisations continued to be engaged in crime including drug dealing while the rival Loyalist Volunteer Force only exists now purely as a criminal enterprise operating in the Antrim and Mid Ulster areas.
The findings about the loyalists prompted Alliance Party Assembly man Trevor Lunn to challenge unionist politicians to “need to seriously reflect on the findings around loyalist paramilitaries” and that they need to “clarify their positions urgently”.