IRA Split? Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit "Jay Dooling" source:Thu, 6 Nov 1997 06:57:39 -0600 News from the Wire Services Re: Ireland & the Irish RT 11/06/97 06:09 Key Activists Break From IRA - Irish Paper PA 11/06/97 04:18 IRA "Split" Over Peace Talks Disagreement ****************************** Key Activists Break From IRA - Irish Paper RTna 11/06/97 06:09 Copyright 1997 Reuters Ltd DUBLIN, Nov 6 (Reuters) - About 20 key figures have stormed out of the outlawed IRA in a dispute about the Northern Ireland peace process, the Irish Independent newspaper reported on Thursday. Political analysts said disclosure of the division would be a serious embarrassment to the IRA's political wing Sinn Fein, but was unlikely to throw the party off track in the current talks. It based its report on conversations with a spokesman for the dissidents, calling it "the biggest blow" to the IRA since a fissure in the organisation 11 years ago. The paper said the "quartermaster-general," who had charge of arms dumps and explosives caches, was forced to resign, along with his girlfriend, from senior leadership positions. A former Irish Republican Army "chief of staff," known as a hardliner, voluntarily resigned from the guerrillas' seven-man army council, it said. The report said the internal clash "could threaten the peace process" but added that an Irish Republican Army ceasefire called last July was holding firm. It said leaders were still firmly in control of the clandestine force, which is estimated to have some 400 members and fought a bloody 28-year-war aimed at ending British rule over Northern Ireland. Security analysts on both sides of the Irish border said they were confident the truce, which has prompted full-scale peace talks involving Roman Catholic nationalists and Protestant unionists, was not under imminent threat. The roots of the new dispute apparently lie in old differences over the price of the current ceasefire. Sinn Fein was admitted to Anglo-Irish sponsored talks when it publicly adopted a code of peace principles, the so-called "Mitchell Principles." The IRA later said it was opposed to some elements of the code. According to the paper, the row emerged at a recent leadership meeting in the north west county of Donegal. It said factions in the guerrillas' "general headquarters staff" were split over the future of the ceasefire in the event of no progress emerging in the talks towards the IRA's goal of an all- Ireland state. REUTERS ****************************** IRA "Split" Over Peace Talks Disagreement PA 11/06/97 04:18 Copyright 1997 PA News By Chris Parkin, PA News A number of key activists have quit the IRA in a move that could threaten the terrorist ceasefire, reports indicated today. More than 20 top personnel were said to have resigned after a major row over the rate of political advancement being achieved in the Northern Ireland peace process. The group that walked out -- said by Dublin's Irish Independent newspaper to have included the IRA's former quartermaster general who controlled the terror organisation's arms and explosives dumps -- left following a meeting of the leadership in the Irish Republic's County Donegal last month. According to the reports, exchanges at that meeting uncovered a dissident rump of senior IRA personnel demanding swifter political responses from Britain in return for maintenance of the ceasefire. The development was seen as a potential long-term threat to three- month-old new IRA ceasefire, but sources insisted the restored cessation of violence would remain intact for the immediate future. The Donegal meeting was also said to have prompted a resignation from the IRA's seven-strong ruling Army Council. But the man involved -- a so-called "hawk" from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland -- was replaced by a Belfast figure loyal to the Sinn Fein leadership of political strategists Gerry Adams, the party leader, and Martin McGuinness. The rift was seen by security observers as the most serious to confront the hard-line Irish Republican movement since 1986, when supporters left in protest over plans to adopt a more political approach. Republican Sinn Fein, the breakaway faction formed then, stages its annual meeting in Dublin this weekend. Today Mr Adams, the Sinn Fein MP for West Belfast, said he knew nothing of any split within the IRA. Jay Dooling (jdooling@worldnet.att.net) Irish Aires - 90.1FM KPFT in Houston http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Irish_Aires/homepage.htm Dooling & Mabe, CPA http://www.doolingmabe-cpa.com/ ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytire-11.07.97-08:40:43-32180