Friday, July 29, 2005
Imagine
Don't know whether this would be getting significant coverage in the US if the London bombing arrests weren't competing with it (it's all but invisible on CNN), but in the Commonwealth, it's a close second:
And the Brits quickly reciprocate:
So that's how one long, twilight struggle ends. And it only took 35 years.
After 35 years of bombs and blood a quiet voice ends the IRA's war
The IRA yesterday declared that its war against Britain was over. Even in the long debased hyperbole of historic moments in the Northern Ireland peace process, this was a monumental announcement.
Its statement, unprecedented in its clarity, was delivered on a DVD by a soft-spoken IRA volunteer called Seana Walsh, who at 50 is typical of the now middle-aged rank and file of the organisation. He had spent 21 years in prison and was one of the IRA "blanket men" during the hunger strike and dirty protests in the Maze prison in the 1970s and 1980s.
Standing in front of an Irish tricolour, he announced that from 4pm a "formal end to the armed campaign" had been ordered. All IRA units were ordered to "dump arms". The IRA vowed to complete its long-running decommissioning process as quickly as possible by "verifiably [putting] its arms beyond use".
(via Guardian UK)
And the Brits quickly reciprocate:
British army cuts bases after IRA peace move
Belfast — The British army began closing or demolishing military installations in the Irish Republican Army's rural heartland Friday in a rapid response to the IRA's declaration to renounce violence and disarm.
Soldiers started to dismantle or withdraw from three positions in South Armagh, a rebellious borderland nicknamed "bandit country," where soldiers still travel by helicopter because of the risk of IRA dissidents' roadside bombs.
The move came a day after IRA commanders promised to disarm fully and directed to their units to dump their weapons and use "exclusively peaceful means" from now on.
(via Globe and Mail)
So that's how one long, twilight struggle ends. And it only took 35 years.
And it’s true we are immune
When fact is fiction and tv reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die
The real battle yet begun
To claim the victory jesus won
On Sunday bloody sunday