Terrorists (and supporters) react to political pressure

[Darat]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4316767.stm

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Sinn Fein has suspended seven of its members over their alleged involvement in the murder of Robert McCartney.

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"All of those involved in this horrific incident must make themselves fully accountable for their actions. Nothing short of this is acceptable," Mr Adams said.

"I have made clear my support for the family in their search for justice and have called upon those involved in the killing and others with information about the killing to bring this information forward."

He added that Sinn Fein "has no basis to make any allegations against any of these suspended members" and has instructed a solicitor to pass the list of names from the McCartney family to the Police Ombudsman.

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In my opinion this is a very encouraging sign that terrorists can be influenced by “people” and political pressure. I think many people (myself included) feel distasteful that we have for many years been dealing with these terrorists (or as one of the leaders of Sinn Finn has just described the IRA in a radio interview” patriots”) but perhaps this shows that to make progress it is necessary to engage with terrorists on a political basis.

Whether any further action will be taken after the up-coming by-election will be very telling.


(I think this issue has also been encouraging in that seems to be a strong signal from the communities that the terrorists come from that they are losing their popular support.)

 

[Giz]

Whether any further action will be taken after the up-coming by-election will be very telling.

Indeed, until anything further is heard I'd be tempted to put this in the pre-election stunts/promises by politicians category rather than a profound change of heart (though we can keep our fingers crossed).

 

[Shane Costello]

Originally posted by Darat:
I think many people (myself included) feel distasteful that we have for many years been dealing with these terrorists (or as one of the leaders of Sinn Finn has just described the IRA in a radio interview” patriots”) but perhaps this shows that to make progress it is necessary to engage with terrorists on a political basis.

Nonsense. If the murder of Robert McCartney and it's aftermath are indicative of anything then it's the futility of "engagement with terrorists". In practice political expediency dictated that criminality was tolerated, the theory being that the terrorists would ultimately wind down of their own accord. Instead the IRA remained active, murdering policemen, robbing banks and smuggling arms. The butchering of Robert McCartney and the Northern Bank heist is the logical progression of "engagement with terrorists". I honestly fail to see how thugs like that can ever be amenable to reason.