British Perspectives on Terrorism (RLE: Terrorism & Insurgency)

Paul Wilkinson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138899247
• eBook ISBN: 9781317481270
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

When originally published in 1981 this was the first book to bring together in one volume some of the most thoughtful work by British academics and specialists studying the political violence and terrorism which had recently challenged Britain and other Western democracies. Four chapters consider the strategy and tactics of the IRA and the problems of the Northern Ireland conflict. Other articles discuss the phenomena of international terrorism.

Essential reading for courses on political violence, revolution war and staregic studies, this volume will also be of relevance for training course in military and police staff colleges.

The Water and the Fish: Public Opinion and the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland

E. Moxon-Browne

Department of Political ScienceQueen's University of BelfastBelfast, Northern Ireland

DOI: 10.4324/9781315707914-3

Abstract The methods and goals of the Provisional IRA make it difficult to categorize it simply as a “terrorist” group. Its longevity and its affinity to Irish political culture suggest that it will not be defeated by force but by being rendered irrelevant. This is likely to come about as a result of the state demonstrating its own legitimacy among those sections of the Catholic community which have been understandably reluctant to give the state their full allegiance in the past. Survey evidence supports the contention that the Provisional IRA's goals and grievances are shared by many who would spurn their tactics.

Introduction

A leading exponent of the concept of “political terrorism” has argued that it is characterized, above all, by “amorality and antinomianism.”¹ In other words, the political terrorist regards himself as exempt from existing moral codes because the political goals which he seeks to achieve justify the methods he uses. It follows, therefore, that in many cases an act of political terrorism will be arbitrary, indiscriminate, and unpredictable to those who are its actual or potential victims.

However careful we are in defining terrorism or terrorists we cannot escape making something of a subjective judgment. It is because someone is “terrorized” by an act that the act itself becomes a terrorist act, and its perpetrator a terrorist. Yet an element of randomness or unpredictability is also a vital ingredient in the definition, since the timid driver who is “terrified” when the policeman stops him to give him a ticket, does not automatically regard the policeman as a terrorist! Legitimacy is another ingredient, albeit subjective, in our judgment of whether someone is a terrorist. The familiar argument as to whether members of a certain group are “terrorists” or “liberation fighters” revolves around the perceived legitimacy of the group in question. The distinction between terrorism and guerrilla warfare can become blurred in the public mind when efforts are made by the state to discredit guerrillas by calling them terrorists.

In the light of these preliminary remarks, it is not easy to label the Provisional IRA (PIRA) a terrorist group and leave it at that. The IRA has waged a campaign of intermittent violence in Ireland for about sixty years. Its resilience and longevity, if nothing else, make it exceptional in European terms. But its view of itself as “the legitimate Republic” and its belief that the Dublin government (to say nothing of British rule in Northern Ireland) is a gross usurpation, distinguish it sharply from other subversive groups in Europe like ETA, the Brigate Rosse, the Baader-Meinhof gang, and the South Moluccans, none of whom can lay claim to the sort of ancestry which purports to make them the true repository of the nation's honor. And it is easier to describe these other European groups as terroristic since their campaigns tend to be spasmodic, irrational and, apparently, devoid of widespread support. On the other hand, the IRA displays some of the characteristics of a guerrilla movement, and it is instructive to reflect on Wilkinson's distinction between “guerrillas” and “terrorists”:

Guerrillas may fight in small numbers and with often inadequate weaponry, but they can and often do fight according to conventions of war, taking and exchanging prisoners and respecting the rights of non-combatants. Terrorists place no limits on means employed and frequently resort to widespread assassination, the waging of “general terror” upon the indigenous civilian population….²

The present campaign of PIRA does not fall wholly into either of these categories. Certainly, even those most hostile to PIRA find no difficulty in seeing their campaign as essentially a guerrilla campaign;³ and certainly PIRA sees itself as an “army” fighting a war against an alien power in order to achieve “national liberation.”

However, if we return to Wilkinson's conception of “political terrorism,” we find that the PIRA campaign falls quite easily into his third category which he calls “revolutionary terrorism” (the other two being “repressive terrorism” and “sub-revolutionary terrorism”),⁴ whose main characteristics are:

Always a group phenomenon, however tiny the group, with a leadership and an ideology or programme, however crude. Develops alternative institutional structures. The organisation of violence and terrorism is typically undertaken by specialist conspiratorial and paramilitary organs within the revolutionary movement.⁵

Even if it is accepted that the PIRA indulges in a form of “revolutionary terrorism” as described here, the tactics are classic guerrilla tactics. PIRA is inusual in engaging in both rural and urban guerrilla warfare with equal success, although in the current campaign the emphasis is on the urban areas and, even outside those areas, there is a tendency to concentrate on the dislocation of inter-urban communications. The theorists of guerrilla warfare argue the merits of rural and urban campaigns⁶ but, for the IRA, the memories of the desolate border campaign (1956–62) are probably enough to settle the argument.

In sum, then, although the term “terrorist” is widely used to describe PIRA, especially in Northern Ireland, it is important to keep in mind the differences between PIRA and other groups in Europe which are similarly described. The term “terrorist” has obvious pejorative overtones, and is a natural weapon in the armory of the state as it seeks to discredit its opponents. The “criminalization” of a campaign which is, to some extent, politically inspired is a theme we shall return to later because it is part of the battle for legitimacy between the state and those who wish to overturn the state.

Development of PIRA

The origins of PIRA lie in the split of the IRA into two wings in 1969–70 over tactics. This split arose from a growing divergence of views over what the appropriate response should be to the civil rights campaign in the North. The Official IRA (OIRA), as it became known, had been strongly influenced by the aims of the civil rights campaign; also by the need to tackle problems like unemployment, bad housing, and so on, in the South. The virtual abandonment of the Catholic ghettoes to face Protestant attackers in 1969–70, and the taunting gable-end slogans “IRA = I Ran Away” that followed, marked the parting of the ways. The OIRA called a cease-fire in 1972, but PIRA went over to the offensive and, except for some short-lived “cease-fires,” have held the initiative ever since.

To understand the stance of PIRA since 1972, it is necessary to recapitulate, albeit briefly, the earlier history of the IRA from which PIRA now considers itself to be the true descendant.⁷ In general terms, the IRA was born out of the struggle to rid Ireland of British rule. The first attempt to establish a 32-county republic—in 1916—failed, and it was not until January 4, 1922 that the relationship between Britain and Ireland was redefined—an agreement which was accepted by the Dail by 64 votes to 57. Henceforth, Ireland became the Free State but there still remained links with Britain—a Governor-General, an oath to the Crown for TDs, and some concessions over military bases for Britain. The 1921 Government of Ireland Act which gave the six northern counties their own parliament was regarded as a betrayal of the “Republic” by the IRA who responded with a brief, but ultimately futile, campaign.

DeValera's Sinn Fein party contested the 1923 elections and refused to take its seats. Finding abstentionism unproductive, De Valera formed the Fianna Fail Party in 1926, won 44 seats in the 1927 elections, then entered the Dail but refused to take the Oath. In the meantime, the IRA continued to pose a subversive threat and this was reflected in the need to pass special legislation: the Public Safety Act (1923) and the Juries Protection Bill (1929).

Continuing violence from the IRA in the 1930s was a constant reminder that it claimed to represent the “real Republic,” a claim which still found some sympathy among the public at large. After 1932, De Valera tried to emasculate the IRA further by a policy of absorption. The Special Branch became staffed by ex-IRA men; and a volunteer militia was set up to give potential IRA members regular pay and a uniform to wear. As Bowyer Bell puts it: “Old grievances were transformed into new loyalties to the government.”⁸ On the constitutional side, De Valera endeavored to create something resembling the “real Republic.” The Governor-General was replaced by an obscure Fianna Fail politician. Land annuities were no longer paid to the British government, and in 1937 a new Constitution omitted any mention of the Crown and defined the national territory as the 32 counties. This policy of mollifying the IRA could not be carried much further, but it still failed to satisfy hard-core Republicans who sought an end to partition— something which De Valera himself recognized could not be achieved by force.

Thus, by 1939 the IRA had been partly crushed and partly absorbed into Fianna Fail. The Second World War, however, gave the IRA the chance to harass Britain over the question of partition an...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Politics and Propaganda of the Provisional IRA
• The Water and the Fish: Public Opinion and the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland
• IRA Leadership Problems
• Terror in Ireland—and Britain's Response
• Another Final Battle on the Stage of History
• The British Police and Terrorism
• Management of the Kidnap Risk
• The United Nations Convention Against the Taking of Hostages: Realistic or Rhetoric?
• Proposals for Government and International Responses to Terrorism
• Index