British and IRA: After 19 Years, Battle Goes On

A dramatic resurgence of Irish Republican Army attacks on British armed forces personnel has underscored how far away peace remains in Northern Ireland, one of the world’s oldest trouble spots.

More than 19 years after British troops were first dispatched here to separate warring Protestants and Roman Catholics and restore public order, the outlawed IRA survives as a well-equipped, effective terrorist organization.

In the latest of a series of operations, the IRA early Saturday blew up a bus on a major road near the town of Omagh, killing eight British servicemen and wounding 28 others.

Earlier this month, the IRA continued a campaign of targeting off-duty British servicemen in Western Europe and carried out its first successful attack in nearly four years on the British mainland.

Senior British security officials, who convened for an emergency meeting Saturday at Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Downing Street offices, seemed to have few immediate answers to the new onslaught.

Failed Policy of 1970s

The most seriously discussed method of countering the IRA’s revival--interning suspected activists--is a policy that failed so disastrously when last tried in the early 1970s that even hard-liners have voiced serious reservations.

On the political front, there is no sign of talks between Northern Ireland’s Protestant and Catholic religious leaders to share political power in the province, a goal widely seen as fundamental for any long-term stability.

Active Protestant resistance to a 1985 Anglo-Irish agreement designed to promote this dialogue has subsided but is still strong enough to discourage any tentative movement across the sectarian divide.

The agreement, which established an important point of contact for British and Irish governments on the Northern Ireland issue and also boosted security cooperation between them, comes up for an official review in November.

With Northern Ireland’s sectarian animosity anchored in four centuries of history, there is little expectation of any quick, sudden solutions.

Nearly 2,700 people have been killed since 1969, the start of the latest round of unrest in the six British-ruled northern Irish counties, collectively known as Ulster.

However, the recent IRA resurgence and the absence of any political dialogue has discouraged many in the province.

“There’s nothing really new about the events of the last couple of weeks, but they’ve numbed the community,” noted John Cushnahan, former leader of the small, non-sectarian Alliance Party. “People are depressed in a way you wouldn’t think they’d be.”

To be sure, the IRA has effectively targeted British forces previously. In 1979, 19 soldiers were killed in a single bomb explosion in the province.

The 76 killed in sectarian violence so far in 1988 may be high compared to similar periods of the past few years; however, it remains dwarfed by the 467 who died in Ulster’s bloodiest year, 1972.

But the recent attacks have dispelled a growing impression that the IRA might have been permanently on the wane.

Earlier this year, there was even talk of deepening divisions within the IRA, with one powerful faction said to be advocating the renunciation of violence in favor of political action.

With the IRA on the defensive, a moderate Catholic politician, John Hume, opened talks with Gerry Adams, president of the IRA’s legal political wing, Sinn Fein, apparently hoping to coax him toward a political alternative.

However, the IRA’s renewed campaign has embarrassed Hume, and contacts that seemed to offer so much just a few months ago now appear doomed to failure.

“What’s happened is bad for morale,” admitted Brian Feeney, a senior member of Hume’s Social Democratic Labor Party.

The reason behind the IRA’s revival appears to be more a revision of tactics than any significant new strength.

Improved intelligence, better planning and luck have also contributed, according to observers here.

Focus on Off-Duty Soldiers

For the first time, IRA units have also focused mainly on more vulnerable off-duty British soldiers. Of the 26 servicemen killed so far this year, 19 were out of uniform when they died.

This tactic appears to have stemmed from the publicity generated by the lynching in Belfast of two off-duty soldiers who ran their car into a funeral procession.

With Thatcher’s direct participation, British security officials have launched a major review of measures used to protect off-duty servicemen.

The IRA leadership has vowed to increase its activities over the next 12 months in advance of the 20th anniversary of the arrival of the first British troops here in August, 1969.

British and Irish government security sources believe that the IRA has large stocks of heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, anti-aircraft weapons and significant quantities of explosives stored in the Irish Republic ready for use.

Most of these weapons are believed to have come from Libya, apparently provided by Col. Moammar Kadafi in retribution for Britain’s assistance in the April, 1986, American raid on Libya.

May Be Counterproductive

While Thatcher has been under pressure to blunt the latest IRA offensive by reintroducing internment, veteran observers here believe that such a move would be counterproductive.

In addition to the international propaganda value it would provide the IRA, those who know the organization say it would do little to halt the violence.

Jailing the leadership, they claim, would merely elevate a less-disciplined, second tier of activists who would probably bomb less discriminately.

With the prospect of increased violence and little hope of movement to establish a political dialogue, the prospects for peace in Northern Ireland would seem at best remote.

“There is little likelihood of anything happening for a very long time,” said the Alliance Party’s Cushnahan. “It’s going to be a long haul.”