Decommissioning pace forced by IRA's Colombian links - When Sinn Féin's fraternal links with Colombian drug-dealing terrorists who applauded the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington were exposed, American donations to the party dried up and the US arm-twisted the IRA so much it had no option but to decommission
From The IRISH TIMES October 27th, 2001
by Jim Cusack
Then in an astounding move the party's weekly newspaper, An Phoblacht/Republican News, launched an attack on the US in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks. An editorial denounced the "militaristic and aggressive policy pursued by US governments" in the Middle East and Central America which, it said, had led to "the deaths of many thousands of innocent people".
The Irish Echo, a New York based newspaper, reported last week that the editorial has "caused consternation among many Irish American supporters of Sinn Féin". Sinn Féin has raised millions of dollars in the US and runs the largest and richest political/electoral machine in Ireland. The cash donors in the US are vital to the party's future political prospects in Ireland.
An estimate of the income derived from the US is difficult to quantify. Its fund-raising wing, Friends of Sinn Féin, has unofficially indicated to Irish-American journalists that it has raised more than $5 million since 1995.
Here the party does not admit to any such substantial earnings. Sinn Féin in told the Public Offices Commission in Dublin, which was set up to monitor earnings by and donations to political parties, that it received only $44,926.02 from the US last year. It is understood that the party told the electoral office in Belfast that it spent only (pounds) £18,000 sterling on its general election campaign this year.
The financial pressure on Sinn Féin in the aftermath of Colombia and September 11th was almost immediately evident. Since it began serious fund-raising in the US in 1994, it opened an office in Washington. At the end of last month it was forced to close its office on Capitol Hill. In a statement it said it was consolidating in the Wall Street office of the Friends of Sinn Féin organiser, the prominent Irish-American lawyer, Larry Downes. Not coincidentally, a White House official told the Irish Echo journalist that President Bush and his staff were developing a "get-tough" approach to the IRA.
Sinn Féin has been desperately trying to regain lost ground and sympathy in the US and sent Martin McGuinness to New York to pave the way for the Novembers 1st visit by Gerry Adams to attend the Friends' annual fund-raising dinner at one of the city's most prestigious Manhattan hotels. Previously these fund-raisers have reputedly earned the party US $500,000.
In the end, it seems, US money and not political persuasion or coercion on this side of the Atlantic brought about the divorce of the Provisional republican movement from the IRA's so-called armed struggle. |
