A 'most difficult and unpalatable part' - the release of politically motivated violent offenders
by Michael Von Tangen Page
From "A Farewell to Arms?" from "Long War to Long Peace in Northern Ireland"
Published by Manchester University Press, 2000
The role of the prisoners after the 1994 ceasefires
On 31 August and 13 October 1994 respectively the Provisional IRA and the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) announced ceasefires. Almost immediately after the two ceasefires had commenced, pressure began to grow on the authorities to reward the paramilitaries by starting to release prisoners. Leading loyalist and republican spokespersons called for the introduction of an amnesty for prisoners convicted of scheduled crimes. The Republic of Ireland was the first to announce its intention to release Provisional IRA members in late November 1994. There was, however, significant opposition to these releases from a number of police widows. The widows ensured that nobody convicted of the murder of a Garda Síochána officer was released from the republic's prisons at this stage. The first nine prisoners were released just before Christmas 1994.8 The Irish government then announced a further series of early releases in 1995 which included most of the Provisional IRA prisoners not guilty of the murder of a Garda officer. The Irish government then started to place pressure on the British to also begin releasing prisoners. Prisoners allied to the republican splinter organisations the Continuity IRA or the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), who were opposed to the peace process, were deliberately excluded from the release programme.
In Northern Ireland, the situation was not as clear cut as in the Irish Republic. There was significant opposition to a lenient release policy from Unionist MPs and in at least one poll on early release, 54 per cent of respondents in Northern Ireland indicated their opposition compared to only 34 per cent of respondents who supported the early release of prisoners. The majority was substantially higher among Protestants, who opposed the policy by 72 per cent to 20 per cent support.9 Given such levels of opposition within one section of the community and the opposition from Unionist politicians, it was inevitable that the UK authorities would proceed with extreme caution.
The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) found itself in a quandary, in that the paramilitaries demanded some recognition of the cessation of violence through penal policy while the politicians representing the Unionist parties were hostile to any release. Given the "democratic deficit" which has existed in Northern Ireland since the imposition of Direct Rule, the government could have overruled the objections from unionists. It was, however, morally very difficult to defend ignoring the unionist community in this way on such a significant issue. Further, by the middle of 1995 the Conservative government in Westminster was facing real difficulty in passing legislation, as its majority had declined significantly since the previous general election and the right wing of the Conservative Party was in open rebellion against the prime minister, John Major, over European policy. This placed the two main Unionist parties in an extremely powerful position within the House of Commons, at times casting crucial votes for or against the government. To cloud the political situation further the previous prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, through her political allies, was indication her own opposition to the early release of any paramilitaries in Northern Ireland.10
The NIO had in the past made clear that the continuing political violence outside the prisons was a major barrier to releasing paramilitaries. In 1986 the minister of state, Nicholas Scott, told the House of Commons that:
In coming to a conclusion as to whether a prisoner will or will not commit
another offence outside, factors that must be taken into account are the
organisation to which he or she has some allegiance and the level of violence
outside the prison... If the threat of violence were removed, that would
affect our judgement of the likelihood of prisoners being caught up in a
campaign of violence.11 |
