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Anorak News | Time Not To Kill

Time Not To Kill

by | 28th, July 2005

‘SO much of life is about…timing.

Never again

Much of the run up to the last General Election was spent wondering whether Tony Blair would step down now, later or wait until, to paraphrase Enoch Powell, his career ended in failure and the sack.

But while Tony continues to wrestle with his fate, and, as the Telegraph reports, “vows to quit Iraq as soon as possible” – although he’s not entirely sure when that is – the Times says the IRA has looked at the clock, chucked a blade of grass to the winds and decided that now is the time to disarm.

This is welcome news. If the paper is correct, and the Provisional IRA is to announce that it intends to abandon its “armed struggle” in favour of trying to achieve it aims for a united Ireland through political means, we should give a collective sigh of relief.

As the paper reports, the IRA is responsible for around half the 3,000 deaths in three decades of what are known as the Troubles.

Though the IRA will not disband, something still demanded by unionists, the group is on the point of turning its back on violence and decommissioning its weapons.

While Irish Prime Minster Bertie Ahern is right to say nothing is certain, the serious contemplation of such a move is a massive step forward.

But it’s not accidental – the timing of the IRA’s expected announcement coincides with the release of IRA killer Sean Kelly, who murdered nine innocent people when he blew up a fishmongers in 1993.

The Telegraph has a picture of Kelly hugging his girlfriend when he was released on licence in 2000. But, as the paper says, he was rearrested when it was suspected that he was involving himself in terrorism again.

But the timing of the IRA’s announcement is notable for a different reason.

This is a time when the man the Telegraph calls the most senior Muslim cleric in Birmingham, Mohammad Naseem, says the eight Muslim men implicated in two attacks on London “could have been innocent passengers”.

A time when police release pictures of the Shepherd’s Bush bomber and news that a car found at Luton rail station, where the first wave of bombers had boarded a train to London, contained a cache of bombs.

The IRA has chosen a good day to deliver its message that terrorism helps nobody and has no place in our society…’



Posted: 28th, July 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink