Dump arms now, IRA told

2005-08-28 18:16

Dublin - The Irish Republican Army must stick to its word and decommission its arsenal of weaponry, Irish justice minister Michael McDowell said on Sunday.

"Obviously the time has now come - and it has long since come - where the glare of publicity is on this issue," McDowell told RTE state radio. The IRA must now "close the book" on its criminal and paramilitary activity, he said.

The IRA made a historic pledge last month to end its 35-year-long armed struggle against British rule in Northern Ireland and pursue purely democratic and peaceful means to achieve their goal of a united Ireland.

McDowell described the continued maintenance of the weapons arsenals as a "dead duck" and a "complete negative" for Sinn Fein, the province's largest Catholic party and the political wing of the IRA.

Armed struggle

"The notion of a return to an armed struggle really hasn't been on for a long, long time," McDowell added.

He believed the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, led by Canadian General John de Chastelain, would supervise "a process that will begin, middle and end in the relatively near future".

The Irish government has provided the general with an estimate of the arms and explosives held by the IRA.

McDowell said it was a significant armoury, including surface-to-air missiles and semtex explosives, smuggled over the years from Libya, the United States and eastern Europe.

The IRA said on July 28 that it would wage its struggle through peaceful means only.

- AFP