ETA was dissolved this year Pete, had a ceasefire in 2010 , disarmed a few year later then dissolved this year,
They were heavily linked to Liverpool criminals all over Spain for the years.
Current Affairs Irish Border and Brexit
- Thread starter Charlie Sweet
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They were heavily linked to Liverpool criminals all over Spain for the years.
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
Good. That’s one bunch of terrorists gone then.....
hopefully
This is the way I remember it
Carl O'Ancelotti
Player Valuation: £20m
You appear to have little or no understanding of this issue - posting a pic of a border demonstrates that so let me explain.
There aren't "a couple of hundred terrorists" at the ready waiting to resume the conflict. Those people involved in it have stood down and won't be coming back. What we are talking about is a new set of circumstances where the re-instatement of a physical border could create the conditions for a new conflict to break out at some time in the future. Anyone under 30 or thereabouts won't have experienced the last one and so won't have the same battle weariness of it as those of us who lived through it. It is this younger generation who could be tempted to a call to arms again and that is why many people are warning about that possibility, including the Chief Constable of the PSNI as I said earlier. And you would think he knows what he is talking about.
The binman chronicles
Player Valuation: £80m
Not sure what you are getting at here Pete, you know the whole situation is a powder keg. The UK rightly don't want a hard border but the people who voted to leave are actively pushing for one by not wanting to adhere to any deal that involves freedom of movement.
The truth is the country is not ready to leave the EU as we haven't got our house in order yet. Until NI decides to leave the UK or Ireland with the EU, the brexit that leavers (or the majority of them at least) want is unworkable.
We can sit here and blame the EU for pushing for a border or NI for not accepting a border between them and the mainland but both of those positions are understandable. The options that are left are just a case of trying to round square pegs which obviously please no one.
One thing we should all agree on is that we don't want to see a return to violence and by going back on the GFA to help ease what is little more than 50 percent of the country is to do that. In doing so don't think that will just be a problem for Ireland to deal with. By giving 20 years of freedom and then taking it away we will have made it probably worse than it was and I would expect to see a large scale retaliation on the mainland. We can only hope that they will give us fair warning that devices have been planted but given it was the 'people's vote' that caused this issue I don't think they might be as thoughtful as before.
You can dress the above as project fear but I would say it is a logical outcome unless the people of NI vote in favour of leaving the UK shortly afterwards and the unionists accept that.
You’re not helping your argument.
The border is a state of mind that no one wants to go back to.
Its both a physical, psychological and symbolic in my opinion.
I know people are saying the violence issue is a negotiating tactic or mocking the border etc but lets look a bit at the war in Northern Ireland snd the triggers for violence particularly in the late 60s - late 00s.
The core principles from a civil rights or nationalist perspective were that Catholics had no rights they were discriminated in employment, housing, state departments and discriminated against police/army etc.
The country was divided up in to electoral areas were areas with clear catholic or ethnic Irish majorities were gerrymandered to return a protestant ethnic planter majority. This happened with a wholly protestant government running NI until civil rights for Catholics became so poor and the abuse so internationally abhorrent the UK had to pull plug on Stormont amidst controversy of the UK being taken to UN court of human and civil rights.
Cue English occupation of NI, the Army walking the streets of NI and patrolling the border. Many would argue little changed instead of discrimination by the Police it was just the army with bigger guns and an escalation of violence on both sides and the worst atrocities of the war committed under Army occupation. By the Army and paramilitaries.
Thankfully The GFA saw sense prevail, the people were given fair government, people were given civil rights, people were given the choice to identify with their UK or ROI citizenship, the army agreed to end their occupation of NI, the border was opened up.
Why i mention this is that many of the conditions of the past are present in the tinder box that is Brexit. So for me there is a real threat of a return to violence.
For example, as in the past the people of Northern Ireland dont have a government. They are currently being governed from a far by the English government that is made up of a unionist majority as chief law makers and political protagonists. The people have lost their right to government and fair representation from their community.
As for rights, European and Irish citizens in NI are now being told that regardless of their citizenship they are going to have these rights unrecognized in foreign state despite the popular will of the majority to remain as part of Europe.
The will of the people of people is being ignored and the popular NI vote disenfranchised.
They are again likely to have some form partition of the country again with a border check point and patrolling. Its symbolic, a physical barrier and psychological trigger of occupation. For both Republicans and Unionists.
All the same ingredients are there really.
Peace has never sat easy with many hardliners, but the political atmosphere or the will of the majority was never their to support a return to an armed campaign for paramilitaries the loss of government, the loss of rights, the loss to fair represntation and re-partition are back in a subtle unraveling of the GFA. The more this goes on and the more the people of NI are being disenfranchised the closer the return to violence is to changing.
Lets also be clear here, the threat of violence is just among the people of NI, its a threat to the people of the UK and ROI also as history has taught us both countries have been targeted by paramilitaries historically and given how this is playing politically they are main protagonists.
I just want to be clear that i am in no way advocating violence here which is abhorrent to me, im just commenting on historic context and comparisons to the present and how there is a pathway there that could trigger it unless the politicians really get their act together and in response to some of the flippant stuff written in this thread about the risk of a return to violence in NI.
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peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
“Cue English occupation of NI, the Army walking the streets of NI”..... let’s at least get the reason for the troops going in correct, this was to restore some form of law and order, not an ‘English occupation’...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/14/newsid_4075000/4075437.stm
I've absolutely no interest into the semantics of what i wrote mate as it will just polarize this debate for confrontation hopefully long healed, safe to say there are different perceptions along both sides of the divide.
But saying the army came in to restore law and order (with a bigger stick) is like saying the war in middle east was because of weapons of mass destruction or Vietnam was to free the north Vietnamese from communism. The era of army occupation shepherded in the worst atrocities, violence, human rights violations, torture and insane taking of human life of the war on both sides. History has proven it as it escalated the war, actually i think the torture case against the Uk during army occupation is still before the court of human rights.
The BBC is a British media outlet, its not a reliable source of objective information as it reports on occurrences with a British lens., similarly RTE wouldn't be either from a nationalist perspective.
Anyhow as i said my point was about the past and correlations to now, that make the threat of a return to violence real with many of the same triggers at play.
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
I don’t actually believe that there is any threat of returning to violence. It has been proven that violence gained nothing and that only turning to the vote gave nationalists possibilities to change the future. The first bunch of terrorists that attempted any form of attack would be roundly condemned internationally and support would drift away. The security services are immeasurably better equipped and capable than they ever were before and would quickly round up the perpetrators. It’s only thoughtless and dishonest political people raising the spectre of violence, and like one or two on here talking about people ‘taking up arms’ that stirs it up....
Charlie Sweet
Player Valuation: £35m
But if you refuse to put a border in - how are you going to take back control and stop an infinite number of people walking across the border or and infinite volume of goods being brought across from the EU into the UK?
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
We’re not bothered. Neither is the ROI. The only ones who are are based in Brussels.....
Charlie Sweet
Player Valuation: £35m
That's simply not true mate. Northern Ireland would be swamped and thanks to the DUP there'd be nothing stopping it all coming across the Irish Sea. How is that taking back control of your borders if the singleland border is open and free to anyone?
Your are bothered tho, your chancellor of the exchequer said so
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