In N. Ireland, Bloodshed Now Binds Foes

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — The slaughter of innocent men, women and children on a summer afternoon has united the vast majority of Northern Ireland’s Protestants and Roman Catholics in revulsion against political violence.

Public outrage at Saturday’s massacre, like the fury over the killing of three Catholic boys last month, reconfirms that there is no more appetite for bloodshed in Northern Ireland after 30 years of sectarian violence.

In the past, Catholic and Protestant paramilitary attacks were celebrated by at least some members of their respective communities.

No one is celebrating now.

A car bomb in the crowded market town of Omagh killed 28 people and wounded more than 200, making no distinction between Catholics and Protestants in the mixed community. It is widely believed to have been set off by a group of Irish Republican Army dissidents calling themselves the “Real IRA” and reportedly numbering no more than 100 people.

Both sides called for the police to hunt down the “scum” who would kill unsuspecting shoppers. Acting swiftly, police arrested five people at dawn Monday who are suspected of links to the Real IRA.

The starkest demonstration of the general outrage came from the leader of the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein. Gerry Adams unequivocally condemned the bombing, in his first total repudiation of a violent act almost certainly committed by Irish republicans dedicated to the cause of a united Ireland.

Adams said the attack was “wrong, absolutely wrong” and called for a halt to such violence. His Sinn Fein colleague Martin McGuinness said the bombing was “an indefensible action” designed to wreck the peace process between the country’s pro-British Protestant majority and its Catholic minority, which wants to be united with the Irish Republic.

This has been hailed as a crossing of the Rubicon for Sinn Fein.

As was to be expected, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Northern Ireland’s Protestant first minister, David Trimble, also condemned the attack, but hastened to add that the nascent peace process must continue.

“We must be strong, and we must be determined, and we must say that these people who have perpetrated this deed must not win,” Blair said.

“They are not going to succeed. They are a small group of people, a tiny, fanatical group of people. They have no political base, they have no votes, they have no support in Northern Ireland. They have just this capacity for evil,” he added.

Such was the universal condemnation when three young Catholic brothers were burned to death in Ballymoney on July 12. Richard, Mark and Jason Quinn, ages 11, 10 and 9, died in a firebomb attack on their home at the height of violent protests by Protestant militants of the fraternal organization the Orange Order.

Revulsion at the slayings brought Trimble and his Catholic deputy first minister, Seamus Mallon, together in protest.

The sight of the boys’ small white coffins eliminated any support that Protestant extremists might have had at the time and brought an end to the Orange Order protests against a ban on its annual parade through a Catholic neighborhood in the town of Portadown.

Many people had hoped that the Quinns would be the last casualties in Northern Ireland’s sectarian war. Two months earlier, the citizens of the British province had voted by more than 70% to put away their bombs and guns and decide the region’s political future through elections.

The peace agreement that they adopted calls for Northern Ireland to remain a part of Britain unless a majority of the people decides otherwise. This was a huge shift for the IRA, which signed off on the accord, and was rejected as a sellout to the British and Protestant majority by some members who left to form the Real IRA.

Police believe that the renegade group is headed by the IRA’s former munitions chief, Michael McKevitt. He is believed to have taken about 10 other explosives experts with him.

The armed group is believed to be linked to the republican 32 County Sovereignty Committee, run by Bernadette Sands, who lives with McKevitt in the Irish Republic and runs a printing business.

Among those arrested Monday was Shane Mackey, the 19-year-old son of Francis Mackey, who is a leader of the Sovereignty Committee in Northern Ireland. On Monday, the senior Mackey denied that he is affiliated with the Real IRA.

“I have never at any stage of my life been involved with any military activity,” he said.

Significantly, the police are not pointing any fingers at the IRA itself, or accusing Sinn Fein of complicity in the Omagh bombing.

But the Protestant political leadership, while accepting Sinn Fein’s condemnation of Saturday’s bombing, still demands more from the group as a partner in the peace process.

Even before the Omagh bombing, Trimble was under pressure from his own ranks to prevent the release from jail of IRA prisoners and to demand that Sinn Fein declare its war finished and turn over IRA weapons before taking seats in a new provincial government.

Adams was reluctant to do so, aware of defections to the Real IRA and fearing further splits in the nationalist camp. He insisted that the war will be over when the peace process addresses its causes: British rule and Protestant domination of the Catholic minority.

But the pressure on Sinn Fein is increasing.

In an editorial Monday, the Times of London called on Adams to make a “formal, absolute and public break with violence and fundamentalism . . . [to] state categorically that the conflict is ended, and begin the process of decommissioning.”

At the same time, there were demands for Adams to help the British and Irish governments track down his onetime colleagues, who presumably are using some of the IRA’s war materials.

While British and Irish police officials met to plan a strategy for hunting down the Omagh bombers, two more bomb threats were received--against Stormont, the center of British administration for Northern Ireland, in east Belfast, and against an area of downtown Belfast. No bombs were found, but dissidents made the point that dangers still exist.

Trimble went on television to say that unionists will grant the police any means they deem necessary to nab the Omagh bombers, and he pressed Sinn Fein to agree to do so also.

Adams immediately cautioned the government against resorting to sweeps, which could feed public sympathy for the renegades.

He also is not likely to give Protestants the definitive end-of-war statements and weapons caches they are seeking, which will in turn increase the pressure on Unionist leader Trimble to keep Adams out of government.

The Northern Ireland Assembly elected in June is supposed to meet Sept. 14 and to pick an executive Cabinet. Sinn Fein is due to get two seats in the Cabinet based on its proportion of the vote.

Protestant paramilitary groups have yet to weigh in with their response to the Omagh bombing.

Ironically, the threat of further violence from either quarter could help to counter the political obstacles that Adams and Trimble face. If the Omagh bombing has taught Catholics and Protestants anything, it is that they now have a common enemy in opponents of the peace agreement.