News

News

One war begins and another ends
From Neville de Silva in London
London, Thursday July 28. It seemed so surreal, so Orwellian. The police were everywhere, patrolling central London streets, swarming around tube stations and keeping a watchful eye on passers-by.

The British bobby who prided himself on never carrying guns was on this day wielding MP5 submachine guns and Glock 17 pistols. Some 6,000 police were on high alert against another possible bomb attack, exactly three weeks after suicide bombers killed 52 persons and wounded several in four coordinated attacks on July 7.

At the same time the security services and police were raiding houses and flats across the country in search of four other would-be suicide bombers who went underground when their home-made bombs failed to explode, two weeks to the date after the first attack.

Britain was at war with a new enemy, a new extremism it had unwittingly nurtured within its own bosom. But if Thursday brought memories of Western Europe’s first suicide bombings just three weeks earlier, it also revived older memories of another war and another terrorism.

At 4 p.m. on Thursday, the IRA formally declared an end to its three-decade long war against Britain that had been characterised by bombs, bullets and blood. The IRA

promised to lay down weapons and instructed all its units to ‘dump arms.’
The IRA which two decades ago almost killed the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her Cabinet and had over the years bombed shopping malls, military barracks and British soldiers in Northern Ireland almost daily, had been compelled to call off its war of secession.It would seem that the new war against modern terrorism has had its sobering effect on a much older war, though the IRA last planted a bomb some nine years ago.

The Blair government is planning a series of tough new anti-terrorism laws that are likely to be on the statute book this autumn. The government is likely to get the support of other parties to push this legislation through, though the opposition is expected to scrutinise them closely to ensure they would not trample on individual human rights.

Even undergoing weapons training abroad would become an offence as would preaching or advocating violence. So would any kind of fund raising that would help terrorist organisations or those that believe in violence.

Though the new laws are aimed largely at Islamic extremists such as al Qaeda and affiliated groups, they would obviously affect the IRA as well as other outlawed organisations such as the LTTE.

Some observers believe the contemplated laws which would make life miserable for the IRA involved in criminality in recent times to fund its activities, as well as for Sinn Fein, appear to have given the final push to finally write finis to its war against the State.

Top

Back to News