Will it ever end ? (Terrorism)

Member Name: Daisybelle

Product:	Terrorism
Date:	05/05/01 (370 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Legislation

Disadvantages: Dead people

The news on Friday the 4th of May 2001 about a ruling in the European Court of Human Rights was the prompt for this opinion. The gist of the ruling was that by killing ten Irish Republican terrorists and not investigating the actions thoroughly enough, the British forces had violated their human rights and should pay at least £10,000 each to their families. When you add this ruling to the facts that the Northern Irish Minister of Education publicly owned to having been a high ranking member of the IRA in the same week and virtually all of those convicted of murder have been released and not a single weapon has been decommissioned, then you have to reach a conclusion. Mine is that terrorism in our bit of the world has definitely been successful, as the minority has won its case in many ways, and mostly through the cruel use of blood and tears.

So how much power should the government give the Police to curb terrorism? That’s part of the question posed by dooyoo so here are a few thoughts on the matter. First of all though, I make no apologies for most of this opinion being about Irish Republican groups, as they’ve posed the only real threat in the UK in past decades. The SNLP had their 5 minutes in the sun, and the ALF like to flex their nasty little muscles, but both are small beans by comparison. Anyway, on with the op, and where I stand.

I’m a libertine. I’m wary of governments because those that seek power are often not worthy of my trust. I have no love of the monarchy, because despite being no great shakes in the neural department they are my unelected lords and masters. Religion sticks in my throat for a long list of reasons, again including unelected power. Republicanism I honestly consider an admirable cause to aim for. However, because I abhor killing, I'm warily supportive of the rights of suspected terrorists being infringed upon by a hard line, big brother style government, as long as that’s all t
he powers given to the security forces are used for.

There is a lack of general understanding, I feel, about how terrorism operates and how astonishingly successful it has been in the UK. For instance, do you know why a lot of the jackets you try on in high street shops have the pockets sewn up? It’s because an incendiary device, which takes about thirty minutes to make, is the size of a cassette box. To search a large department store on Oxford Street, an anti-terrorist squad would need to spend a whole day. So instead, the staff carry out searches several times a day and the pockets are sewn up to eliminate easy targets. That’s because attacks of this kind used to be very frequent. We didn’t hear about them, as they weren’t publicised. After all, if you ran a shop you wouldn’t advertise the fact that there’d been two attempts to burn you down in the past month, would you?

The security agencies face huge difficulties, and probably deserve a lot of credit for the number of operations they’ve managed to thwart. The problem has become more complex over the past decade or so, because unlike thirty years ago, when the troubles in Northern Ireland began to peak again, the terrorists are not so often your stereotypical Guinness swilling horse lovers with an Armagh accent. They’ve included second and third generation English, Scots and Americans who’ve hardly set foot in Ireland, and that is partly why I’m supportive of this legislation.

An example of this was clearly seen in 1997, when 6 IRA members were sentenced to 35 years each for planning to blow up all 6 of the major electrical sub-stations in London during the previous year. The house they were using was found to contain the components for 37 5-pound Semtex time bombs. As there would have been no loss of life this might not sound too serious in comparison with other acts of terrorism, until you consider it carefully. I di
d hear a tale that when asked by security advisors what the impact of this would be, a female executive for the National Grid Group replied “Anywhere from catastrophic, to totally f**king catastrophic”.

This is because substation transformers are not off the shelf items. London would have been without power for at least 18 months. Disease would have been rife within a week due to the lack of sewage facilities, so you can only try and imagine how quickly law and order would have spiralled out of existence. The two terrorists who carried out the purchasing side of the project, for transport, accommodation, components etc. were carefully selected. One had three false French identities and could speak with a passable French accent, the other was an Irish-American. This made it far less likely that they would be caught out, so if you live in London you have the diligence of the shadowy security services to thank.

So what exactly are the additional powers the government bestowed? Well the most dubious areas from a civil rights point of view are that they allow people suspected of belonging to terrorist groups to be arraigned on the word of a single, senior police officer. They interpret a suspect's silence as corroboration of police evidence, a real break from tradition. It’s also now illegal to gather information likely to be useful to members of outlawed organisations, or to withhold useful information from the authorities.

Some of this may sound Draconian, and indeed it is in my opinion, but tough luck. The legislation was rushed through Parliament in 2 days, a number of Labour MPs defied the whip and voted against it and this was all done AFTER the second cease-fire agreement was brokered. I think it was done out of a desire to protect the cease-fire, and Blair deserves respect for this move. Similar legislation was passed through in Ireland at the same time, not coincidentally either. Both governments realised t
hat splinter groups such as the Real IRA would want to continue the struggle, and would love to wreck the cease-fire. This piece of law was created to help prevent them succeeding, and for that reason deserves support rather than abuse.

Of course, the more paranoid members of our society may worry that these powers will be abused, but I do not think this will be the case. The Police are not idiots and surely realise they will be on the receiving end of serious criticism should they misuse these laws. Even the security services are very careful where they tread nowadays, in the wake of shoot to kill policy allegations – most likely very true allegations too, in my opinion.

So what about the ruling in Europe? I have very mixed feelings on this. Having seen the forgiveness preached by some of the victims of terrorism, such as Colin Parry whose son Tim was killed in Warrington, it’s difficult not to feel that in some ways this may be a good thing. As an aside, the blast that killed Tim was cruelly the result of poor information.

The IRA phoned Warrington Samaritans with a coded warning, but because it was the weekend the call was diverted to Liverpool and a street there was evacuated instead. Perhaps rulings such as these will help the reconciliation process. On the other hand, it’s somewhat ridiculous when you consider that some of those killed were shot after first of all blowing up a Police Station, then attacking it with machine guns. If you live by the sword you can expect to die by it, and I fail to see how anyone can honestly complain in these circumstances.

So are the IRA Freedom Fighters? In their own eyes maybe, but people who deliberately kill children deserve a more derogatory label in my opinion, and I think that says it all.

There are my few thoughts on terrorism and the Law. Hopefully we’ve seen the beginning of the back of it now, with the Real IRA being somewhat neutered foll
owing the arrest of Michael McKevitt. The brother-in-law of Bobby Sands, he was formerly the alleged Quartermaster-General of the Provisional IRA, and also the alleged brain behind the Omagh bombing, that claimed 29 lives. His loss will be a huge blow to them. It would, however, be foolish to dismiss them as they are well armed and have a growing support. We can just live in hope. I’ve rated this subject with 5 stars. I wasn’t sure how it should be rated, but I've given 5 stars to the governments legislation. Terrorism sickens me, and if it were how much I like terrorism I was rating, it would have been 1 star.

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