Irish Republican Army: Freedom Fighters or Terrorists - Term Paper Example

Irish Republican Army: Freedom Fighters or Terrorists Irish Republican Army: Freedom Fighters or Terrorists The purpose of this paperis to explore the reality that Irish Republican Army is a Freedom Fighter or Terrorist group of people. Irish Republican Army is a devoted nationalist organization and it serves completely for the integration of Ireland and makes it an independent unit. Through this paper we can examine whether the Irish Republican Army is a real freedom fighters group for their nation a terrorist group. The terror acts are `intended to create fear in people, terrorist have no value for religious ceremonies or political functions etc. they are perpetrated for ideological goal, political leaders and they target innocent civilians. Terrorism is an act of war and unlawful violence. Terrorism started from the political upheaval of America in the last half of the 18th century called as the revolution of America. When North America showed unity by the combination of thirteen colonies which agreed to break free from the British Empire. Winning the war for their freedom, the combination of North America and all other states became the United States of America. This American Revolution occurred by introducing the terrorist attacks. Alot of acts of terrorism were reported during the American Revolution. The First of them was “Sons of Liberty” which happened on December, 1773 and then other orchestrated terrorist acts started following the ‘sons of liberty’. These attacks were followed by the formation of a secret terrorist organization that included all the northern States of America. The three British East India Cargo ships were illegally bound in Boston Harbor and the terrific act was that throwing 45 tons of tea in to the harbor. Back then, that was considered to be an act of terrorism. (TERROSRISM ATTACKS) Terrorism started from America and now it is engulfing the world. It basically belongs to the political organizations, these political organizations make it broader day by day by achieving their objectives. Left-wing Parties and Right-wing Parties both political parties raise this issue to pull off their personal grudges. The main target of these terror acts is the general population/ Public. The main objective of these terrorists is to develop fear and they achieve these goals successfully by doing suicide attacks etc. From the last two decades the whole world has been shocked and tensed by this day by day increasing amount of acts of violence and terrorist attacks. Many of the leaders from different religions such as Muslims, Christians; Hindus etc. condemned these terror attacks. Since the 9/11 attack on America the international community is also taking steps to stop this terrorism and save what is left of the world. Media is also playing a very vital role in delivering the message of what Terrorism is; so that people can unite and remove these terror activities from our society. What happened in the Northern Ireland in the year 2006 was also an act of terrorism. It is considered to be the last blow of the British Parliament which was due to be dissolved on 18th February 2006. Not surprisingly, they succeeded and Northern Ireland is a part of United Kingdom now. In the late 19th century majority of people living on the island of Ireland wanted the British Government to accept their demands. Their main demand was to develop some form of self-rule policy so that they can manage the island by themselves. (HISTORY OF TERRORISM) The Irish Nationalist parties mostly held the seminars in the House of Commons to get a position from balance of power in the late 19th century and early 20th century between this time period they sought out the problem to get their right by developing a sort of legislation called as ‘The Home Rule’. The Home Rule was to be implied by the British Government and one of the main demands of people of Ireland was to get a control on their internal policies. The campaign for THE HOME RULE started and the people of Ireland fought with the British government for almost 50 years to get what they deserved. The campaign continued and then finally in the year 1920, the parties sat together for the fourth time and reached to a conclusion that Ireland will be divided into two parts 1) the southern island and 2) the northern island. Northern Ireland consisted of the northeast countries and Southern Ireland of the rest of the Ireland. Some Unionists against this act like Sir Edward Carson opposed this partition of Ireland alongwith the Nationalists, who also opposed this act of partition. (HITORY O NOTHERN IRELAND) The people of Ireland, angry and frustrated on the policies of the British Government, decided to make their own government in the same year. Northern Island, not a part of British colonies now was a free region and a member of the free states of Ireland. That was a remarkable act of freedom fight shown by the people of Ireland and Northern Island served as a strong dominion for the people of Ireland to imply their own Home Rule. Freedom fighting is also very similar to terrorism and closely related to Terror attacks. It is usually very hard to ask the people to leave and migrate from the place where they were born just for the sake of freedom. Freedom Fighting is Patriotism and it runs in the veins of patriotic people. Most people love their country very much and hate violence. They want the things in their country to run smoothly with peace, justice, respect and equality. But only a few are able to take stand against terrorism and do something for their country. These are the people who know that yes this is the right time to call for the fight of freedom and stand for their basic rights. Ireland needs patriotism; very few people fight the fight and fewer are willing to sacrifice their lives and their time. “Brave men are a cities strong tower of defense.” (Homer). But, the formation of Northern Island did not solve the problem completely. Now the trouble in this new Irish state was the period of ethno political conflicts which spilled into most of the parts of England, mainland Europe and the Republic of Ireland. This troubling period started from the late 1960s and ended till the Agreement of 1998 that was the “Good Friday”. In the time period of 1960s a moderate Unionist Prime Minister Terence O’Neill tried to change the system and also tried to reform and introduced a new system but the opposition strongly opposed to these changes and reforms. These opponents were renowned people from the Protestant Leaders like Len Paisley and the people from his own party. The pressure from Nationalists increased day by day for the reforms, they wanted change and opposition by Loyalist never agreed for the change so this situation led to the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement continued for thirty years known as “THE TROUBLES”. This troubling period resulted in crisis situation leading to several years of escalating and terrific incidents between Protestants and Catholics. The troubles were protracted by both party’s opponents as well as nationalists and this protest about troubles turned out to be very costly for both, the Government and parties. After this entire hectic situation, still troubles did not get to the right path. For the very first time civil right marches got prolonged in 1968 in which both material terms and humans were steadily mounted. More than 3500 people died and over 35,000 were brutally injured in Northern Ireland, these were the first civil right marches between the time period of 1968 and 1994, people died and injured in huge numbers. This is the direct symbol of fighting. Freedom fighting for their rights resulted in robberies, assassinations, bombings and terror tactics which engulfed The Irish Republic and the Great Britain. This civil rights movement of Northern Ireland eroded and the fight for freedom was then only the reason of death in front of Irish people. Almost £3 three billion from the British Treasury was used annually on these civil right movements. Irish Republic increased border security on orders and almost one-quarter of Irish Republic’s annual Budget was used on these events.(1995,Smith, M. L, Fighting for Ireland) The Northern Ireland’s economy also started to get affected by these ongoing conflicts. The Manufacturing rate of employment in Northern Ireland declined day by day and it was continuously decreasing since the beginning of these conflicts. Northern Island, after a huge loss of its economy was now markedly depending on the Great Britain. The structure of the industry which is also known as “The Branch Plant” in Northern Ireland had a great contribution to the huge cause of deterioration during this poor economic conditions within the region. The Irish Republican Army was a very in devout, dissident and powerful republican group. IRA was very strong in the sense that it has well armed and skilled men, the main reason they were able to fight with one of greatest empires of the world for almost three decades and came out successful. IRA fought till the end to diminish British rule in Northern Ireland. That was one of greatest achievements by The Irish Republican Army that they fought the war of Independence.IRA won the battle very strongly and with full confidence. In 1960 when the activities of old I-R-A decreased, the army who lost their will power and also dwindled in quantity, civil rights protests against anti-Catholic discrimination in Britain ruled all over the Northern Ireland. The Province’s police force under the Royal Ulster Constabulary aggressively responding and ordered that the government in London must deploy the British Army to restore their order and plan that what to do next inorder to stop these violant activities. Irish Republic Army started to get weak day by day, not knowing what to do in 1969. The Irish Republic Army had no idea whatsoever how to respond to this escalating violence and as a result, the army separated, they were not showing any signs of unity at the time when their country needed them the most. So, the Army decided to fracture in two groups over differences of ideology and both groups had different mindsets on the policies regarding their response to the rising streaks of violence in the country. At the time when IRA needed to show unity in front of the world they make divided into separate groups against the nationalist community. One of them was under Marxist; Dublin based Official Irish Republic Army which advocated and held the responsibilities to make Ireland a peaceful province and make it a united Ireland. The second group of Irish Army was Provisional Irish Republic Army, sought out the same objective as The First Army group but they created some violent issues in Northern Ireland. (HISTORY OF NORTHERN IRELAND) The Second Group of Irish Republican Army was The Provisional Irish Republican Army, also referred as (PIRA). One of the major aims of The PIRA was to make Northern Ireland as a separate state. They wanted to remove Northern Ireland from reign of the United Kingdom. Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) also wanted to bring a socialist republic in a united Ireland either by force, by using political Tactics or by persuasion. This violence generated by (PIRA) also followed the community’s demands. It did not matter if it was wrong or right but they demanded for civil rights in the time period of 1968 and 1969 and the atmosphere became more resistive from some of the authorities and unionists communities in the time period of 1969k, the period of Northern Ireland riots. The Irish Republic Army also fought a Gorilla war (Gorilla war training is given by soldiers in Army Training) against the Crown forces in Ireland from NOVEMBER 1919 to JULY 1921, and the most intense period during the war was from NOVEMBER 1920 to July 1921. The Irish Republic Army divided the freedom campaign into three phases: The first phase was in the period of 1919 when the Irish Republic Army decided to go for the re-organization of their volunteers and make a Guerilla Army and train them for Guerrilla war. The Organizers such as Ernie O’Malley had the responsibility to check around the country and set up viable Guerrilla units. Irish Republic Army documents showed that after the process of recruiting started, more than 100,000 volunteers enrolled themselves for the sake of their country and to fight for freedom which showed true patriotism in them. But, this campaign did not turn out to be too successful due to the lack of experience and skill in the new recruits. Also some of the irresponsible warriors left the positions they were deployed on and around 15000 warriors were left and not taken to the fronts. Ireland, Irish people and Irish Republic Army set the basic theme they were fighting for and the theme was Republicanism. Republicanism is the basic ideology that teaches you on how to govern a nation as a republic, how you can make the united atmosphere between them, how you can resolve the war problems. Republic state also opposes the principles of monarchy and no one can rule over the state. The rule of IRA closed in 1997 and it was formed as a part of the process which was running in the Ireland. This Irish Republic Army was moving towards the 1998 Belfast (Good Friday) agreement. The aim under this agreement was the same that all the paramilitary groups working in Northern Ireland must stop their activities and they must disarm themselves by May 2000. On February 2005, Irish Republic Army declared officially that this army was withdrawing from their all official processes as well as from disarmament process. But, in July 2005 Irish Republic Army declared another announcement which was that all the campaigns of violence were over and from then onwards they would imply a transparent mechanism which would also satisfy the Northern Ireland communities. The most important date in the history of IRA is 28 July 2005 when IRA announced that all of their armed campaigns are either suspended or terminated. And, in September 2008, the nineteenth report of the Commission, The Independent Monitoring Commission stated about IRA and announced officially that IRA was “Committed to the political path” and no longer to present a horrific image in front of people. After concluding the whole story of Irish Republic Army and Northern Ireland History, the rising period of 1916 was the New and TRUE IRA, Irish Republic Army always fought against a government which was oppressive; to kill the soldiers of enemy. Irish Republic Army never fights against civilian, never killed brutally and bombed buses killing innocent civilians. The Irish Republic Army was basically an army fighting for the freedom of their country but once they got the Freedom, they never care about it and twisted this freedom and after sometime it turned into the period of RIRA. Irish Republic Army is not a terrorist group. They always fought against terrorist’s activities and after getting the Freedom IRA moved towards a non-violent political side, Irish Republic Army changed their path truly. The resistance of the people of Ireland was and now it is similar to the American Indian states and the term terrorists was introduced by America Indians and it never was applied to the Irish people. Bibliography Smith, M. L. Fighting for Ireland?: the military strategy of the Irish Republican movement. (1995).Smith, M. L. London: Routledge Terrorism Research - What is Terrorism?. (n.d.). Terrorism Research - What is Terrorism? http://www.terrorism-research.com/ History of Terrorism. (n.d.). Terrorism Research - What is Terrorism?. http://www.terrorism-research.com/history/ A brief history of Northern Ireland 1919 - 1999 | UK news | guardian.co.uk . (n.d.). Latest US news, world news, sport and comment from the Guardian | guardiannews.com | The Guardian . http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/1999/jan/28/northernireland1 HISTORY OF NORTHERN IRELAND. (n.d.). HistoryWorld - History and Timelines. http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?ParagraphID=oda IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY. (n.d.). IRA & PIRA. http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/ira.htm Read More