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Decommissioning in Northern Ireland was a process in the Belfast Agreement as part of the Northern Ireland peace process. Under the Good Friday Agreement/Belfast Agreement, all paramilitary groups fighting in the Troubles would be subject to decommission. [1] Decommissioning was a defining issue in the effort to negotiate peace in Northern Ireland. [2]
The Belfast Agreement, or Good Friday Agreement, was signed in Belfast on 10 April 1998 (Good Friday) by the British and Irish governments and endorsed by most Northern Ireland political parties.
It contained provisions for a government involving both Catholics and Protestants, whose traditional aspirations, expressed as nationalism on one side and unionism on the other, had often clashed over the years. The Agreement recognised the legitimacy of both aspirations. [3] One of the provisions of the Agreement was that the parties agree to collectively use their influence to achieve decommissioning within two years, by May 2000. [1]
The Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) was established to oversee the decommissioning. Its objective was to facilitate the decommissioning of firearms, ammunition and explosives.
Into late 2001, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) was reluctant to disarm. The IRA refused to disarm because they said that the British government had reneged on its side of the bargain, by watering down the reforms of the Royal Ulster Constabulary proposed by the Patten Commission, and by failing to pull troops out of Northern Ireland. [4]
After the original deadline for decommissioning – May 2000 – passed, the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning set 30 June 2001. That date passed as well without full disarmament. [3] [5]
The crisis hit its climax in July 2001 as David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist Party leader, resigned as first minister of the power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive in protest against the IRA failure to redeem its pledge to put its weapons "completely and verifiably beyond use" (he was later re-elected). [4] The peace process was on the brink of collapse again after the Provisional IRA failed to convince the UK Government or the Ulster Unionists that they had made "sufficient progress towards decommissioning". [1]
On 7 August 2001, the IRA agreed on a method of destroying its arsenal. Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at the time, described the breakthrough as "significant" and "historic". General John de Chastelain of Canada, chairman of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, said the proposals had been accepted by the panel as ones that would "put IRA arms completely and verifiably beyond use." The Ulster Unionists had said they would no longer take part in the Northern Ireland Assembly if the IRA did not begin disarming. The announcement came after meetings between the commission and a representative of the IRA. [6]
During the process of decommissioning the Democratic Unionist Party demanded that the IRA release photographs of the decommissioning process in order to satisfy the unionist "man in the street". [7] The IRA rejected these claims, claiming it would amount to "humiliation" , and that two clergymen would oversee the process instead. [8]
In June 2009, both the Ulster Volunteer Force and Red Hand Commando announced that they had completed a process of decommissioning. The UDA said it had started a process that would lead to the destruction of all its arms. [9] Originally, both organisations had refused to decommission, claiming that copying the IRA's action would amount to "dancing to their tune". [10]
The Provisional Irish Republican Army, officially known as the Irish Republican Army and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent republic encompassing all of Ireland. It was the most active republican paramilitary group during the Troubles. It argued that the all-island Irish Republic continued to exist, and it saw itself as that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence. It was designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and an unlawful organisation in the Republic of Ireland, both of whose authority it rejected.
The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "irregular war" or "low-level war". The conflict began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe.
The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) was an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed by Billy Wright in 1996 when he and his unit split from the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) after breaking its ceasefire. Most of its members came from the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade, which Wright had commanded. In a two-year period from August 1996, the LVF waged a paramilitary campaign in opposition to Irish republicanism and the Northern Ireland peace process. During this time it killed at least 14 people in gun and bomb attacks, almost all of them Catholic civilians killed at random. The LVF called off its campaign in August 1998 and decommissioned some of its weapons, but in the early 2000s a loyalist feud led to several killings. Since then, the LVF has been largely inactive, but its members are believed to have been involved in rioting and organized crime. In 2015, the security forces stated that the LVF "exists only as a criminal group" in Mid-Ulster and Antrim.
John Hume was an Irish nationalist politician in Northern Ireland and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. A founder and leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Hume served in the Northern Ireland Parliament; the Northern Ireland Assembly including, in 1974, its first power-sharing executive; the European Parliament and the United Kingdom Parliament. Seeking an accommodation between Irish nationalism and Ulster unionism, and soliciting American support, he was both critical of British government policy in Northern Ireland and opposed to the republican embrace of "armed struggle". In their 1998 citation, the Norwegian Nobel Committee recognised Hume as an architect of the "Good Friday" Belfast Agreement. For himself, Hume wished to be remembered as having been, in his earlier years, a pioneer of the credit union movement.
The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 as an umbrella group for various loyalist groups and undertook an armed campaign of almost 24 years as one of the participants of the Troubles. Its declared goal was to defend Ulster Protestant loyalist areas and to combat Irish republicanism, particularly the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). In the 1970s, uniformed UDA members openly patrolled these areas armed with batons and held large marches and rallies. Within the UDA was a group tasked with launching paramilitary attacks that used the cover name Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) so that the UDA would not be outlawed. The British government proscribed the UFF as a terrorist group in November 1973, but the UDA itself was not proscribed until August 1992.
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It was created as a separate legal entity on 3 May 1921, under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The new autonomous Northern Ireland was formed from six of the nine counties of Ulster: four counties with unionist majorities – Antrim, Armagh, Down, and Derry/Londonderry – and two counties with slight Irish nationalist majorities – Fermanagh and Tyrone – in the 1918 General Election. The remaining three Ulster counties with larger nationalist majorities were not included. In large part unionists, at least in the north-east, supported its creation while nationalists were opposed.
William David Trimble, Baron Trimble, was a Northern Irish politician who was the inaugural First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2002, and leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 1995 to 2005. He was also Member of Parliament (MP) for Upper Bann from 1990 to 2005 and Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Upper Bann from 1998 to 2007.
The 1998 Northern Ireland Assembly election took place on Thursday, 25 June 1998. This was the first election to the new devolved Northern Ireland Assembly. Six members from each of Northern Ireland's eighteen Westminster Parliamentary constituencies were elected by single transferable vote, giving a total of 108 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs).
The UK Unionist Party (UKUP) was a small unionist political party in Northern Ireland from 1995 to 2008 that opposed the Good Friday Agreement. It was nominally formed by Robert McCartney, formerly of the Ulster Unionist Party, to contest the 1995 North Down by-election and then further constituted to contest the 1996 elections for the Northern Ireland Forum. McCartney had previously contested the 1987 general election as an independent using the label Real Unionist.
The Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) was established to oversee the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons in Northern Ireland, as part of the peace process.
The Northern Ireland peace process includes the events leading up to the 1994 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire, the end of most of the violence of the Troubles, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and subsequent political developments.
NORAID, officially the Irish Northern Aid Committee, is an Irish American membership organization founded after the start of the Troubles in Northern Ireland in 1969. The organization states its mission is to aid in the creation of a United Ireland in the spirit of the 1916 Easter Proclamation and to support the Northern Ireland Peace process. During the Troubles, NORAID was known for raising funds for the Provisional Irish Republican Army and Nationalist relief groups such as Green Cross and An Cumann Cabrach. NORAID runs a newsletter titled The Irish People which provides analysis and coverage of ongoing events in Northern Ireland.
Ulster loyalism is a strand of Ulster unionism associated with working class Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland. Like other unionists, loyalists support the continued existence of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, and oppose a united Ireland independent of the UK. Unlike other strands of unionism, loyalism has been described as an ethnic nationalism of Ulster Protestants and "a variation of British nationalism". Loyalists are often said to have a conditional loyalty to the British state so long as it defends their interests. They see themselves as loyal primarily to the Protestant British monarchy rather than to British governments and institutions, while Garret FitzGerald argued they are loyal to 'Ulster' over 'the Union'. A small minority of loyalists have called for an independent Ulster Protestant state, believing they cannot rely on British governments to support them. The term 'loyalism' is usually associated with paramilitarism.
Alexander Reid was an Irish Catholic priest noted for his facilitator role in the Northern Ireland peace process, a role BBC journalist Peter Taylor subsequently described as "absolutely critical" to its success.
The London Docklands bombing occurred on 9 February 1996, when the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonated a powerful truck bomb in South Quay. The blast killed two people and devastated a wide area, causing an estimated £150 million worth of damage. The IRA had sent warnings 90 minutes beforehand, but the area was not fully evacuated. As well as the two people who were killed, more than 100 were injured, some permanently.
The Executive of the 1st Northern Ireland Assembly was, under the terms of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, a power-sharing coalition.
Brian Keenan was a member of the Army Council of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who received an 18-year prison sentence in 1980 for conspiring to cause explosions, and played a key role in the Northern Ireland peace process.
The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) or Belfast Agreement is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April, Good Friday, 1998, that ended most of the violence of the Troubles, an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland since the late 1960s. It was a major development in the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s. It is made up of the Multi-Party Agreement between most of Northern Ireland's political parties, and the British–Irish Agreement between the British and Irish governments. Northern Ireland's present devolved system of government is based on the agreement.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Northern Ireland.