There are few things that sum up the failure of the Provisional IRA campaign more definitively than the recent call by one of its former leaders for people to inform on those republicans still wedded to the notion of armed struggle. It is not an isolated action but one that slots in neatly to the current mode in Sinn Fein where its key leaders have been taking up positions unimaginable not so many years ago. In some cases people who ordered others executed for informing have been to the fore in urging informers to come forward. If such people do come forward they run the risk that those they inform upon will follow the example laid down by those now urging them to become informers. The undignified spectacle of hooded bodies, bound and gagged, jumps to mind.