Ceasefire promises were disingenuous

The view of the Republican Network for Unity on the 20th anniversary of the Provisional IRA ceasefire.

The 31st August 2014 marked the 20th anniversary of the inglorious culmination of the Provisional movement’s campaign for national liberation & socialism in Ireland.

A decade ago the Irish people were promised that a process of appeasement with Britain would provide an alternative to revolutionary warfare & deliver the ultimate Republican goal.

However, far from the 32 county socialist republic that revolutionary republicans fought and died for, we have received a process which has seen the neutering of republican resistance that paved the way for multiple documents that have copper-fastened partition, reinforced sectarianism and given Neo-Liberalism a free run to create high levels of poverty, homelessness and inequality.

The current situation in both the 6 and 26 counties falls far short of the socialist republican ideals that spurred on a revolutionary army since its formation. An acceptance of political policing, internment by remand and Diplock Courts by one time revolutionaries, has undermined the campaign which sought to remove British rule in Ireland.

The appeasement process has seen communities destroyed and attacked from within. Anti-social gangs are inflicting fear throughout Ireland while former defenders of our communities sit in Buckingham palace dining with the epitome of inequality.

Just where the revolutionary vision of Connolly and Larkin, Pearse and Plunket fits into this scenario is a question which Stormont supporters can now only counter by screaming empty accusations of criminality at ‘dissident’ republicans.

Twenty years after the Provisional IRA’s ceasefire, the hopes of the people living in the Six Counties, born of the promises of prosperity, a sectarian free life and a brighter future for us all, Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, these promises have now been exposed as the disingenuous courting of the electorate that they were.

Those of us who do stand ‘Outside the Peace Process’ do so with good reason, yet we should be aware of those reasons, so as not be lured into similar processes in the future.

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