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A woman walks past the peace wall that separates neighborhoods of Belfast, United Kingdom, on September 30, 2019.
Twenty years since the IRA put down its guns: What’s changed in Northern Ireland?
Twenty years ago, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) agreed to lay down its weapons and end the armed campaign to achieve a united Ireland free of British rule. The move came 11 years after an initial ceasefire in Northern Ireland, and seven years after the Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to the Troubles, a decades-long conflict between Irish nationalists and supporters of the union with Great Britain, which killed roughly 3,600 people.
“Dozens, if not hundreds, of people are alive today that perhaps wouldn’t be if this violence had continued,” former US special envoy to Northern Ireland Mitchell Reiss told GZERO.
As other militant groups around the world explore or proceed with disarmament – such as the Kurdish PKK in Turkey or, perhaps one day, Hezbollah in Lebanon – the peace that has held in Northern Ireland ever since the IRA’s disarmament shows what can be achieved if paramilitary groups drop their weapons. However, it also offers a cautionary tale: peace is one thing, but harmony is another.
So how has Northern Ireland fared over the past two decades?
First, the good news. The bloodshed has stopped, even as the PIRA didn’t achieve its goal of uniting the island of Ireland – Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom. While there are regular displays of pride by nationalists, and unionists alike, these events are relatively peaceful. Gone are the car bombings, killings, and abductions that ignited fear across the country throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
What’s happened to the IRA? The Provisional IRA has officially demilitarized and pledged to pursue its aims peacefully, with the help of nationalist political parties like Sinn Fein.
While police believe parts of the armed grouping still exist, their influence, along with that of several other offshoot nationalist paramilitary groups, is limited. They may oppose the “promise of the Good Friday Agreement,” says Reiss, but “the good news is that they are generally small in number. They are marginalized.”
What the disarmament hasn’t achieved. First, Northern Irish society remains deeply divided. If you take a walk down the Shankhill Road in Belfast, you’ll see shopfronts lined with unionist memorabilia and odes to the late Queen. Meanwhile Falls Road, only a few hundred yards away, is still festooned with the Irish tricolor and monuments to slain nationalist fighters. Police still shut off access between the two roads at night as a precaution.
Secondly, while the IRA put down its weapons, the opposing Protestant paramilitary groups – like Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force – never had to do the same.. Though their influence isn’t as widespread as it was during the height of the Troubles, they continue to function as criminal gangs, exerting a corrosive effect of their own on Northern Irish society.
“For the last eight years, I’ve been talking to these [Protestant paramilitaries],” says Reiss “trying to see if we can achieve the same goal with them that we did with the IRA, that they could put weapons beyond use and commit to a purely political and peaceful way forward.”
Lastly there’s the continued dysfunction of the Northern Irish government. Under the GFA, there has to be a power-sharing agreement between the nationalists and unionists for the Northern Irish Assembly to function. However, the two sides have regularly failed to form a government, with impasses often lasting years.
None of this changes the significance of the achievement. If the number of people killed during the Troubles was projected proportionally onto the United States, the numbers would be akin to the American Civil War, notes Reiss, underlining the hostilities between the nationalist and unionist factions of Northern Ireland, and thus the challenge in achieving peace.
“Is it better than it was? Absolutely. Is progress continuing to be made? Absolutely. Do we need to do more? Absolutely,” says Reiss. “But Northern Ireland is fundamentally transformed from the way it was 20 years ago.”
Gang members wait to be taken to their cell after 2000 gang members were transferred to the Terrorism Confinement Center, in Tecoluca, El Salvador. Handout distributed March 15, 2023.
What We’re Watching: El Salvador’s lingering state of emergency, Northern Ireland on alert, Alibaba’s breakup, Greek election matters
El Salvador’s state of emergency one year later
This week marks one year since El Salvador’s bullish millennial president, Nayib Bukele, introduced a state of emergency, enabling his government to deal with the scourge of gang violence that has long made his country one of the world’s most dangerous.
Quick recap: To crack down on the country’s 70,000 gang members, Bukele’s government denied alleged criminals the right to know why they were detained and access to legal counsel. The arrest blitz has seen nearly 2% of the adult population locked up.
Despite these draconian measures and Bukele’s efforts to circumvent a one-term limit, he enjoys a staggering 91% approval rating.
Bukele has also sought to distinguish himself as an anti-corruption warrior, which resonates with an electorate disillusioned by years of corrupt politicians (Bukele’s three predecessors have all been charged with corruption. One is in prison; two are on the run.)
Externally, relations with the Biden administration have been icy under Bukele, with San Salvador refusing to back a US-sponsored UN resolution condemning Russia’s war in Ukraine.
What matters most to Salvadorans is the dropping crime rate, which is why Bukele will likely cruise to reelection next year.
Fears of domestic terror attack in Northern Ireland
Britain's MI5 intelligence agency has raised the domestic terror threat in Northern Ireland from “substantial” to “severe” amid fears of an imminent attack in the British-run region. This follows a series of attacks by Irish nationalist groups, mainly against police, in Northern Ireland in recent months.
The New Irish Republican Army, a paramilitary group with roots in the original militant group of the same name, has taken responsibility for a series of crimes against law enforcement and journalists.
For context, the IRA dominant in the 20th century disbanded with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 that put an end to decades of violence between pro-British unionists wanting to stay part of the UK, and Irish nationalists calling for the unification of Northern Ireland with Ireland.
This warning comes as US President Joe Biden is preparing to travel to Belfast next month to mark the 25th anniversary of the peace deal, which put an end to the conflict, known as the Troubles.
Indeed, tensions have risen since Brexit, which revived age-old questions about the status of Northern Ireland’s borders. The threat level in Britain, meanwhile, remains “substantial,” meaning that an attack is still a strong possibility, according to authorities.
Alibaba breaks up … itself
Now we know the real reason Alibaba founder Jack Ma resurfaced in China this week. On Tuesday, the Chinese e-commerce giant announced it would spin off its different businesses into six units with separate CEOs under a single holding company. Each unit will be allowed to seek outside capital or go public independently.
Alibaba claims that the Chinese government did not order the restructuring, but it's an open secret that Xi Jinping thought the company had become too rich and powerful. The restructuring plan was unveiled the day after Ma made his first public appearance in the country since late 2020 to boost confidence in the tech company and within the broader sector. (His public criticism of regulators set off a broader crackdown against China's tech sector that hit Alibaba hard.)
Politics aside, Alibaba is just following in the footsteps of its main rivals, Tencent and JD.com, which showed earlier they got the memo from Xi: Break yourself up before you become too big to fail, or it'll be worse if we have to do it for you. The question is, would this ever happen in the US to curb the power of Big Tech?
Greek PM calls spring election
PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whose popularity has dipped in the wake of a train disaster last month that killed 57, has called for a general election on May 21. The train crash sparked national protests and strikes as angry Greeks pointed blame at the government for poor transport-sector investment and regulation.
In this election, Greece is transitioning to a proportional representation system, making it harder for any party to enjoy an outright win.
Mitsotakis, whose term was set to end in July, has been dogged by protests and allegations of wiretapping of political opponents by security forces. His reputational dent mixed with his New Democracy Party’s declining numbers – though they remain slightly ahead of the opposition Syriza Party – raise the likelihood of Greece soon being ruled by a coalition.
Syriza, meanwhile, says that even if it wins an outright majority, it will form a "government of cooperation." But the left-wingers have ruled out the possibility of working in a coalition with Mitsotakis’s conservatives.