Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland

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Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland

• The Armalite and the Ballot Box

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A Brief History Part I

• Highlights from http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irela
  ndHistory
• Various peoples have lived in Ireland for around
  9,000 years
• The beginning of contemporary problems traces
  back to the Plantations of the 16th and 17th
  centuries

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A Brief History Part II

• During the Plantations, Irish lands were seized
  and given to British planters (colonists)
• The second Plantation in Ireland was the
  Plantation of Ulster, focused around 1607-1609
• About half of the Ulster Planters were Scottish
  and the other half English

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A Brief History Part III

• Irish Rebellion of 1641 end result was Irish
  Catholics being barred from voting or attending
  Parliament, institutionalized Protestant rule
  (Protestant Ascendancy)
• Images of Protestants killed and massacred in
  1641 still adorn Orange Order banners and
  standards today

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A Brief History Part IV

• 1800 Irish Parliament passes Act of Union which
  merges Ireland with U.K. beginning of direct
  government
• 1840s Famine around 1 million die, another
  million emigrate, many to America
• Agitation for Home Rule throughout the end of the
  19th and early 20th centuries

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A Brief History Part V

• Theobald Wolfe Tone 1791 founded United
  Irishmen
• Unsuccessful French-backed invasion in 1798
• Padraigh (Patrick) Pearse, James Connolly, Easter
  Rising of 1916
• Sinn Fein landslide in elections of 1918
• 1919 - First Dáil

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A Brief History Part VI

• 1918 elections were last ones that took place in
  whole of Ireland until European Parliament
  elections 60 years later
• 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty end Anglo-Irish War,
  divides Ireland into Republic and Ulster Collins
  assassinated in subsequent Irish Civil War
• Anglo-Irish War first IRA

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The Paras

• IRA
• Official IRA (OIRA)
• Provos (PIRA)
• INLA
• RIRA
• Continuity IRA (CAC)

• UDA/UFF
• UVF
• LVF / Red Hand Commando
• Red Hand Defenders

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IRA Part I

• Saw themselves as heirs to the original IRA,
  sworn to the spirit of the Easter Rising and the
  1919 Dáil
• Major ideological split in 1969 Official IRA
  cease fire (Marxists, stickies) vs. Provos
  (rosary brigade, pinheads)
• OIRA ceasefire in 1973, continued to fight with
  Provos

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IRA Part II

• Pre-1980s organization Local volunteers form
  companies, companies are structured into wider
  geographic battalions, battlions are structured
  into regional brigades (ex. Derry Brigade, West
  Belfast Brigade)
• Drawback Once police and military powers
  increased, easy to roll the organization up via
  legitimate informers, supergrasses

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IRA Part III

• Cell structure replaced army hierarchy around
  early 1980s
• Double blind communication structure of dead
  drops, phone calls orders come directly from
  Army Council
• No one cell knows other cells much more
  difficult to compromise

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IRA Part IV

• Late 1970s, early 1980s Criminalization of
  paras H-Block hunger strikes, 7 IRA and 3 INLA
  men starve to death
• Mobilized wider Republican political sentiment
  beginning of wider Sinn Fein political success

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Methods of Mayhem

• Wide variety of small arms, mostly smuggled from
  U.S., Libya
• Kneecappings, shootings on individual level
• Car bombs in urban areas as an area effect weapon
• Culvert bombs in rural areas stifled British
  troop movement on ground

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INLA

• 1974 break off of OIRA aligned with Irish
  Republican Socialist Party
• Assassinated Conservative MP Airey Neave by car
  bomb in 1979
• Became involved in drug trade to finance
  operations
• Continually split and weakened by infighting and
  spin offs

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IPLO

• Spin off of dissatisfied INLA members in 1986
• Became heavily involved in drug trade as means of
  finance early in existence
• Only stated goal was to fight INLA
• Due to drug trade, PIRA wiped out IPLO in 1992

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RIRA

• Biggest contemporary Republican para threat
• Splinters from Provos who disavowed 1998 Belfast
  Accords and 2005 announcement of end of campaign
• 1998 Omagh bomb 29 dead
• Affiliated with 32 County Sovereignty Committee

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Continuity Army Council

• Separate splinter from PIRA in 1986 over change
  in abstentionism policy for Sinn Fein
• Small, limited capacity

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UDA/UFF

• Founded in 1971 as umbrella Loyalist para
  organization
• Aligned with Ulster Democratic Party
• Supposedly carried out many killings with aid of
  or through manipulation from British army,
  intelligence
• Heavily involved in racketeering, drug trade
  many feuds with UVF

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UVF

• Traces roots to 1912 (opposed to Home Rule)
  contemporarily organized in 1960s to fight IRA
• Minority of members served in UDR while in UVF
• Shankhill Butchers (30), Miami Showband massacre
• Aligned with PUP

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LVF / Red Hand Commando

• Splintered from UVF in 1996 over 1994 cease-fire
• Mostly fought with UVF and UDA over criminal
  rackets, territory
• Only para group to kill a journalist, Martin
  OHagan, who exposed their role in the regional
  heroin trade
• Ceased operation in October 2005 (?)

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Red Hand Defenders

• Formed in 1998 from militant UDA and LVF members
• Mostly limited to pipe bombs and individual
  shootings
• Soft Catholic/nationalist targets and UDA, LVF
  members