A Weekend of Troubles

Hello all. I'm very, very tired as we traveled to Derry for the day to listen to a lecture with our class, but I'm updating per request of my lovely sister as well as the fact I need to discuss the sad and disturbing events of this weekend in Northern Ireland. I'm not sure if people in the States have been up to date with the news around these parts, but take a quick glimpse at any of these:

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/soldiers-shot-dead-in-northern-ireland-terror-attack-14217509.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/world/europe/09ulster.html?em

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/dissident-real-ira-claims-responsibility-for-army-barracks-attack-14217953.html


As we all know, the peace process in Northern Ireland is currently at hand. It's moving very slowly, but in general has been in an upward direction since the Good Friday Agreement in '98. Unfortunately after this weekend, there's been a bit of a bump in the road as the attack was a reminder of the darker days of the Troubles. If there is no retaliation and the consequences are left solely up to the government to handle, hopefully peace can continue for the better here. Unfortunately, history often repeats itself and passion and a chance for "revenge" sometimes overtakes moral conscience. If any paramilitary or individual group decides to take action against and retaliate against the events of Saturday, it could be a slippery slope back into Civil War in Ulster.

Nigel had told us at the beginning of our semester that sightings such as these:


cropping up around in cities around Northern Ireland were making some people uneasy. A 300 lb bomb was intercepted last month in a car on the way to a military base before it had a chance to do it's damage, and it seems as though a lot of people had been expecting something like this to happen sooner or later.

The first any of us heard about it was from a text message from Nigel late Saturday night. It read "Gun attack on an army base in Antrim, please reply ASAP and confirm everyone is OK." None of us really knew what this meant, so we replied to say in fact we hadn't been hanging around army barracks for the night and were all quite well. Then, we jumped on the internet and began searching for what had just happened.

In summary, two British soldiers were shot to death and four other people were wounded in a drive-by ambush at Massereene Army Base in Cty. Antrim (where we live) on Saturday evening. The gunmen continued to shoot the victims even as they lay on the ground. The "RIRA" or "Real Irish Republican Army" has since then claimed responsibility for the attacks. The "Real IRA" is a splinter group who disapproved of the IRA's cease-fire, decommissioning of weapons, and movement away from the left in the late 90's. They broke off from the original IRA, gave themselves the title "Real IRA" and claimed to be the only ones left that are true to the cause (a unified Ireland). The RIRA was also responsible for the Omagh bomb in '98 that left 29 people dead.

It was really only when we all met with Nigel this morning that we began to understand how serious and troubling this really is. Nigel is very cryptic about his past, but we do know he was somehow "involved" with the troubles at some point and led a life that he seems to be not very proud of at modern moment. He told us he hadn't realized until this weekend how "worn out he is seeing mothers crying over deaths of their sons" and really had thought he "had seen the last soldier shot in Northern Ireland many years ago." It's unfortunate this had to happen and people need to resort to such extreme violence in order to fight for their cause, but it's common that an organisation uses tools such as martyrs and terror to prove their dedication and demand to be taken seriously. I hate to say it, but they wanted and got the country's undivided attention.

The most frightening part of this event is simply the unknown of what will happen next. It's been a decade since there has been serious paramilitary violence here, and no one is really sure what the next step will be. It could very well be that the rest of the country has been fighting for peace for too long and absolutely will not intervene, or it could be that other paramilitary groups could plan a retaliation and violence will begin again. It's really out of anyone's hands. Ian Paisley Jr. did leave us with a few ominous quotes, however:

"This could be a defining moment in the history of Northern Ireland" and

"For the last 10 years, people believed things like this happened in foreign countries... Unfortunately it has returned to our doorstep"


Comforting. Anyway, the HECUA clan is safe and sound, and grateful for the past month of knowledge and experience we've gained about Northern Ireland. It's somewhat amazing (and horrible, obviously) to see an event such as this happen in our community, especially when we've been getting educated about it every day since the beginning of February and have all been working in peace-building internships for the past week.



I feel like this is a common mindset.

siochan,
-Karen