Dissident groups must not resurrect IRA, warns Kelly
In response to the announcement that dissident republican groups are to attempt to unite and assume the mantle of the Irish Republican Army, Sinn Fein MLA for North Belfast Gerry Kelly warned at the weekend that this would achieve nothing and merely demonstrates their lack of political direction.
“The coming together is not surprising given the fractious nature of those who are behind such groupings,” he said.
“They have over the past number of years come and gone, split and reformed.
“What is very clear from this move is … that they have no strategy and their aims are as clear as mud. AAD, for example, has claimed to be an anti-drugs group who have now joined a larger dissident group with different aims.
“This appears to be more to do with egos and personal fiefdoms than anything else.
“That is not to say that they cannot be dangerous. They have in the past killed people, the majority of whom have been from the nationalist community.
“However these actions can take us nowhere. Meanwhile they are happy to risk the lives and liberty of young, impressionable people to achieve nothing.
“There is no community support for these groups. They need to desist, and they need to realise that they cannot achieve a united Ireland in this way.
“There is a political strategy in place which the vast majority of Irish republicans and nationalists, along with the overwhelming majority of the people on this island, have endorsed.”
The three of the four dissident republican terror groups in Northern Ireland which are attempting to claim the title and credibility of the IRA are the “Real IRA,” Republican Action Against Drugs, which has been running a violent vigilante campaign in Derry, and a coalition of independent armed republican groups — leaving only the Continuity IRA outside the new group.
The new organisation claimed it had formed a “unified structure, under a single leadership.”
It said the organisation would be “subservient to the constitution of the Irish Republican Army.”
The new group said: “In recent years the establishment of a free and independent Ireland has suffered setbacks due to the failure among the leadership of Irish nationalism and fractures within republicanism.”
The dissidents’ statement said: “The Irish people have been sold a phoney peace, rubber-stamped by a token legislature in Stormont.”
