David McWilliams: Unionists can share power with Sinn Féin - what's our problem?

Dionysus wrote: »

So, why are some people in the 26 counties feigning moral objections to McGuinness when the representatives of the very community who were his victims (as McGuinness's community were their victims, of course), can get over it and elect their representatives to share power with him?

The IRA’s “armed struggle” was what the fourth Geneva Convention defines as an “armed conflict not of an international character”. Under the convention, the parties to such a conflict are bound to respect certain standards in their treatment of “persons taking no active part in the hostilities”, including former or non-active members of opposing forces. Such people must not be subjected to violence, “in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; taking of hostages; outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment; the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognised as indispensable by civilized peoples”.

It should go without saying that the IRA, partly under the leadership of Martin McGuinness, consistently breached every one of these provisions. But apparently, it does not, so let’s put it on record again. The IRA killed 644 civilians, by far the largest category of its victims (by contrast, and contradicting its self-image as defender of the Catholic community, it killed just 28 loyalist paramilitaries). It incinerated, for example, the members of the Irish Collie Club at the La Mon Hotel. It killed children, including Nicholas Knatchbull, Jonathan Ball, Tim Parry and Paul Maxwell. It practised kidnapping, torture, and acts of naked sadism, such as forcing Patsy Gillespie to drive a van loaded with explosives at an army checkpoint. (Widespread revulsion did not stop the IRA from trying this tactic again.) It held kangaroo courts and imposed arbitrary sentences that included mutilation through so-called “knee-capping”. All of these are war crimes for which there is no statute of limitations. I don’t know what personal role McGuinness may have played in any incident. However, what is clear is that he was, for almost the entire period of the conflict, in a position of authority within the IRA. Legally and morally, this makes him responsible.

He actively denied this responsibility. His line was consistent – where civilians were killed by the IRA, it was the fault of the British. For example, on August 31st, 1988, an IRA booby-trap bomb in Derry killed two civilians, Seán Dalton and Sheila Lewis. McGuinness’s reaction was that, while the IRA should try not to inflict civilian casualties, “sadly . . . civilians will continue to suffer and die as long as Britain refuses to accept its fundamental responsibility for what is happening in our country.” He continued to portray himself and his comrades, not as perpetrators, but as victims of the conflict: “We are not the cause of this conflict; we are the victims of it. We are the product of decades of British tyranny and misrule.”