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IRA arms offer twinned with British troop pull-out

DUBLIN: Irish Republican Army guerrillas linked an offer on disarmament to a withdrawal of British troops and bases from Northern Ireland, according to newspaper reports on Sunday.

The conditional offer has now been withdrawn after Britain suspended Northern Ireland's fledgling home-rule coalition of majority Protestants and minority Roman Catholics on grounds that the IRA had failed to give a clear commitment to disarm.

However, the reports said linking guerrilla disarmament to demilitarisation might provide a way out of the impasse over arms which has stalled the peace process in the province.

Violence returned to Northern Ireland at the weekend when two teenagers were stabbed to death and left on a country road. Police were keeping an open mind on the motive amid speculation the two may have been victims of a feud between rival groups of Protestant guerrillas.

Two men have been arrested, police said.

Details of the IRA offer to Northern Ireland's independent disarmament body have not been disclosed, but two Irish newspapers had similar reports on its contents.

Tabloid Ireland on Sunday said the IRA had agreed to state that the war was over and to put its weapons "beyond use" in tandem with a full British commitment to demilitarise within an agreed 18-month period.

It said the IRA statement that war was over would have been made within three months. A day of national reconciliation would have followed on which a token amount of IRA arms would have been disposed of, along with weapons from Protestant guerrillas and the British army.

The third step was an IRA commitment to put weapons beyond use in a series of steps combined with demilitarisation by the British army, including the dismantling of border posts.

The Sunday Business Post said the IRA was prepared to put weapons beyond use in the context of a demilitarisation process involving the removal of British troops in Northern Ireland.

Britain still has some 15,000 troops in Northern Ireland, down from a peak of 30,000 in the 1970s.

British sources have said the IRA offer, details of which have not been made public, came too late and was too vague to prevent the suspension of home rule in the province.

MANDELSON PROMISES CRIMINAL JUSTICE REVIEW

In an interview with Britain's Observer newspaper, British Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson tried to pour oil on troubled waters, saying he would soon publish a review of criminal justice in the province.

"Its aim will be to ensure that the whole community, both unionist and nationalist traditions, can identify with the criminal justice system," the paper quoted him as saying.

He added that 26 British army bases had already been closed, patrolling was down two-thirds and troop levels were lower than at any time since 1970.

Police on Sunday named two young men who were stabbed to death and left on a country roadside in Northern Ireland.

David McIlwaine, 18, and Andrew Robb, 19, who were both from Portadown, died from multiple stab wounds.

A Sinn Fein source said recent murders on both sides of Northern Ireland's sectarian divide showed Britain should re-establish the political institutions.

"The peace process is unanchored and we warned the British government that the peace process would start to unravel without the institutions, as ultimately so would the Good Friday Agreement," he said.

A poll in Ireland's Sunday Independent newspaper said 64 per cent of people in the Irish Republic believe the IRA should not have broken off talks with the international head of the disarmament commission, General John de Chastelain.

However, 61 per cent of the 1,103 people polled said Britain was wrong to suspend the home-rule administration.-Reuters