I think the IRA statement shows how deeply influenced the IRA has been by the ANC and the struggle for peace and reconciliation in South Africa. I am not a person with allegiances to one side or the other in the Northern Ireland war. I am a peace activist (preferring to remain anonymous here for my own reasons), who has worked with the Fellowship of Reconciliation for the better part of 20 years, preparing to head off soon to Columbia with other Catholic Workers working for peace & reconciliation in that country. I was in Northern Ireland as a human rights observer in 1998 during marching season, doing similar work to what I did as a member of the Peace Brigades in El Salvador in the mid-80s, working as an election observer.

This statement by the IRA is very significant, IMO. It is significant because it demonstrates a clear understanding that the peace process has reached the stage where healing between the communities (the reconciliation part of the process) must become the main focus if the peace process is to hold.

What does this mean to the peace process? That people must begin the painful, difficult task of looking back at what they have done to others, as well as what has been done to them. This stage of the reconciliation process demands that people begin to ask for and offer forgiveness for what has been done. Without working through this stage, the war could easily erupt again, as we have seen with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which never reached this stage of the conflict resolution process, despite all the promise of the Helsinki agreement. Look to the current Israeli reoccupation of the West Bank, and you will see where that road leads.

Since the British government still has it's army of in Northern Ireland, which is still being used to pacify the local population, there is a very real continuing military threat to the nationalist community, who knows that if the IRA were to return to violence, the full brunt of the British military would be brought to bear on their community in response to that violence, just as we have seen happen with the Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza.

It truly is the nationalist community which stands to lose everything in this process, not the unionists. If there were a return to violence tomorrow, there would be a return to the status quo favored by the unionists, which is to have the British army act as an occupying military force to pacify the nationalist community, and maintain unionist control of the economic, social, and political life of Northern Ireland.

We have seen a peace process more like the South African model than the Israeli/Palestinian model in Northern Ireland. While South Africa still faces many, many serious problems, one of them has been eliminated: apartheid. The government system of apartheid, like the colonial relationship between Ireland and Britain, stood in the way of any progressive change in South Africa. Until it was dismantled, no meaningful change could occur, and the tremendous problems faced by all the people of South Africa couldn't be dealt with in a constructive manner.

The people of Northern Ireland are in a similar bind. Until the British government's infrastructure of colonialism is dismantled in Northern Ireland, the people there will not be able to meaninfully address the pressing issues which need to be dealt with, because all their time, energy and resources keep getting drained by the battle to maintain the supremacy of the colonial infrastructure, rather than the pressing needs of Northern Ireland's citizens.

When a citizen army like the ANC or the IRA makes this sort of a statement, people should never dismiss it as meaningless, or too little too late. The issue of whether or not such a statement goes far enough, however, is a legitimate thing to debate in these circumstances if the peace process is to move forward in genuine ways.