by Adrian Mullan
THE Real IRA has declared that it intends to "go back to war" by launching a new offensive against "legitimate targets". In a national Sunday newspaper, a RIRA leader also denied that the group had bombed Omagh suggesting that only its "codeword" was used.
The organisation has also begun styling itself simply as the IRA, perhaps in an attempt to usurp the Provisional position and emerge as the "legitimate" republican force.
Nevertheless, after a three-year period of reorganisation, the dissident claims in the Sunday Tribune interview that it is planning a new offensive. The RIRA representative said Sinn Féin members of the Stormont Assembly were as British a those sitting in Downing Street. However, the spokesman said Sinn Féin members would not be targeted because "hitting them" might not be politically expedient or might be "counter productive" and likely to affect public support.
The spokesman said about Omagh, "The IRA had minimal involvement in Omagh. Our code word was used nothing more. To have stated this at the time would have been lost in an understandable wave of emotion. That is the only detail on Omagh we are prepared to give at the moment.
"Omagh was an absolute tragedy. Any loss of civilian life is regrettable. No one in any army, except perhaps the American or Israeli forces wants to kill civilians. But wars don't end because civilians die in them."
Former Omagh councillor Francis Mackey, chairman of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, which many believe is politically linked to the Real IRA, said his organisation sees the way forward as political, involving the UN which could address the "illegal occupation of Ireland".
However, that organisation has not delivered on its responsibility to small nations seeking self-determination, he said. "If the (R)IRA are saying that they are going back to war, that's a strong indication that they see no progress by looking at peaceful alternatives... by looking to the UN or indeed the British government. I wouldn't confuse peace with a deliberate normalisation of British rule.
"British soldiers are still here, British helicopters are still flying around Omagh and mid-Tyrone. There is also a very deliberate process of criminalisation of those who disagree with Stormont and British rule in Ireland."
Mr Mackey said that the Sinn Féin and the "Provisional movement's leadership" are complicit in that.
"We would articulate the argument that the SF leadership have failed the republican base; they have violated Irish national sovereignty. They have been forced to admit that the Good Friday Agreement is not a republican document, and that it is not national self-determination therefore admitting that it's a violation of national sovereignty, so what is it that these great leaders have got from a republican position?
"They are not espousing republicanism any more and they are following in the steps of de Valera after 1922. They should relinquish the name of Sinn Féin before they sully it any more."
Asked if, as a politician he would ever say to the RIRA put down your arms and seek your goals in a peaceful and political way the 32CSM chairman said, "That wouldn't be a role that I have any responsibility in nor indeed would the Sovereignty movement. The only people who would have that role in an international conflict is the United Nations."
