Betrayal will not end at arms destruction

Press Release/Preas Ráiteas

Republican Sinn Féin

Teach Dáithí Ó Conaill,

223 Parnell Street

Dublin 1, Ireland

Sinn Féin Poblachtach

Teach Dáithí Ó Conaill,

223 Sráid Pharnell, BÁC 1, Éire

For further information contact:

Des Dalton: Vice-President: 086-329 1809

Ruairí Óg Ó Brádaigh

Publicity Officer: Dublin 872 9747,

Betrayal will not end at arms destruction

Statement by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, President, Republican Sinn Féin

The betrayal of the Republican Cause by the Provisional Movement will not end with the destruction of arms at the behest of the British government. They will be required by their masters to accept and participate in the British police in Ireland.

Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers died agonising deaths rather than wear a British convict uniform. Now the Provisionals will don British police uniforms to enforce British rule in Ireland against the Irish people.

With the destruction of their own arms the Provisional IRA is no longer an army and should dissolve immediately and stop the pretence. IRA General Order No 11 (see The Long War by Brendan O'Brien) stigmatises such action as an act of "treachery" to be dealt with as such.

Irish history teaches us that there will always be an IRA to oppose English rule here. It was not merely for civil rights under British rule in the Six Counties that the British occupation forces were resisted and such great sacrifices endured.

A really permanent peace will be secured by British disengagement. A new four-province Ireland will give full power and decision-making to all sections of the population, both nationalist and unionist.

ENDS