At the 1986 Sinn Fйin Ard Fheis (annual party conference) it was decided to discontinue the party's long held policy of abstention from the Dбil but this decision was rejected by a minority of members who walked out of the conference to form a new political party--Republican Sinn Fйin--and a new paramilitary group: the CIRA. The dispute within Sinn Fйin was also seen as one between the Northern Ireland leadership of the party under Gerry Adams, who remained within 'Provisional Sinn Fйin', and the party's southern leadership under Ruairн У Brбdaigh, who was among the defectors.
Contrary to commmon belief, the formation of the CIRA did not arise from the signing of the 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement and predated that of the 'Real' IRA. The CIRA opposes the Agreement nonetheless and, as of 2004, unlike the Provisional IRA, the CIRA has not announced a cease fire or agreed to participate in weapons decommissioning. On 13th July, 2004, the US government designated the CIRA as a "terrorist" organisation, thereby making it illegal for Americans to provide material support to it, requiring US financial institutions to block the group's assets, and denying CIRA members visas into the US.
The CIRA claim to be the true inheritors of an Irish republican tradition that includes the 'Old' Irish Republican Army that fought the 1919-1921 War of Independence, and claims to have attained legitimacy as such in being recognised by Tom Maguire, the last surviving member of the Second Dбil, as the modern incarnation of the old IRA, in what CIRA supporters perceive to be a kind of 'apostolic' succession. These claims are not widely accepted among republicans however.
Activities: CIRA activities have included numerous bombings, assassinations and kidnappings, as well as extortion and robbery. Targets of the CIRA have included British military and Northern Ireland security targets, as well as loyalist paramilitary groups. It has also conducted bomb attacks on predominantly Protestant towns in Northern Ireland. The group is claimed to be the only paramilitary group in Northern Ireland never to have killed or targeted a civilian. As of 2004, the CIRA is not believed to have an established presence or capability of launching attacks on the island of Great Britain.
Strength: In 2004 the United States (US) government believed the CIRA to consist of fewer than fifty fully active members.
External aid: The US government suspected the CIRA of receiving funds and arms from supporters in the United States. It is also believed that, in cooperation with the 'Real' IRA, the CIRA may have acquired arms and materiel from the Balkans.
a) Ulster Volunteer Force
The UVF's name dates back to a Protestant force formed to oppose Home Rule in 1912. It was revived in 1966 in opposition to liberal unionism. Its stated mission: to kill IRA members.
The UVF is believed to be smaller than the loyalist Ulster Freedom Fighters. Responsible for dozens of killings, the UVF was behind the 1994 shootings of Catholics watching a World Cup match on TV in Loughnisland, County Down.
The UVF has links with the Progressive Unionist Party, which won two seats in the assembly. It is in favour of the Good Friday Agreement and has been on ceasefire since 1994.
Prisoners belonging to the UVF are eligible for early release under the terms of the Agreement and some have been released.
b) Ulster Unionist Party
The UUP has long been the largest party in Northern Ireland.
But the peace process and the difficulties that have come with it has seen the party's membership divide and many of its supporters switch to the hardline Democratic Unionists.
At the 1997 general election, 10 months before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, a third of Northern Ireland's voters supported the party, delivering it 10 of the 18 parliamentary seats.
The following year, the UUP took 28 of the 108 seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly, making party leader David Trimble the First Minister-designate.
But as Mr Trimble's leadership and peace process strategy came under fire from many among his own party, that support slipped - devastatingly so at the 2001 general election.
Rather than emerging from the election as the unassailable leader of the unionist community, Mr Trimble witnessed his party finish with just six seats - three of the losses at the hands of Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists.
The UUP, formerly known as the Official Unionist Party, was the absolute political master of Northern Ireland from partition in 1921 until the imposition of direct rule in 1972.
The central plank of UUP policy remained maintaining the link between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. But the actual nature of that link - and what relationship with the Republic of Ireland - has been the defining characteristics of the party's political history.
When the civil rights movement emerged in the 1960s and demanded political and social change of the unionist government, the party faced the first of many policy splits.
The first reform-minded leader of the party during that decade, Terrence O'Neill, sparked fury among unionists after he invited the Irish Taoiseach to Belfast for talks and advocated social and political change to what had long been considered a "Protestant state for a Protestant people".
The last prime minister of Northern Ireland in 1972, Brian (later Lord) Faulkner, initially resisted any form of powerharing arrangements and sparked nationalist fury by introducing internment without trial.
But the introduction of direct rule came as a massive body blow to the party. The closure of Stormont brought to an end its half-century of control of events in Northern Ireland and eventually led to a realignment within the party in which the working class members gained more control.
Faulkner eventually agreed to powersharing and a cross-border body as part of the 1973 Sunningdale agreement - but the party divided as many members sided with the Democratic Unionists and various loyalist groups to bring down the deal and the leader.
More than a decade later, the UUP was utterly opposed the Anglo-Irish Agreement which introduced a role for Dublin in Northern Ireland affairs through a joint ministerial council; its opposition led to its closest ever co-operation with the Democratic Unionists.
During the 16 years leadership of James (now Lord) Molyneaux (1979 - 1995), the party pursued a number of devolution strategies which fell short of powersharing. On powersharing itself, Molyneaux remained clear: Northern Ireland's divisions could not be healed through a "shotgun marriage between those who are British and those ... atttracted to the idea of Irishness." It was a view apparently held by a majority of the party.
David Trimble's taking of the helm in 1995 marked a new direction. He took the party into the political talks which eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement.
Mr Trimble's role in negotiating the Good Friday Agreement led to him jointly winning the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize with the SDLP leader John Hume - an award that some observers suggested had possibly been made a few years too early.
Mr Trimble historically secured his party's backing to work in the powersharing assembly and cross-border political bodies, but his leadership quickly became dogged by the vexed question of paramilitary arms decommissioning.
After one false start, the Northern Ireland executive was established when the Ulster Unionist council backed David Trimble's stance on 27 November 1999. The decision - by 480 votes to 349 - paved the way for a power-sharing executive, linked to decommissioning and marked a sea-change in Ulster Unionist thinking.
When the executive was suspended within weeks amid Mr Trimble threat to resign over a lack of movement on decommissioning, the party's nationalist critics said that it had failed to learn the lessons of the past three decades.
But Mr Trimble secured his party's support on a second occasion after the a comprehensive deal in May 2000 which sought to address the concerns of all participants in the political process.
The party remains ruled by the 800-strong Ulster Unionist Council, a body that has come under the spotlight since 1998 because of its pivotal role at critical stages of the peace process. The most controversial aspect of the council is that the Orange Order is allowed to send voting representatives to its meetings - even though they may be more closely aligned with other shades of unionism.
c) Democtaric Ulster Party
The DUP was founded in 1971 by the Reverend Ian Paisley and William Boal, an MP who defected from the Official Unionists in protest at the policies of the then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Terence O'Neill.
The DUP led opposition to the Sunningdale power-sharing executive in 1974.
Under Rev Paisley's leadership it has strongly opposed the Good Friday Agreement.
It is similarly against any other move which it interprets as an attempt to weaken the union or as a concession to nationalists or the Republic.
Although it has now taken up two ministerial posts on the executive, the DUP still refuses to have dealings with Sinn Fein members of the same body.
The DUP is also strongly anti-Catholic in the religious sense. Mr Paisley often denounces the Pope.
The party has two MPs at Westminster and 20 assembly seats.
1.8 Terrorism in Greece. November 17
(also known as 17N or N17) was a Marxist Greek terrorist organisation listed in U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Its full name is Revolutionary Organization 17 November (Greek: Επαναστατική Οργάνωση 17 Νοέμβρη, Epanastatiki Organosi 17 Noemvri).
N17 had perpetrated a series of attacks from 1975. Until 2002 no member of the group had been identified or arrested. The group is named after the November 17, 1973 uprising by students at the Athens Polytechnic university against the military junta, in which twenty students were killed. Since the military junta was backed by the United States as part of that country's anti-Communist efforts, most of the group's attacks have been directed at American targets.
The group's first attack was in December 1975, when the CIA's Athens station chief was shot. The group have committed further assassinations, often using a .45 caliber handgun, and around fifty other attacks. Initial attacks were aimed at American and Greek officials but the range of operations was expanded in the 1980s and 1990s to include bombings and EU targets. The group is also opposed to Turkey and NATO.
The group wanted to get rid of U.S. bases in Greece, to remove the Turkish military from Cyprus, and to sever Greece's ties to NATO and the European Union.
In June 2000, the group killed Stephen Saunders, a British Defense Attachй. His wife went on television urging the Greek people to help apprehend his killers.
Following a failed operation on June 29, 2002 the Greek authorities captured an injured suspect, Savvas Xiros. His interrogation led to the discovery of two safe houses and to the arrest of a further six suspects, including two brothers of Savvas. A 58 year old professor, Alexandros Giotopoulos, was identified as the group leader and was arrested on July 17 on the island of Lipsi. On September 5, Dimitris Koufodinas—identified as the group's chief of operations—surrendered to the authorities. In all, nineteen individuals were charged with some 2,500 offences relating to November 17's activities. Because of the 20-year statute of limitations, murders before 1984 were not tried by the court.
The trial of the terrorist suspects commenced in Athens on March 3, 2003. On December 8, fifteen of the accused, including Giotopoulos and Koufodinas, were found guilty; another four were acquitted for lack of evidence. The convicted members were sentenced on December 17, with Giotopoulous sentenced to 21 life terms—the heaviest sentence in modern Greek legal history. Koufodinas received 13 life terms. The prosecutor has proposed that Christodoulos Xeros receive 10 life terms; Savvas Xeros six; Vassilitis Tzortzatos four; Iraklis Kostaris one. Lesser sentences are proposed for the remaining nine, in the light of extenuating circumstances.
Defense lawyers of the defendants as well as several civil rights groups has stressed the highly irregular character of the trial. The trial was conducted by a special court with closed doors and the use of television cameras was prohibited. People sympathetic to their causes believe that this was so that it would be easier to condemn all the accused despite very little non-circumstantial evidence. Many of the accused, notably Alexandros Giotopoulos, denied their participation until the end of the year long trial. According to Giotopoulos, he was framed so that the image of a terrorist organization led by a clear leader could be presented. The accused that did admit participation to the group, notably Dimitris Koufondinas who took "full political responsibility for all of the group actions", presented a picture of a loose horizontally organized structure with small cells and decisions taken by discussion and consensus.
Under Greek law, one life term is equal to a 25-year term and a convict may apply for parole after 16 years. If sentenced to more than one life term, he or she must serve at least 20 years before being eligible for parole. Other sentences will run concurrently, with 25-year terms being the maximum and with parole possible after three-fifths of this term are served.
On September 17, 2004, the imprisoned started a hunger strike protesting the especially harsh conditions of their imprisonment and their sensory isolation. According to their statements, "bourgeois democracy" takes revenge on them by enclosing them in "a prison witin a prison."
1.9 Counter-terrorism
Past International Action
Although terrorism has long been a central issue on the UN agenda, commanding an increasingly large focus ever since the September 11th attacks and the subsequent military actions undertaken in the Middle East and Central Asia, it has remained surprisingly silent on the topic of terrorism in Europe. Most of the following resolutions deal with terrorism in general, or with Islamic extremists, not with any particular threats within the European Union; that domain remains to be covered: Resolution 49/60 (1994), Resolution 1269 (1999), and Resolution 1373 (2001).
Proposed Solutions
Clearly, this issue is both sensitive and complex. The difficulty in dealing with it directly stems from the illusive nature of the main actors. No one disputes that terrorists should be punished and deterred, but the challenge lies in identifying degrees of terrorist actions and agreeing on the best way to react. As the old cliché goes, one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.
Unlike the United States, members of the European Union have not take a stance of no negotiation with terrorists. Previously, terrorists have been successful in negotiating with European nations, thereby granting a degree of validity to their methods. For instance, on 19 January 1975, when 10 people were taken hostage in the Orly airport in France by Arab terrorists, French authorities provided the group with an airplane to fly to Iraq in exchange for the release of the hostages. Similarly, on 27 January of the same year, the June the Second Movement took Peter Lorenz, a German politician, hostage until five terrorists were released from jail and allowed to return to Yemen. In April, 12 hostages were taken in Sweden in exchange for the release of members of terrorists from the Baader-Meinhof gang. It does not seem that this approach is viable in the long-run. Negotiation is extremely dangerous and threatens the future effectiveness of counter-terrorist measures. It shows weakness on the part of the EU and encourages groups to gain recognition of their desires through violence. So, one way of discouraging future attacks is to disprove their political efficacy. The military resources of Europol, of NATO, of the UN, of the sovereign nations of the EU should not go to waste. European states can and should fight back.
The problem with this approach is that it does not distinguish between degrees of action and is not overly sympathetic. Its proponents run the risk of being labeled hypocrites, of seeming terrorist-like themselves, and of alienating moderating forces.
Then there are those who believe that, in the vein of Resolution 1373, the solution to terrorism is financial. Simply put, terrorists need assets to fund their actions. Without money, they will be unable to purchase equipment, organize, or communicate, and consequently, unable to perpetrate any cohesive and effective attacks. Nations should freeze the funds of suspected terrorists and severely punish anyone who is suspected of aiding terrorist organizations.