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the Home Guard.
Each of these examples gives the lie to the claim that "voluntary disarmament will be a unique event in Irish history". However, there is one, even more direct, example which the Taoiseach can hardly have been unaware of at the time of writing. Last December, lest we forget, the LVF voluntarily handed a cache of rifles, sub-machineguns, sawn-off shotguns and revolvers to Gen de Chastelain's ecommissioning Body for destruction. As Gen de Chastelain put it at the time: "Decommissioning
is a voluntary process. We can only do what we are invited to do. The LVF invited us to do this event. We have done it."
Why, then, did the Taoiseach claim that IRA disarmament would be unique? To get a clue to the answer, it is important to look at what has been left out of his account of the past.
First, a loyalist action dating from 1916, and clearly part of the body of Irish history, has been excised. Second, several examples of republican decommissioning predating the formation of the Provisional IRA have been dismissed. Finally, an event which occurred in Northern Ireland last year has simply been forgotten. Taken together, these fuel the suspicion that the Taoiseach believes that loyalists who disarmed in 1916 and 1998, and republicans who did likewise in 1968, have no place in Irish history.
How else could Provisional IRA disarmament warrant the description "unique"? Mr Ahern's article warned that the political parties would be making "a mistake of historic proportions" if they failed to grasp the opportunity which The Way Forward offered.
However, failing to allow all the people of Ireland, North and South, a role in the shaping of history is itself an error of huge import. At its worst, it finds expression in phrases such as this, uttered by a leading Sinn Féin negotiator: "If you look at the history of Ireland there is no history of decommissioning and no history of surrender. Those who talk about token decommissioning are talking about token surrender. That is not in the nature of republicanism."
Such a phrase pours scorn on the very idea of decommissioning and undermines the prospect of peace without victory. They are the words of someone who does not care
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