Dissidents unity move ‘a real threat’
29 August 2006
MOVES TO unite dissident republican groups are being viewed as “a real threat”, the Irish government has warned.
It has been reported that members of the Real IRA, Continuity IRA, INLA and recent dissidents from the Provisional IRA are due to attend a meeting in Co. Derry this evening.
However, the ‘Journal’ has learned that the mooted meeting may not now go ahead after details of it were published in a Sunday newspaper.
An INLA source said there was anger among its ranks at the tone of the report carried on the front page of the ‘Sunday Tribune’.
It stated that recently-defected Provisionals would join with Real IRA and Continuity IRA activists in a bid to challenge the peace process “politically and militarily”.
But the INLA source said: “This gives the impression we are to discuss military options. But as far as we’re concerned, this is a distortion of what the meeting was to be about. “The meeting was to be an internal, not a public meeting and was to include members of the IRSP, 32 County Sovereignty Movement, Republican Sinn Fein, Provisional IRA and others. It was being held to look at the whole of republicanism –where it is today and where we are going?”
In response to the newspaper reports, an Irish government spokesman made it clear the latest developments were viewed very seriously and would be closely monitored by security forces in the Republic and the North.
He said dissident republican groups have made various efforts to “get their act together” and this has been, and will continue to be, monitored very closely.
“The Independent Monitoring Commission and the two governments made clear their view that dissident republican organisations represent a real threat,” he said.
But he warned that the governments and the security authorities will continue to address any threat posed by those groups.
It’s reported that tonight’s meeting has been organised in Derry in an effort to capitalise on a split in the Provisional IRA South Derry Brigade.
Up to 40 members are said to have quit because of disillusionment with the strategy adopted in the peace process.
