FROM THE ARCHIVES:The split in the IRA between the Marxist "Officials" and the more traditional "Provisionals" led to occasional gun battles in the early days of the Troubles. Dick Walsh reported on an effort to prevent the internecine bloodshed.
LEADERS OF the Official and Provisional I.R.A.s agreed yesterday to devise means of preventing hostilities between the two organisations.
Statements from both Irish Republican Publicity Bureaux confirmed the agreement but gave no details of the peacekeeping machinery.
The identical statements were issued in Dublin last night, after a meeting between leading members of the two groups. They said: “It was agreed that policy differences between the two organisations have been exploited by the British culminating in the murder by the British Army of Patrick Mulvenna and the serious wounding of James Bryson and “Bimbo” O’Rawe.
“The Provisionals accept that no one else was involved in the shooting. It was agreed to establish machinery designed to prevent friction and hostilities between the two organisations from this day, Sunday, September 9th.” Mr. Mulvenna, Mr. Bryson and Mr. O’Rawe were shot by British troops in Ballymurphy on August 31st, in circumstances which indicated that they had been preparing for a confrontation with members of the Official I.R.A. The Provisionals at first suspected Officials of the shooting.
Although the British Army claimed responsibility for killing Mr. Mulvenna and injuring his colleagues, all of whom had long been sought by troops, death notices inserted in a Belfast newspaper by Provisional units referred ambiguously to the killing as the work of “the enemies of Ireland” rather than the usual “Forces of the Crown.”
The Provisionals’ formal acknowledgement last night that no one but the British Army was involved represents a significant cooling of tension between the two groups. The peacekeeping machinery, if effective, may also do much to pre-empt open conflict in other areas.
The statements do not represent any lessening of the political animosity between them with Officials still convinced that the Provos’ bombing campaign has serious sectarian overtones and the Provos equally convinced that the Officials have opted out of the freedom struggle.
The differences between the groups are both philosophical and tactical. The Provisionals say they are determined to push over the top to military victory in this campaign: the Officials say such a victory would be meaningless if it provoked sectarian fighting and ignored the necessity for a united working class.
Daithí Ó Conaill, in an interview in Hibernia, said the Provisionals’ campaign against military barracks in the North will be escalated: the Officials are maintaining their policy of defence and retaliation and continuing their ceasefire of more than a year. The major significance of last night’s statements is in the easing of inter-Republican quarrels in Belfast.