Word: iras
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...disagree completely with the majority's belief that somehow the actions of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) can help achieve these goals. Extremists who perpetuate violence--like members of the IRA and unyielding Protestants such as the Rev. Ian Paisley--only make it harder to arrive at a solution; peace is the prerequisite for a political settlement in Ireland. We condemn groups and individuals in Ireland that resort to violence to achieve their goals. We further believe that the majority's linking of a settlement in Ireland to the need for IRA violence displays a lack of understanding...
There are many who view these soldiers in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as "terrorists," slaughtering the innocent for bizarre religious reasons. But the cause these men fight for is not Catholicism; it is the unification of Ireland under Irish rule. We endorse that goal, for the same reason that we support movements for self-determination elsewhere in the world. Simply because Britain colonized Ireland long ago and clings to it stubbornly now is not reason to ignore its plight. A united Ireland might well show more respect for minority rights than the Protestant-dominated North does currently...
...Republican Army. They blow things up, and sometimes innocent people are wasted. But that's the way with wars; almost never are they pleasant. To argue that the accidental killing of civilians makes an army or a cause unworthy of support is an objection to all modern war. The IRA bombs primarily the economic interests of the British, attempting to make further occupation unprofitable. Certainly they are no more violent than Mugabe's legions, or the guerrillas that fight for the rights of El Salvadorans. At any rate, don't dismiss them as cowards; Bobby Sands proved, as if McSwiney...
...Salvador, decided to interview State Rep. Marie Howe, an Irish patriot recently returned from a trip to Ulster. The paper asked her, among other things. "Wasn't the trip itself mainly a publicity stunt?" "Did you present yourself primarily as a Massachusetts legislator?" "It's clear you support the IRA, but do you think their terrorist activities are justified...
Sands, 27, who was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison for carrying an unloaded 22 caliber handgun, launched his hunger strike March 1, in an effort to win political prisoner status for jailed IRA members. The British government has repeatedly refused to grant the demand, saying Sands and other IRA members were in jail for violent, not political, crimes...