Greg Hollingsworth

Sinn Fein calls on IRA to end violence

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams called upon militant dissidents within Ireland to give up violence for good this week. The statement is the latest in a series of attempts, carried out since the signing of the "Good Friday Agreement" in 1998, to demilitarize paramilitary groups within Ireland and Northern Ireland. Adams' statement comes as Sinn Fein is nearing an historic decision on whether or not to end republican opposition to Northern Ireland's Police Force (PSNI).

Sinn Fein, one of Ireland's two largest political parties, has often been linked with the Irish Republican Army, IRA, which has carried out violent campaigns against British rule over Northern Ireland for decades. While both groups have claimed to be independent of one another, the presence of former IRA members within Sinn Fein has led most to doubt the accuracy of these statements.

Since the signing of the "Good Friday Agreement" in 1998 the movement to create a coalition government in Northern Ireland, with power shared by Catholic Nationalist and Pro-British Protestant groups, has failed. However, the latest movement by Sinn Fein party leaders like Gerry Adams has led to increased support for the recognition of a new Northern Irish assembly based in Belfast.

Sinn Fein was originally founded in 1906 by a typesetter named Arthur Griffin. Griffin, a vocal nationalist, was very active in political circles and united many political clubs under one banner with the help of his personal newspaper, also named Sinn Fein. The group was wrongfully blamed for the "Easter Uprising" of 1916, with most British leaders branding any group opposed to British rule Sinn Fein. The group suffered many splits over time and most historians agree that the party has not been continuous since it's founding by Griffin. The current Sinn Fein party, often referred to as "Provisional Sinn Fein", was created during a split that occurred in 1970 over the party's engagement in constitutional politics.

The split in 1970 led to the formation of the Provisional IRA and its political wing, today's Sinn Fein. Another group, known currently as "Official Sinn Fein" and its paramilitary counterpart "Official IRA" maintained their left-wing nationalist stance on Anglo-Irish relations. Just before the "Good Friday Agreement" in 1998 there was another split which led to the founding of the "Real IRA", a paramilitary group that rejected the "cease fire" that the agreement called for, which has carried out several bombings since the split.

Since the ratification of the "Good Friday Agreement" in May of 1998, by voters in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, there have been several attempts by Sinn Fein and the other major Irish political parties to demilitarize dissident paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland; however the success of these attempts has been mediocre at best.

In September of 2005 it was announced that the Provisional IRA, the mainstream wing of the group, had decommissioned its arsenal, making their weapons unfit for use. The validity of this announcement is widely doubted by the majority of Unionist (Pro-British) parties within Ireland as well as the rest of the United Kingdom. However, the "Official" and "Real" branches of the IRA remain armed and continue to recuse themselves from any talk of a cease fire in the conflict between Irish nationalist forces and Pro-British unionist forces.

The latest appeal by Gerry Adams and the Provisional Sinn Fein seems, at least on the surface, to confirm the skepticism shown by the other parties within the British and Irish governments about the commitment of Irish paramilitary forces to work towards a peaceful resolution to this century old conflict.

The Democratic Party took control of both houses of the United States Congress in the Midterm Elections held on Tuesday. The Democrats gained 33 seats in the House of Representatives and six seats in the Senate, seizing complete control of Congress from the Republicans for the first time in 12 years. In 1994, the Republican Party, led by Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrich, took complete control of the United States Congress for the first time since 1952. In that election, the Republicans gained 54 seats in the House of Representatives and eight seats in the Senate in addition to picking up 12 governorships throughout the nation. This incredible sweep to power brought many of today's most powerful Republican politicians into office, including President George W. Bush (elected Governor of Texas), Bill Frist (Senator from Tennessee), George Pataki (Governor of New York) and Lindsey Graham (Senator from South Carolina). The Republican takeover seemed poised to doom the Presidency of Democrat Bill Clinton to one term. The victory was referred to by Senator Bob Dole, poised to become the Senate Majority leader, as a "vote of no confidence in the Clinton agenda," reported The Intelligencer on November 9, 1994. He went on to say that "a GOP majority would move to address voter concerns over 'big government, big taxes, [and] big regulation.'" However, Clinton's defeat of Dole in the 1996 presidential election hinted at the American voter's reticence to cede complete control of the government to a single party. All of that changed though with George W. Bush's defeat of Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. Since 2000, the Republicans have maintained control of the White House and Congress for all but 18 months from June 2001 to January 2002, after Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords defected from the party to become an independent. Since 1913, when voters gained the ability to directly elect their senators, there have been only four elections in which control of both the House and Senate shifted completely. The 1994 election was the largest power shift in terms of seats, with the Republicans gaining a total of 62 seats in Congress. Prior to that, the largest swing came in the 1952 election, where Republicans added 23 total seats to gain control of Congress. However, the 1954 election would see a reversal of that election with the Democrats picking up 20 total seats to regain control. The significance of midterm elections is often overlooked when compared to presidential elections, which carry with them a certain importance not attributed to congressional elections. However, midterm congressional elections often decide the ability of a president to carry out his agenda, and in the case of the 1994 and 2006, elections created the possibility for a "lame duck" administration where the president and his party will be unable to get any of their agenda into place during the congressional term. The largest change in congressional history occurred before voters gained the ability to vote directly for Senators. The election of 1894 saw the majority swing from Democrats to Republicans to the tune of 130 seats in the House of Representatives and 10 seats in the Senate. The shift in this election compares in stark contrast to the majority of congressional power shifts, which generally hinge on small numbers of seats changing parties. This is evidenced in the comparatively small number of seats that changed hands in 1994 and earlier this week, where the combined swing amounted to only 101 seats in both houses of Congress. From a historical perspective, the 2006 election is an important shift in power, yet if the Democrats are unable to sustain their hold in Congress, this power shift may be short lived, as was evidenced in the 1952 and 1954 elections.