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Tick, tock; tick, tock

On Thursday, July 28 2005, the Irish Republican Army announced the cessation of hostilities in its thirty-year campaign against the occupation by Britain of six Ulster counties, the last segment of Irish territory still under direct rule from London.

In the blunt language that all residents of those Six Counties clearly understand, this was "no surrender". There was no victor. No dictation of peace terms. No agreement that occupation by a foreign power was lawful.

If war "is merely the continuation of policy by other means," according to Clausewitz, the IRA statement neatly turned the tables. By voluntarily opting to decommission its weapons, it announced that democracy henceforth was going to be war by other means. The aim remains the same-withdrawal of the occupying forces of another country.

As long as Britain retains titular ownership of one inch of Irish soil, the situation in the Six Counties will continue to fester. It has always been thus.

Time, and time again, over a period of nine centuries Ireland has sought its freedom from the occupying forces of a much stronger neighbouring state. Rebellion was followed by repression, uprisings followed by martial law, national aspirations trampled by Penal laws designed to crush religion and language, emigration fostered as a means of racial genocide.

Nothing brought a lasting solution.

Once more diplomacy, democracy, and their highly touted benefits, take their role in the affairs of Ireland. God grant that they will prevail.

Time is not on their side. A mere eleven years from now there will be the centennial celebrations of the 1916 Easter Rising by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the forerunner of the present IRA. That led to the withdrawal of British forces from Twenty-Six Irish counties, but not from the Wee Six which, almost ninety years later, have been the focus of the latest Troubles.

In 2016, should Britain still occupy that segment of Ireland, those who now view current events as the harbinger of peaceful years to come, inevitably and regrettably will be facing another manifestation that the establishment of a fully independent thirty-two county Republic of Ireland is the only result that can put to an end to unfriendly relations between the two nations.

The clock is running, tick, tock; tick, tock.

--30--


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