Splinter group opposed to peace
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Your support makes all the difference.THE IRISH National Liberation Army, which shot dead a former loyalist prisoner, Trevor Deeney, in Londonderry yesterday, is one of three republican groups who are opposed to the peace process and are intent on using violence to derail it.
Mr Deeney was a brother of Jeffrey Deeney, who is serving a life sentence for his part in the killing of seven people in Greysteel, Co Londonderry, in 1993. Within the Maze prison, Jeffrey Deeney has become associated with prisoners belonging to the ultra-extreme Loyalist Volunteer Force, founded by the late Billy Wright. An INLA claim that Terry Deeney also had LVF links was denied by relatives.
Together with the Continuity IRA, and another unnamed republican renegade group, the INLA wants to wreck the peace process and will hope the killing will start a chain reaction which will decrease the chances of success in the talks.
The INLA was started in the mid-1970s as a Marxist spin-off from other republican groups. Its violent heyday came in the early 1980s, after three members were among the republicans who starved themselves to death in the 1981 hunger strike. Much of its energy has been expended in internal feuding which over the years disposed of several dozen of its members.
Although tiny compared to the IRA, it has the knack of generating a loyalist response and creating cycles of violence. The most recent example was in December when INLA gunmen killed Billy Wright inside the Maze prison. The Wright killing was popular among more vengeful sections of the republican and nationalist population. The fact that it led to eight more killings is a reminder that the INLA remains a dangerous organisation which can spark off destabilising waves of shootings.
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