'Decommissioning was forced on the IRA', claims Adams confidante
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Your support makes all the difference.The IRA'S rank and file had disarmament forced upon them, a senior member of Sinn Fein has admitted.
Jim Gibney, a former IRA prisoner and close confidante of Gerry Adams, insisted decommissioning would not have materialised without pressure from those at the top.
Mr Gibney, a member of Sinn Fein's ruling executive, said: "This was an IRA leadership initiative. It was leadership led. If it had been left to the organisation on the ground, this would not have happened."
A Sinn Fein councillor in Monaghan has resigned in protest at the decommissioning and republicans have reported considerable unease among the membership, but they have insisted there would be no split.
Mr Gibney, who threw his "first stone for freedom" at aged 15, in 1969, and held the hand of the hunger-striker Bobby Sands hours before he died, said: "With IRA blood in my veins, my heart was telling me that the IRA should not have done what they did. They didn't need to do it. But my head was telling me something else, that they had to do it, that the peace process had to be saved."
"They turned history on its head, and in doing so they turned the IRA upside down," he added.
General John de Chastelain, head of the international decommissioning body, is expected to hold more talks with the IRA as part of the developing process. Details of how much weaponry and explosives have been destroyed have not been disclosed by the international body.
Meanwhile, Martin McGuinness – a former IRA commander and now the MP for Mid Ulster and the Education Minister for the Northern Ireland Assembly – admitted the "hurt" he, along with other republicans, had inflicted on unionists and said it was "time to bring all of that to an end".
Among those gathering for Remembrance Day ceremonies were the people of Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, where an IRA bomb killed 11 Protestants during just such a service in 1987, one of the worst atrocities in the 30 years of bloodshed.
Mr McGuinness said: "Remembrance Sunday is an important occasion for them and they should be accorded all the respect that this occasion requires.
"They have been hurt. They have been hurt by me and they have been hurt by republicans down the years. There is no question or doubt about that.
"It time to bring all of that to an end. We have the blueprint to do it. We do have to put out the hand of friendship to one another ... and we have to travel on a journey. That journey isn't going to be easy," he said.
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