Families of IRA victims finally receive an apology

The IRA surprised the world yesterday with an unexpected and unprecedented statement of apology to the hundreds of "non-combatants" who were killed in more than three decades of Northern Ireland troubles.

Using language completely new to the republican lexicon, the organisation not only offered "sincere apologies and condolences to their families" but set a new tone of penitence and regret.

The statement, released to the republican newspaper An Phoblacht and Dublin newsrooms, said the peace process "includes the acceptance of past mistakes and of the hurt and pain we have caused to others".

Such language is viewed as a huge departure for a republican movement that was once so solidly committed to achieving victory through shooting and bombing. Its appearance will raise hopes that republican rhetoric will eventually be extended to include the final phrase: "The war is over."

Its absence from yesterday's surprise statement led cynics, in particular in the Unionist camp, to complain that it did not go far enough and was at least partly intended to fend off the idea of government sanctions against Sinn Fein.

However, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, John Reid, welcomed the strength of the statement and its acknowledgement of the pain the IRA had caused to so many people. He said the Government had no prior knowledge that the statement was about to be made. "What we all have to do is to give people the confidence that there will be no return to the type of activities that caused that pain and that we are all committed to resolving our difficulties through exclusively democratic and political means," he said.

In common with most republican initiatives, it is probably intended to have an effect at a number of levels. Most immediately, Sinn Fein and the IRA will hope that it will help to recapture some of the moral high ground which the IRA has lost over the past year.

Allegations of IRA misbehaviour in both Colombia and Belfast have increased pressure on the republicans and on the peace process in general, where the draining of Unionist support has produced a precarious political situation. But republican calculations generally go far beyond the immediate, and in this case the significance goes far beyond the hope of making tactical gains.

The IRA, and indeed Sinn Fein, have been notoriously slow to apologise to the victims of violent republicanism. During the Troubles, about 1,800 people were killed, of whom around 650 may be classed as civilians.

The IRA itself would probably maintain, however, that fatalities such as judges and prison officers were not civilians, which may explain its use of the term "non-combatant".

But whatever definition is used, the organisation has taken a giant step in republican terms, after years of maintaining that the ultimate responsibility for all the deaths has lain with British governments.

Some within republicanism will be uneasy with the new language, carrying with it as it does at least an implication that some or all of the deaths were futile or unjustified.

This is new territory for an organisation that regards itself first and foremost as an army which has been locked in conflict with an occupying power.

The shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, Quentin Davies, welcomed the move, but said it was not enough to make up for the loss of life at the hands of the IRA. He also called on loyalist paramilitaries to "move forward in the same spirit".

Ulster Unionists said the statement was not enough. The Ulster Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson described it as a "half-hearted apology" which "doesn't go far enough".

Peter Robinson, deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, said the IRA would be serving the people of Northern Ireland better if it stopped its present violence. "Their statement has all the odour of being more to do with the dilemma they are facing with the Prime Minister than any earnestness on their part to recognise the hurt and anger they have caused."