British army's 38-year security mission over
Updated: 2007-08-01 07:01
The British army marked a milestone of peacemaking yesterday as it formally
ended its 38-year mission to bolster security in Northern Ireland.
The military's longest-running operation in its history was to end officially
at midnight (2300GMT). But this symbolic moment was coming months after reality,
because no troops have been on patrol on Belfast streets for two years.
And as of today, all of the 5,000 soldiers remaining in
this long-disputed corner of the United Kingdom will be exclusively committed to
training for operations overseas. 
Analysts and ex-soldiers are debating whether British security forces
defeated the outlawed Irish Republican Army (IRA), which waged a 1970-97
campaign to overthrow Northern Ireland by force. But all sides agree that the
IRA's 2005 decision to renounce violence and disarm has permitted British
soldiers to beat their own retreat.
"We don't need them any more," said Chief Constable Hugh Orde, commander of
the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which increasingly can operate in most
of the IRA's Catholic power bases. For decades, police patrols in these areas
required backup from troops.
The central goal of the Good Friday peace accord of 1998 - a joint
Catholic-Protestant administration that includes the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party
- was revived in May and has been operating harmoniously.
The other key Good Friday goal, forging a police force that enjoys support on
both sides of the community, is more than midway through a 10-year reform
program. Catholic numbers in police ranks have already more than doubled to 21
percent, and Britain hopes to transfer control of Northern Ireland security to
local - potentially Sinn Fein - hands next year.
Two dissident IRA groups continue to plot attacks, including a bomb that
detonated two weeks ago near the main Dublin-Belfast railway line. But Orde and
Lieutenant General Nick Parker, who commands the new "peacetime" army garrison,
say the dissidents will be defeated by gathering intelligence, not by deploying
troops.
"There are still places where, sadly, a very small number of people are
determined to wreck all that has been achieved," Orde said. "We have to be very
mindful of that threat, but we can cope with that."
The official end of Operation Banner - the codename used for the deployment
of troops as peacekeepers 38 years ago - has triggered a wave of introspection
throughout Britain and Ireland, where tens of thousands bear physical and
psychological scars from a conflict that left 3,700 dead. Among those were 763
soldiers and 309 people killed by soldiers, chiefly Catholic civilians and IRA
members.
Agencies
(China Daily 08/01/2007 page8)
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