Joe Craig reports from Belfast on how the murder of Sinn Fein voter Robert McCartney has affected Republican supporters At the end of January an argument in a Belfast pub ended up in one man being kicked and stabbed to death in an alley while another man was severely wounded.
According to the victim's family the killers went back to the pub for another drink and along with accomplices wiped the scene forensically clean, took out the CCTV film, destroyed it and let all 72 witnesses know that they had seen nothing.
The murder victim was Robert McCartney, a working class man from the strongly republican Short Strand area; a Sinn Fein supporter to whom no one has attached any blame for the night's disturbance.
The police follow up operation in the nearby Markets area was denounced by Sinn Fein as heavy handed and Sinn Fein feigned ignorance of guilt as it was reported that the chief suspects were republicans.
The family of the murdered man however refused to accept this and publicly identified the killers as prominent republicans.
A candle-lit vigil in the Short Strand drew widespread local support and under intense political pressure Sinn Fein condemned the murder and called on everyone to support the family in their quest for justice, without however endorsing their call for witnesses to go to the police.
Subsequently they agreed that witnesses could do so if that was their own particular view, although they could not recommend such a course given the historic mistrust of the police among the local community.
When all this plus meetings with Gerry Adams and the IRA failed to quell the demands of the family the IRA finally announced that they had expelled three members who they recommended make themselves amenable to justice. Justice - a scarce commodity
None of this has satisfied the family. They complain that over a dozen republicans were involved either in the murder or subsequent cover up. They maintain that fine words from republican leaders do not tally with on-going intimidation of witnesses by local Provos.
Their bottom line is that no one has yet been charged and for them the issue will only be closed when the guilty are convicted. They say they simply demand justice. But justice is a very scarce commodity in the North of
The demands of the family have credibility because they were ordinary people who had themselves voted Sinn Fein. The longer they oppose republicans the less this background will count.
Their support for the police in their case makes not only them uneasy but also many of those who sympathise with them. Republicans are hoping that their utterly cynical and dishonest damage limitation exercise will allow them to weather the storm.
While they are incapable of honestly articulating principled opposition to the police, or the practical limitations to it, or of their own significant movements to support the cops themselves - in return for a political deal - republicans can rely on a community deeply hostile to a sectarian force, no matter what it calls itself.
Attacks on the Republican movement are coming thick and fast. They have been blamed for the Northern Bank robbery and for running a very large money laundering operation in the South.
This has allowed the
many will see them
as the only alternative. British government to blame them for the failure of the already collapsed political negotiations and to further their project of a settlement bent to the demands of unionism. Republicanism's capitulation
The Northern Bank job was significant because it gave the pretext for the latest political offensive that has put republicans on the back foot.
They have been compelled to deny what twenty years ago they would have celebrated. Their political project is more openly revealed as one of complete capitulation.
The murder of Robert McCartney is important because it shows what happens at ground level when a national liberation movement no longer seeks liberation but partnership with imperialism. It starts to rot.
Revulsion at the murder of Robert McCartney will not lead to the collapse of support for the Provos in Belfast because for as long as there is little alternative to the sectarian state many will see them as the only alternative.
It will however accelerate the demoralisation of their supporters and the movement itself. It will therefore hasten the day when some people stop waiting for an alternative and decide to create one. • For a socialist view of Irish politics visit www.socialistdemocracy.org
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