Külügyi Szemle - A Teleki László Intézet Külpolitikai Tanulmányok Központja folyóirata - 2003 (2. évfolyam)
2003 / 2. szám - BIZTONSÁGPOLITIKA - Szilágyi Zsolt: A fegyvercsempészektől a befolyásos szenátorokig - avagy az Egyesült Államok és az amerikai írek szerepe az északír békefolyamatban az IRA felfegyverkezésétől annak lefegyverkezéséig
Résumé From the gunrunners to the powerful senators - or else the roles of the United States and the Irish Americans in the Northern Irish conflict from the armament of the IRA to its disarmament The United States always played a significant role in the Northern Irish conflict as a mediator. It's due to the huge number of Irish people living in the U. S., who mostly support the republicans in Ulster, and who can affect the policy of the Congress and the president in power on the Northern Ireland issue with the help of their organisations. The traditional catholic-protestant or in other words republicans-unionist antagonism goes back to the end of the 17th or the beginning 18th century but the deterioration of the conflict to bloody civil war began with the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. The violence was stimulated in the period of the Troubles between 1967 and 1972 and it lasted until the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. No doubt that it is the IRA who is responsible for the violent terrorist activities. This paramilitary group which - as the army wing of Sinn Fein - has declared itself a combatant for the „Irish Freedom Movement" and which wants the Irish unity even at the expense of violence acquired most of the needed modern weapons for a war from the U. S. illegally. A real professional gunrunning network had been developed with the help of those Irish Americans, many of whom, have close relationship with the underworld groups, for instance in drug trafficking. The American authorities in close co-operation with the Irish and British colleagues eventually managed to mop up this network during long decades of struggle. Fiowever, by that time the IRA had been accumulating such an enormous stock of weapons that it would be too difficult a duty to destroy them. So, for the time being this is out of the question. After the Good Friday Agreement came into being the IRA is only inclined to put arms gradually beyond use. Beside the hard struggle of the American authorities with the gunrunning network a legal governmental aid channel has also been built to encourage the settlement of the conflict. This channel strengthened firstly with the introduction of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 then with that of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Both the American administrations and the Irish American organisations had significant roles in completing these agreements. Among the events of the last years it is worth stressing two. One of them is the ever- greatest role that the Clinton administration played in the settlement of the conflict, while the other is the event of September 11th 2001. After the terror attack against the United States both the public opinion and the Bush administration increased their pressure on the IRA regarding its decommissioning which is only the question of time. It's the interest of all American governments that this period would as short as possible. 2003. nyár 243
