WHEN IS A TERRORIST NOT A TERRORIST?

The Spectator invited Sean O'Callaghan and Ronan Bennett to tea. Boris Johnson presided over a lively debate

EARLIER this year The Spectator pub- lished a series of articles by Stephen Glover about Ronan Bennett, an Irish writer who has contributed to the Guardian and other publications. Mr Ben- nett has close links with Gerry Adams and is an unapologetic supporter of the Repub- lican cause. Sean O'Callaghan is a convict- ed IRA terrorist who repented and, by informing on his former comrades, saved many innocent lives. The Spectator brought the two men together under the chairman- ship of its editor, Boris Johnson. These are some excerpts from a wide-ranging debate about Northern Ireland.

BORIS JOHNSON: Sinn Fein is pre- pared to condone violence, and has a line into the IRA. What's the difference between the two?

RONAN BENNETT: People criticised Adams for not getting the IRA to declare a ceasefire. The fact is, he couldn't. This has been shown since 1994, since the first IRA ceasefire. The influence that Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and other key Sinn Fein people have with the IRA is def- initely there, but they cannot turn the tap on and off. The IRA and Sinn Fein are not the same thing.

BJ: Have you been to many Sinn Fein meetings?

SEAN O'CALLAGHAN: I've been to thousands.

BJ: Have you, Ronan?

RB: Never.

SO'C: But I have been, Ronan, at IRA meetings, right from the ground up. It's not simple, but the moves were begun by the IRA to make Sinn Fein a proper politi- cal party. The impetus came from the guys like Adams and McGuinness, who were then in the IRA. They were the guys that wanted a political party.

BJ: What was the last occasion, Sean, on which these guys on the army council legit- imised an act of violence?

RB: Well, I don't think anybody in this room is in a position_ „ SO'C: I do actually know that. The last absolutely categorical one is the bomb at Canary Wharf.

RB: Gerry Adams certainly didn't know, I know for a fact that Adams did not... . BJ: How can you know that?

RB: For the same reason that Sean knows certain things. It's in the public domain that Adams had a phone call an hour or so before the Canary Wharf bomb went off, and got on the phone in a great hurry to Washington . He was told this was going to happen.

BJ: He rang Washington, but he didn't ring. . . .

RB: I don't think he knew where the bomb was going off.

SO'C: I accept that Adams probably didn't know what the target was, but I know what Adams did that day. Just before, he phoned a guy in the Irish gov- ernment and he basically said, 'We're in real trouble.' I am telling you bluntly that the decision to end the ceasefire was taken with Gerry and Martin [McGuinness] pre- sent. I'm not saying they knew the target, the precise timing, but they knew there was going to be a bomb in London . . .

not saying Adams wanted it.

RB: I'm not saying they didn't.

BJ: No, but how can you talk to a guy like Adams when he's got the blood of this newsagent in Canary Wharf on his hands?

RB: But listen to what he just said. He said he didn't want the bomb.

`If you're serious about this, just hand over the registration fee.' BJ: Is it right to bring into a political pro- cess people who are patently either mur- derers, or who have taken part in condoning and authorising murder?

RB: You've condoned violence, haven't you?

BJ: When?

RB: I'm sure you've supported the British state in Ireland, and the things that have been done in its name. Which haven't been peaceful, have they?

BJ: I've certainly supported justice, peace and freedom for all.

RB: I think we should nail it because otherwise this conversation will not go very far. The question is whether you want to deal with political men who can bring this thing to a stop. In the last five years they have produced the goods.

BJ: It seems to me, from what Sean has said, that the IRA and Sinn Fein are co- terminous. You've got Adams and McGuinness sitting on the army council. They were there at the meeting that approved the blowing up of Canary Wharf.

RB: I don't know whether that's true.

BJ: Do you have any evidence that it isn't true?

RJ: Usually political people put a propo- sition and support it.

SO'C: My argument is slightly different. I am not at all upset that the leadership of the IRA and Sinn Fein are often the same people. If I thought for one second that there was an IRA army council meeting taking place today, and sitting there were Brian Keenan, a couple of other heavies, and that Adams and McGuinness weren't there, you'd have a serious bloody problem. I hope to Christ that Adams and McGuin- ness are still on the army council.

BJ: Let's look at why both of you became involved in this whole thing to begin with.

SO'C: I don't know if Ronan's involved to the extent, but he . . . was brought up in the place. I don't know specifically which part of Belfast. . . .

RB: North Belfast.

SO'C: Right. I was in North Belfast, very briefly, in early 1970. Look, I'll tell you one thing. If I was a Catholic kid, or a National- ist kid, brought up in North Belfast in the 1970s, I would have joined the IRA. With a lot more legitimacy than somebody like me did. If I was a young guy across the road, I'd probably have joined the UDF. Bad times. Whole communities being attacked, under siege, all sorts of stuff going on. I don't know if you ever joined the IRA? Well, I'm not saying anything, but I'm just saying, hey, if you didn't. I'll put this in the crudest possible way. If you didn't, what the f*** was wrong with you?

BJ: How many people did you murder?

SO'C: Two. I've planted several car bombs in Omagh, some of them just a cou- ple of hundred yards away from where the last one happened. Luckily they didn't kill any people, but they could have done. You know, I could have had 29 deaths on my hands. BJ: Ronan, do you condemn the killings that Sean carried out?

RB: I don't know what they were. What were they?

SO'C: I killed an RUC officer in a pub. And I was involved in an attack on a British army, a RUC base. And there was a woman, a UDR officer, killed.

BJ: You were definitely committed to the Republican cause, weren't you?

RB: Well I'm a Republican. I believe that partition is bad for Ireland.

BJ: Do you believe in the armed strug- gle? • RB: No, I had a major problem with it. I grew up more or less the same time as Sean, and with more or less the similar attitude of a kind of revolutionary politics as a young man. But I always had a sort of heroic view of it, and that did not involve blowing up civilians.

BJ: How far away did you two grow up from each other?

RB: The opposite ends of the country. BJ: So you never knew each other, you never met each other on operations? SO'C: No, no.

BJ: The real issue is that the security forces in Britain still think that you, Ronan, are somehow involved in some- thing or other, or that you were involved in this thing back in the early 1970s, or when- ever it was.

RB: Well, this is not my understanding of the terms of our [agreement]. . . . If you really want to go down that road, I just want to remind you that those weren't the original terms of our agreement.

BJ: I'm interested in your two mindsets, and how Sean has gone through this major conversion. He's changed, he's become a great Unionist.

SO'C: I'm not a Unionist, you can be bloody sure I'm not!

RB: Aren't you?

B.1; You're against the IRA, anyway. You're an agent for peace and reconcilia- tion, and you generally support Trimble.

SO'C: Yes, I support Trimble because I think he's so key to the bloody process.

BJ: And you've disavowed the armed struggle?

SO'C: Yes, absolutely, yes.

BJ: And you've repented? You think it was an awful thing?

SO'C: Yeah, absolutely.

BJ: But, as I take your position, Ronan, you don't think that the armed struggle was a total waste of time?

RB: Where have I said that?

BJ: I don't know what you've said. I'm just asking you what you think.

RB: I would say that we can't rewrite history. I mean, what's happened has hap- pened. I think that the armed struggle was unfortunate. I think it was understandable that it happened, for the same reasons that Sean has said it was understandable. It happened, and therefore the best thing that people could do was to try to bring it to an end. Long before Sean even was talking about a peace process, I was writ- ing articles saying that talks were essential. BJ: Did you ever regard Sean as a traitor?

RB: I think what Sean did was wrong.

BJ: Why?

RB: I take the view, unabashed, that the British state in Ireland is not a helpful presence. I think that Unionism is reac- tionary.

BJ: Why wasn't Sean right to save lives then?

RB: Did you save lives?

BJ: I think he did.

SO'C: I stopped seven tons of guns com- ing into the country; that saved a few lives. BJ: Was that the right thing to do?

RB: I find it difficult, I mean I don't want to. . . .

BJ: Oh, come on, it's not very difficult. It's seven tons of guns.

RB: It is difficult. I mean, there is a thing about informers, there's a thing about agents. Sean may have saved some people, but he's probably led to the deaths of others.

SO'C: No, I'm positive. I'm absolutely positive. There is a place called the Irish Republic. If I was working for the British state, or with the British state, or in co- operation with the British state, so is the Irish government.

RB: It's a difficult one, Boris.

BJ: It's not a difficult one.

RB: I don't know. . . .

SO'C; If Ronan doesn't want to answer, as far as I'm concerned you don't have to. It's a complicated business.

RB: Are there any neutral guns in Ire- land? There are not. The British state's guns are not neutral. The RUC's guns are not neutral.

BJ: But how can you possibly condemn a man who risked his life to stop people bringing more guns in?

RB: What Sean was doing was trying to defeat one side, not the other. To weaken one side, not the other. That wasn't a set- tlement, it's not an answer.

BJ: What is it that you've got against the British, Ronan?

`One at a time, damn it.' RB: I don't have anything against the British; I have a problem with the British presence in Ireland BJ: Why?

RB: Because I think historically. I want you to understand, when this is tran- scribed, I want you to be absolutely clear that I have nothing against the British. I have a problem with the British in Ireland.

BJ: I just wish that people like you recognised that great evil was done by the IRA.

RB: And by the British state.

BJ: Why don't they find the guys who did Omagh?

RB: Who should find them?

BJ: Apparently they know who they are. RB: Evidence is another thing. The police know who they are?

BJ: The IRA know who they are.

SO'C: One of the people killed at Omagh was the son of a Republican fami- ly; I used to stay in the guy's house. The real bloody hard reality is that the police on both sides of the border have a damn good idea exactly who is responsible for Omagh.

BJ: If you found out who did it, would you turn them in?

SO'C: Oh yes, I would, yes.

BJ: Would you, Ronan?

RB: No.

BJ: Why not?

RB: I mean, how would I find out?

BJ: I was just trying to elucidate your attitude.

RB: Look, I don't know how many times I have to say this. I was in favour of a peace process long before you were. I've written more forcibly about it.

BJ: Why wouldn't you turn in the cul- prits of Omagh, then?

RB: I don't know if they did it. I mean, how do I know who these people are?

BJ: If you did know who did it?

RB: If they have the evidence, bring them to court. Absolutely. And if they can convict them, convict them.

BJ: You both have different attitudes to this problem. Now Sean would turn a guy in, if he found out he was responsible.

RB: This is sterile.

BJ: It tells us something, and it tells peo- ple something about how Republicans, moderate Republicans like you, who have an interest in the peace process, still have an instinctive reluctance to dissociate themselves wholly from violence.

RB: No, it's a complete misrepresenta- tion of what I've said.

BJ: The easiest thing for you to say now is: of course, I'd turn them in. Why don't you say that?

RB: Turn them in to the RUC? Turn them in to a completely discredited force?

BJ: Well, turn them in to Special Branch.

RB: Turn them in to courts that have no juries? Do that? Turn anybody in to that situation? That is a very hard thing to ask a Nationalist to do.