The bankrupt IRA
IN THE opening scene of ''The Godfather," Don Corleone agrees that his thugs will beat up two men to provide rough justice for an aggrieved father. The Irish Republican Army showed itself no different from this fictional Mafia family with its offer to shoot the men who killed Robert McCartney in January.
The Mafia, however, never organized a political party as its accomplice and agent. Sinn Fein, the IRA's adjunct, cannot play the leading role it wants in Northern Ireland politics until the IRA goes out of business.
McCartney's sisters, who have urged the IRA to help bring the killers to justice, have wisely refused to endorse a vigilante shooting. The IRA acknowledged the offer on Tuesday when it issued a statement giving its version of the killing, which took place after a confrontation in a pub in Belfast and had nothing to do with politics.
The IRA dominates the Short Strand -- where the McCartneys live -- and other nationalist neighborhoods in Northern Ireland because it, not the government, decides what constitutes a crime and deals out punishments. Acceptance of the IRA offer would provide legitimacy to a criminal enterprise.
McCartney's killers were going to get away with the crime because witnesses were intimidated into silence. The public outcry led by the sisters forced the IRA into the meeting and an admission that four men were involved. The McCartneys think the IRA is covering up for others. The IRA says it wants people to come forward. The proof of its intention will be the testimony of witnesses.
In a show of sympathy, Sinn Fein's president, Gerry Adams, invited the sisters to a party meeting Saturday. ''We know that breaking the law is a crime," Adams said then. ''But we refuse to criminalize those who break the law in pursuit of legitimate political objectives." The IRA justifies its existence and its crimes by saying it is trying to unite Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic. Adams's remarks played into this rationale for violence.
The Bush administration, to its credit, has continued the Northern Ireland peace initiative begun by Bill Clinton. Mitchell Reiss, the administration's special envoy, was right to state plainly yesterday that if the political process is to advance, the IRA must cease to exist. It is so entwined with Sinn Fein that only dissolution can allow the party to become a fully accepted political force. If the IRA stays in operation, the Bush administration will be justified in examining whether Sinn Fein fund-raising in the United States runs afoul of US laws against racketeering.
Don Corleone's family never broke its ties to criminality despite generations of trying. Neither will IRA/Sinn Fein, as shown by the $50 million bank robbery last December and the McCartney coverup, until the IRA publicly and irrevocably disbands. 