Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY • 291On 31 August 1994 the IRA began a cease-fire and not long afterwardthe main Ulster Protestant militias, including the Ulster Defence Associationand Ulster Volunteer Force, responded with cease-fires oftheir own. In January 1994 President Bill Clinton ordered that a visabe granted to Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to come to Washington,D.C., to confer directly with administration officials concerning theNorthern Ireland peace talks.Due to a lack of political progress, the IRA ended its 17-monthcease-fire on 9 February 1996 by bombing the Docklands area ofLondon, killing two and injuring more than 100 others. Sinn Feinwas then excluded from the peace talks. On 12 June 1996 the Clintonadministration appointed former U.S. senator George Mitchell to serveas a chairman in the peace talks. Following the election of a Labourgovernment, the IRA resumed its cease-fire on 20 July 1997, and SinnFein was readmitted to the talks. The Good Friday Agreement of 10April 1998, also known as the Belfast Agreement, established the basisfor a peaceful settlement of the Northern Ireland conflict. The IRA announcedon 30 April 1998 that it regarded the agreement as defectivebut would continue to maintain its cease-fire. The IRA had been refusingto decommission its weapons because it regarded this as effectivesurrender, but it otherwise accommodated itself to engagement in thepeace process that began with the Anglo-Irish Accord of 1985. Then,on 22 October 2001, Gerry Adams announced in West Belfast thatthe IRA would disarm to comply with the Good Friday Agreementwhile his deputy, Martin McGuinness, made the same announcementthe same day in New York. The following day, the IRA announced itwould proceed to dismantle its stockpiles of arms hidden in variousdepots. These caches included surface-to-air missiles, rocket-propelledgrenades, flamethrowers, detonators, and several tons of Semtex.Since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the peace process inNorthern Ireland has made fitful progress marked by mutual mistrustbetween the IRA and Sinn Fein, on the one hand, and the ProtestantUnionist parties and paramilitaries on the other. This mistrust was fedby the unwillingness of the IRA to decommission its arms quicklyand openly, while the republicans and nationalists had reservationsabout the neutrality and integrity of the new Police Service ofNorthern Ireland (PSNI), which had replaced the Royal Ulster Constabularyin November 2001. In addition, sporadic episodes of IRAviolence and criminality fed further mistrust that impeded formation