Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY • 293missioning of IRA arms, but the DUP rejected that proposal. The cruxof the disagreement was the DUP demand for photographic recordingor other independent evidence of the decommissioning, while the IRAinsisted that Chastelain’s witnessing the decommissioning was sufficientverification. When the IRA later allowed a Catholic priest andMethodist minister to observe the decommissioning as neutral thirdparties, Paisley rejected this as insufficient independent confirmationdue to the DUP having had no say in the selection of the Protestantobserver. On 20 July 2005 the IRA announced it had ordered all ofits units to dump their arms and on 28 July 2005 ordered all its unitsto end the armed campaign in favor of purely political activity. On 26September 2005, General Chastelain stated that he was satisfied thatall of the IRA arms were now “beyond use.”On 7 January 2004 an Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC)composed of four retired public officials from Northern Ireland, theRepublic of Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States hadbeen set up by the British and Irish governments to promote the establishmentof a stable and inclusive devolved government in NorthernIreland. It would report to the British and Irish governments onactivity by paramilitary groups and on British compliance with stepsto normalize security and law enforcement in Northern Ireland, andwould investigate claims by members of the Northern Ireland Assemblyas to whether other parties, or ministers in a devolved Executive,were shirking their duties of compliance with the peace process.By 4 October 2006 the IMC confirmed that the IRA had dismantledits military structure and was making progress in restraining criminalactivities by some of its members.Other issues that had been stumbling blocks to cooperation betweenthe IRA and Unionist parties in restoring self-government ina Northern Ireland Executive was the apparent unwillingness of theIRA to accept the legitimacy of the newly reorganized Police Serviceof Northern Ireland and also to control the lawlessness of some of itsmembers. On 13 June 2002, reports of IRA training of RevolutionaryArmed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels in Colombia, as well asof IRA weapons testing in FARC-controlled areas, led to British andUlster Unionist accusations that the IRA had violated the Good FridayAgreement, which Sinn Fein denied. On 16 July 2002 the IRA offeredan apology to the families and loved ones of those it had slain duringits 30-year campaign against British rule. The United States continued