Peace process hit by IRA link to Colombian rebels
Hardline unionists tonight warned the Northern Ireland peace process has suffered a hammer blow after a guerrilla deserter claimed IRA members provided weapons and explosives training to Colombian rebels.
According to the attorney general’s office in the capital Bogota, the deserter said three Irish men currently being held in the South American country smuggled missiles and launchers in boxes aboard two small planes more than two years ago.
His claims were seized upon by Peter Robinson, deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, as evidence that the Provisionals are still intent on waging a terror campaign.
The East Belfast MP declared: ‘‘This has done immense damage to the peace process.’’
The arrest of three alleged IRA men in Colombia last year on suspicion they were providing explosives training for the Marxist FARC grouping was a huge embarrassment for Sinn Fein and rocked efforts to cement Northern Ireland’s peace process.
The three detained men, Niall Connolly, James Monaghan and Martin McCauley, insisted they had visited the rebel sanctuary to study Colombia’s peace process.
But the testimony of the deserter, identified only as ‘‘Alexander’’ for security reasons, to officials from the attorney general’s office, and first reported today in the news magazine Cambio, rejects this.
Carolina Sanchez, spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said the deserter’s testimony was accurately reported by the magazine, although officials have not determined if he is telling the truth.
Colombian army chief General Jorge Enrique Mora told a news conference he believed Colombia’s biggest rebel army has received terrorism training from foreign groups, and that the insurgents were using that training in recent attacks on Colombia’s infrastructure.
FARC has blown up dozens of power pylons in recent weeks, causing electricity rationing in some parts of the South American country.
It attacked a reservoir last weekend that provides water to Bogota.
‘‘We can have no doubt that this increase in the use of explosives by the FARC ... is due to these contacts, training and technology they received from other terrorist organisations in the world,’’ General Mora said.
The deserter alleged the three men who arrived at a FARC safe haven with missile launchers in August 1999 resembled the three arrested in August, 2001.
Connolly - Sinn Fein’s link-man in Cuba - Monaghan and McCauley are being held in a Bogota prison while awaiting trial on charges of aiding terrorism.
In Belfast Mr Robinson, the Regional Development minister in Northern Ireland’s power-sharing regime, said he had no doubt the IRA was training FARC recruits.
He also rounded on Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble for entering into government with Sinn Fein.
‘‘Trimble sold the peace process on the basis there was a change of heart as far as the IRA was concerned.
‘‘This shows very clearly that they are not reformed. They haven’t turned over a new leaf, they are still involved in violence.’’
But a Sinn Fein spokesman called for caution.
‘‘Our concern is for the human rights of three men held without charge or trial,’’ he said.
‘‘The way the Colombian authorities are behaving, with selective leaking of information, raises serious concerns about their ability to have a fair trial.’’
