Intelligence

Playing the 'Green Card' - Financing the Provisional IRA: Part 1

JOHN HORGAN and MAX. TAYLOR
_______________________________________________________________
Terrorism and Political Violence. Vol. 11, No.2 (Summer 1999).
pp. 1-38 PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON
_______________________________________________________________
In the first of two articles on the fundraising activities of the
Provisional IRA (PIRA), the extent and nature of the PIRA's finance
operations are described. The areas of kidnapping for ransom, armed
robbery. extortion and drug trading, although very specific, serve to
illustrate the nature and potential complexity of fundraising activities,
the general issues that surround them, as well as specific internal
organizational issues and factors indicative of an acute awareness by
PIRA leaders of the environments within which they and members of
their organization operate. How the PIRAs involvement in certain
kinds of criminal activities can and does influence not only their
operational development and successes but also the development and
sustenance of support for the PIRA's political wing, Sinn Fein, is
discussed. It is clear that the absence of direct PIRA involvement in
certain forms of criminality is imperative for the development of Sinn
Fein's political successes. In the second article, which describes how
and why PIRA financing operations have evolved into a much more
sophisticated and technical set of activities (including money
laundering), what emerges is a picture of the PIRA and Sinn Fein
which serves to portray one of the most important long-term,
fundamental, limiting factors for the development of a large,
sophisticated terrorist group (and its political wing) as finance, and
not solely the personal or ideological commitment of its active
members. Both of these articles will illustrate the PIRA leadership's
many internal organizational concerns relating to fundraising, the
links between the PIRA's militants and Sinn Fein - and between PIRA
and Sinn Fein fundraising - and the relative sophistication of the
Republican movement as a whole. Aiding these illustrations will be
case study material, interview data and both public and privately-held
documentation. The descriptive data, surrounding issues and its
implications presented here, along with case-study material,
discussions and interpretations presented in a second article serve to
illustrate the many more general and conceptual issues emerging from
terrorist financing.

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