Allister Comments on Scrapping of IMC
04 November 2010
Statement by the TUV leader Jim Allister:
“TUV has – quite rightly – been robust in its criticism of the IMC in the past. In November 2008, for example, I highlighted how it was a total contradiction to claim that the IRA was committed to an “exclusively political path” while at the same time reporting that IRA semtex was used in an attack on police officers
“Similarly, while the IMC rightly pointed out the involvement of the UVF leadership in the murder of Bobby Moffett they gave the hierarchy of the IRA a by-ball when it came to the brutal killing of Paul Quinn.
“In short, time and again the IMC failed to highlight the involvement of so-called mainstream Republicans in terrorism and allowed itself to become little more than a tool of the appeasement process.
“That said, the retention of the IMC did at least suggest that the government was interested in what terrorists were up to. In this respect, today’s announcement is a retrograde step.
“It is an opportune time to remember that the IMC’s sister body – the International Independent Commission on Decommissioning – has yet to publish its inventory of IRA weapons decommissioned in 2005, something they promised to hand to the London and Dublin Governments when their mandate was complete.”
