World

Mass Release Of N.Irish Guerrillas

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

July 28, 2000 / 8:33 AM EDT / CBS

To some in Northern Ireland, it's the exclamation point that says "the war in Northern Ireland is over."

Britain released the first of 86 jailed republican and loyalist guerrillas whom it says will be set free on Friday under Northern Ireland's landmark Good Friday peace accord.

An unidentified prisoner, believed to be a pro-British loyalist, stepped from the high-walled Maze top security prison, 10 miles south of Belfast, and was warmly greeted by friends in its crowded visitors' car park.

Convicted murderers and bombers hugged friends and relatives as they enjoyed their first taste of freedeom, reports CBS News Correspondent Trevor Birney.

But not everyone is supports the mass release.

One of the victims of terrorism in Northern Ireland was Sharon McBride, whose husband Alan has deeply mixed feelings about the early releases of the bombers.

"I have had to accept it but I've never, ever said that I thought it was right or just. In fact, I've always said it was the complete opposite," said McBride.

"I have always thought that it was one part of the agreement that was wrong and unjust," McBride continued. "Having said that, I'm also realistic to know that we would never have had a Good Friday agreement, or a peace process, or a government up and running like we do now, if it hadn't included the early release of prisoners."

Britain says it will free 78 prisoners from the Maze and eight from other jails who qualify for early release from long sentences because their guerrilla groups are operating cease-fires that underpin the province's fragile peace process.

The releases bring to 428 the number of Protestant loyalist and pro-Irish Roman Catholic republicans freed under the 1998 accord. The Maze - which gained notoriety as western Europe's biggest guerrilla jail - is being left with around 16 inmates and will close by the end of the year, officials said.

"We acknowledge the release of prisoners today will not be welcomed by everyone and we understand and sympathise with that view," William Smith of the Progressive Unionist Party said Friday. "It is not our intention to glorify this occasion."

Friday's prisoners comprise 53 republicans, including 46 Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrillas, and 33 loyalists from various armed groups.

Meanwhile, police in Croatia have seized a shipment of missiles, machine guns and explosives believed to have been destined for renegade Irish republican guerrilla groups, the Irish Times reported on Friday.

Croatian police have made a number of arrests in connection with the haul earlier this week in the Adriatic port city of Split, the report said. Senior Irish police officers had traveled to Split following the discovery, it added.

The newspaper said police in Ireland had detained a suspected leader of hard-line republican guerrilla group the Continuity IRA in connection with the operation.

Irish police had no immediat comment on the report.

Guerrillas from the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA have joined forces in order to buy arms internationally and smuggle them into Ireland, the report said.

Renegade republican groups opposed to Northern Ireland's peace process are seen as a growing threat to security in the British-ruled province and mainland Britain.

The Real IRA, which killed 29 people in a car bombing in the Northern Irish town of Omagh in 1998, is believed to be stepping up its operations. It was suspected of planting a bomb near a London railway station last week and Irish police chief Pat Byrne recently said the group was actively recruiting.

Security sources say Real IRA membership has grown to more than 100 people since it forged closer ties with the Continuity IRA. Both groups are offshoots of the mainstream IRA, which is observing a cease-fire and recently opened up a number of its weapons dumps to international monitors in a move to shore up the Northern Irish peace process.