Irish Leader Condemns Killings
3 Suspects Arrested In Shooting Deaths Of British Soldiers

By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 15, 2009

LIMERICK, Ireland -- Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said the recent killings of two British soldiers and a police officer in Northern Ireland were carried out by "a few fools" and "psychopaths" whose actions do not threaten peace in the province.

"People have made it very clear there is no support for this," Cowen said in an interview Friday. "This is a small number of very misguided, criminal people who obviously think it's a good idea to shoot people."

Speaking ahead of a trip, starting today, to the United States, where he will meet with President Obama at the White House, Cowen said Northern Ireland is a "totally transformed" province where violence is no longer tolerated.

"This has nothing to do with politics," he said. "The reforms that we've seen bedded down in Northern Ireland, the political developments we've seen there over the last 11 or 12 years, have proven resilient against all attacks."

Cowen, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and Protestant and Catholic leaders in the province have condemned the killings -- the first such slayings in a decade.

Police in Northern Ireland said Saturday that they have arrested three men in connection with the killings of the soldiers, who were gunned down as they collected a pizza delivery at an army base north of Belfast.

The suspects, ages 41, 32 and 21, were arrested in raids on two locations early Saturday, according to police, who did not identify the men. But the BBC and other British media outlets reported that one of the men is Colin Duffy, 41, an Irish Republican Army dissident who has been critical of the group's political wing, Sinn Fein, and its support for the province's police.

Duffy's arrest in the town of Lurgan triggered rioting among youths, who threw gasoline bombs at police. No injuries were reported.

Duffy was convicted in 1993 of murdering a British soldier, but the case against him was dismissed on appeal when a key witness against him turned out to be a loyalist paramilitary soldier. In 1997, Duffy was charged with killing two police officers, but the charges were dropped.

His attorney, Rosemary Nelson, was killed in a car bombing in 1999. Her death is the subject of an ongoing investigation into collusion between British security forces and loyalist paramilitary groups.

Police also have arrested three suspects in the killing of police officer Stephen Carroll, whose funeral Friday drew hundreds of Catholic and Protestant mourners in a defiant show of unity.

The killings were claimed by groups that broke from the IRA, which renounced violence after three decades of sectarian strife.

The Real IRA asserted responsibility for the soldiers' deaths, and the Continuity IRA did so for the police officer's killing. Both small, shadowy splinter groups aim to use violence to force Britain to give up the province and allow it to be reunited with the Republic of Ireland.

"It's a totally united period of determination within Northern Ireland," Cowen said, adding that the killers were "defying the will of the people."

Cowen, who took office in May, will meet Obama for the first time on a trip to New York and Washington to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and promote U.S.-Irish relations and trade. Cowen, who was Ireland's finance minister before taking the top job, said the global economic crisis will top the agenda for the White House meeting.

During more than a decade of rapid growth, Ireland transformed itself from an economic backwater to one of the world's richest nations.

But the ongoing financial crisis has hit hard, forcing the government to pump billions into its ailing banking industry and nationalize the Anglo Irish Bank.

Housing prices have fallen dramatically, and unemployment has soared to more than 10 percent. And on April 7, Cowen's government will introduce an emergency budget with tax increases and service cuts to close a current-year deficit of about $5.8 billion.

Last month, more than 100,000 people took to the streets in Dublin to protest the government's handling of the crisis. The government's approval rating has fallen to as low as 14 percent in some polls.

"Like in the United States, it has come as a great shock -- the severity and swiftness of the change in fortunes," Cowen said, adding that the Irish economy shrank 6 percent last year and is projected to fall 6 percent or more this year.

"People are very worried and anxious about the future; we're in new territory," he said in Limerick, a western city that has been particularly affected by the recession.

Cowen disputed perceptions that Ireland is among the most vulnerable European Union countries, along with Portugal, Greece and Spain. He said the Irish economy is positioned to withstand the recession. "We used our good times to reduce our debt," he said. "Our net debt is just 20 percent of GDP."

"It is a huge challenge; I'm not suggesting otherwise," he said. "But this country intends to come through this crisis."

He also rejected criticism that Ireland's prosperity in the past 10 to 15 years was created by reckless lending by banks and a huge housing bubble, which has now burst.

"It wasn't an illusion. We created an extra 600,000 jobs in the last 10 years. Despite the fact that our unemployment is now over 10 percent, we have still 1.85 million people working in this country."

In the recession of the late 1980s, he said, debt and unemployment were far higher. He cited continued foreign direct investment and said that more than 1,000 foreign companies still operate in Ireland.

He said that about 90,000 Irish people work for U.S. companies operating in Ireland. Less known, he said, is that about 70,000 Americans work for Irish companies operating in the United States.

"Yes, we're going to take a step back the next couple of years, and our standard of living will drop," Cowen said. "But we'll come again. We'll be ready for the upturn when it comes."