US dilemma over IRA's Colombian 'links'

House of Representatives: Difficult choices

Mark Devenport BBC's Northern Ireland Political Editor

Gerry Adams is not the only political figure to face a dilemma in deciding how to handle the inquiry by the US Congress into the IRA's links with Colombia.

Several members of the House of Representatives' International Relations Committee have themselves been posed with difficult choices regarding the hearing.

US Republicans such as the New Yorkers Peter King and Ben Gilman and Representative Chris Smith from New Jersey are long term allies of either Sinn Fein in particular, or Irish nationalism in general.

The same can be said for Democrats like the New Yorkers Joe Crowley and Gary Ackerman.

Wider issues

In the past, the International Relations Committee has debated allegations of human rights abuses in Northern Ireland and called for reforms in policing.

But this is different.

At one stage, Congressman Gilman is reported to have asked for the IRA hearing to be suspended.

However, the committee chairman Henry Hyde, himself an Irish Catholic from Chicago, insisted on pressing ahead.

As committee officials have indicated, there are wider issues at stake than the Irish peace process.

The US Congress sees Colombia as part of America's backyard.

The implication is that Colombia is facing the same threat as that posed to the United States on 11 September

The committee estimates that Colombia supplies 90% of the cocaine and 70% of the heroin sold on American streets.

Any activity which appears to strengthen the Marxist FARC guerrillas, who stand accused of involvement in illegal drug trafficking, is seen as impinging on US national interests.

The White House is already providing military assistance to the Colombian authorities to combat the drug barons.

But several committee members would like that assistance, provided under what is known as Plan Colombia, to be widened out to include all anti-FARC operations.

To back up that argument these friends of Colombia have been at pains to paint FARC as part of an international terrorist conspiracy.

The implication is that Colombia is facing the same threat as that posed to the United States on 11 September.

'Pawns'

This explains the emphasis being placed by the committee on the three IRA suspects arrested in Colombia last August and reports that FARC may be receiving assistance from Iranians, Cubans and the Basque terror group ETA.

So Gerry Adams has a point when he says that both he and the three republicans still in custody in Colombia are pawns in a bigger game.

That said, US politicians' conclusions about what republicans were doing in FARC controlled areas of Colombia will undoubtedly colour their future views on Northern Ireland.

Committee members want their hearing to change US policy towards Colombia.

Whether they achieve that or not, there's no doubt the hearing has turned some previously safe assumptions about the US Congress's attitude towards Ireland on their heads.