Talk:Decommissioning in Northern Ireland

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"beyond use"

Can someone explain what "beyond use" or "completely and verifiably beyond use" (which are almost invariably the formulas one hears about paramilitary dicommissioning in NI) actually means? I've heard that in practice it means the weapons are encased in concrete. But why do the paramilitaries and the independent monitors who witness the acts use these circumlocutions? Why don't they just describe what happened with more specifics? --Jfruh (talk) 22:23, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The IICD were prohibited (at least with the IRA's weapons, as they had a confidentiality condition) from revealing exactly what weapons were decomissioned or what the process entailed. For example the 2003 act of decomissioning referred to here refers to "arms of light, medium and heavy ordnance and associated munitions". This caused controversy at the time, as unionist politicans wanted to know what weapons had been decomissioned and in what quantities, rather than the vague details given. Encased in concrete is one possible method that has been mentioned frequently, but nobody knows for sure. O Fenian (talk) 22:28, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, but that just pushes the question back a step, doesn't it? Why are the IRA and others keen on keeping the details secret?

If nothing else, the requirement for confidentiality ought to be made more explicit in the articles. I just always find news coverage of these events interesting in that they neither explain what seems to be an important fact in the process nor do they explain why they aren't explaining it? --Jfruh (talk) 23:10, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As the saying goes here Jfruh, what ever you say, say nothing.--Domer48_'fenian' 11:47, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If I remember correctly a main point of contention was unionists wanting photographic evidence. Republicans were against this as they did not want to afford unionist political parties the opportunity to use such in media as a tool to say, 'look what we did, we beat them'. Though obviously republicans would disagree with such a conclusion, it would be an easy media campaign to run. There's a line from the 'Ides of March' by the Ryan Gosling character to the effect, 'I don't care if it's true, I just want to see him saying it's not all day'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.45.128.223 (talk) 15:51, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]