A farewell to arms.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Though its bloody past is littered with broken promises, the Irish Republican Army's announcement Thursday that it has abandoned armed resistance offers genuine hope for the people of Belfast and Britain.

Skeptics - and there are many - can be forgiven for holding their applause until actions confirm the verbal commitments. But those familiar with the intractable "Troubles" in Northern Ireland see something different in the latest IRA olive branch. The leadership's unequivocal order to all units to "dump arms" and shift efforts to "purely political and democratic programs through exclusively peaceful means" lacks the ambiguity and semantic escape clauses of earlier pronouncements.

To the British government and the Protestant unionists in Northern Ireland, there is only one IRA act that can prove good faith: the complete destruction of the paramilitary organization's vast arsenal, accompanied by credible independent verification. Disagreements over what constitutes proof of disarmament have derailed earlier cease-fire ef- forts.

The IRA's latest initiative allows the weapons decommissioning to be witnessed by disarmament chief General John de Chastelain and a Catholic priest and a Protestant minister appointed by the government. All well and good, but no mention has been made of providing the photographic evidence that has been demanded previously.

Though the initial focus is appropriately on disarmament, that's far from the only change the IRA must make to honor Thursday's historic commitment to use only legal means to achieve its goals. Beneath its proud nationalist rhetoric and well-cultivated Catholic victimhood, the IRA has often been indistinguishable from the Mafia. IRA thugs have been involved in protection rackets, counterfeiting, smuggling and numerous robberies, including a $50 million Belfast bank heist in 2004 that was the biggest cash theft in British history.

Forsaking the criminal enterprises that have funded IRA operations and enriched a handful of nationalist leaders won't be easy. It's complicated by the fact that for three decades, the IRA has considered Irish police forces to be the enemy. For the pledges in Thursday's statement to become reality, republicans must finally recognize and submit to the authority of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Even if the IRA delivers on every promise, bitter experience teaches that real peace depends on a commitment by both sides. Unionists are currently in the thrall of the hard-line anti-Catholic Rev. Ian Paisley, who has silenced moderates and refused to negotiate with Sinn Fein, the IRA's political arm. Unless leaders within Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party can persuade him to respond in kind to IRA disarmament, the violence will continue.

As with the Israelis and Palestinians, there are fanatics on both sides of the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland who don't want the fighting to end. After more than 3,700 deaths over 30 years, 1,700 of which came at the hands of the IRA, some minds have been warped by the thirst for revenge.

It will be up to republicans and unionists who have had enough of wakes and wailing over caskets to ignore rogue acts of violence and stay the course toward peace.