Reports obtained from:
(1) Irish Republican News, (2) Irish News
Wednesday, 6 April, 2005
Friday, 8 April, 2005
Friday-Monday, 8-11 April, 2005
Tuesday-Friday, 12-15 April, 2005
Adams calls on IRA to embrace politics
By Irish Republican News
The following is the text of a significant keynote speech today by Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams at Conway Mill in Belfast, in which he urges the Provisional IRA to build political support as an alternative to armed struggle.
I want to speak directly to the men and women of Oglaigh na hEireann, the volunteer soldiers of the Irish Republican Army.
In time of great peril you stepped into the Bearna Baoil, the gap of danger. When others stood idly by, you and your families gave your all, in defence of a risen people and in pursuit of Irish freedom and unity.
Against mighty odds you held the line and faced down a huge military foe, the British crown forces and their surrogates in the unionist death squads.
Eleven years ago the Army leadership ordered a complete cessation of military operations. This courageous decision was in response to proposals put forward by the Sinn Fein leadership to construct a peace process, build democratic politics and achieve a lasting peace.
Since then despite many provocations and setbacks the cessation has endured.
And more than that, when elements within the British and Irish establishments and rejectionist unionism delayed progress, it was the IRA leadership which authorised a number of significant initiatives to enhance the peace process.
On a number of occasions commitments have been reneged on. These include commitments from the two governments.
The Irish Republican Army has kept every commitment made by its leadership.
The most recent of these was last December when the IRA was prepared to support a comprehensive agreement. At that time the Army leadership said the implementation of this agreement would allow everyone, including the IRA, to take its political objectives forward by peaceful and democratic means.
That agreement perished on the rock of unionist intransigence. The shortsightedness of the two governments compounded the difficulties.
Since then there has been a vicious campaign of vilification against republicans, driven in the main by the Irish government. There are a number of reasons for this.
The growing political influence of Sinn Fein is a primary factor.
The unionists also for their part, want to minimise the potential for change, not only on the equality agenda but on the issues of sovereignty and ending the union.
The IRA is being used as the excuse by them all not to engage properly in the process of building peace with justice in Ireland.
For over thirty years the IRA showed that the British government could not rule Ireland on its own terms. You asserted the legitimacy of the right of the people of this island to freedom and independence. Many of your comrades made the ultimate sacrifice.
Your determination, selflessness and courage have brought the freedom struggle towards its fulfillment.
That struggle can now be taken forward by other means. I say this with the authority of my office as President of Sinn Fein.
In the past I have defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle. I did so because there was no alternative for those who would not bend the knee, or turn a blind eye to oppression, or for those who wanted a national republic.
Now there is an alternative.
I have clearly set out my view of what that alternative is. The way forward is by building political support for republican and democratic objectives across Ireland and by winning support for these goals internationally.
I want to use this occasion therefore to appeal to the leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann to fully embrace and accept this alternative.
Can you take courageous initiatives which will achieve your aims by purely political and democratic activity?
I know full well that such truly historic decisions can only be taken in the aftermath of intense internal consultation. I ask that you initiate this as quickly as possible.
I understand fully that the IRAs most recent positive contribution to the peace process was in the context of a comprehensive agreement. But I also hold the very strong view that republicans need to lead by example.
There is no greater demonstration of this than the IRA cessation in the summer of 1994.
Sinn Fein has demonstrated the ability to play a leadership role as part of a popular movement towards peace, equality and justice.
We are totally commited to ending partition and to creating the conditions for unity and independence. Sinn Fein has the potential and capacity to become the vehicle for the attainment of republican objectives.
The Ireland we live in today is also very different place from 15 years ago. There is now an all-Ireland agenda with huge potential.
Nationalists and republicans have a confidence that will never again allow anyone to be treated as second class citizens. Equality is our watchword.
The catalyst for much of this change is the growing support for republicanism.
Of course, those who oppose change are not going to simply roll over. It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo. But if republicans are to prevail, if the peace process is to be successfully concluded and Irish sovereignty and re-unification secured, then we have to set the agenda - no one else is going to do that.
So, I also want to make a personal appeal to all of you - the women and men volunteers who have remained undefeated in the face of tremendous odds.
Now is the time for you to step into the Bearna Baoil again; not as volunteers risking life and limb but as activists in a national movement towards independence and unity.
Such decisions will be far reaching and difficult. But you never lacked courage in the past. Your courage is now needed for the future.
It won,t be easy. There are many problems to be resolved by the people of Ireland in the time ahead. Your ability as republican volunteers, to rise to this challenge will mean that the two governments and others cannot easily hide from their obligations and their responsibility to resolve these problems.
Our struggle has reached a defining moment.
I am asking you to join me in seizing this moment, to intensify our efforts, to rebuild the peace process and decisively move our struggle forward.
Sinn Féin remains committed to a political alternative to conflict
By Pat Doherty, Irish News
The singular focus of the Sinn Féin leadership since we formally adopted the Sinn Féin peace strategy over 15 years ago has been to bring conflict to an end through the creation of a viable political alternative based on equality, inclusivity and mutual respect.
And we have made enormous progress. The situation today bears little resemblance to that of 15 years ago. The daily killings, bombings, arrests and imprisonments are broadly speaking now a thing of the past and we have put equality and a United Ireland at the centre of the political agenda.
But of course, we are not at the end of the road. Collectively, we have much more work ahead of us to deliver an Ireland of equals, united and free from the bitter divisions of the past.
Despite the enormous and central contribution that Sinn Féin has made to the peace process, sections of the establishment media and some political leaders have recently returned to the agenda of marginalisation, exclusion and criminalisation. The most recent example is the opinion piece by Eddie McGrady in the Irish News.
These people argue that the IRA is a criminal organisation. Indeed the most vociferous condemnation comes from those figures who have played little role in the peace process. So it comes as no real surprise that he is again a vocal advocate of the politics of exclusion and marginalisation.
Of course, propaganda campaigns, which describe Irish republicans as criminals, are nothing new. This is a well-worn tactic which has failed time after time. It has been a feature of British and Irish government propaganda machines over recent years and in every generation where Irish people stood up to British injustice and oppression.
It was most notably and tragically employed by the Thatcher government in the late 1970s, leading to the deaths of 10 young Irishmen on hunger strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh.
Bobby Sands and his comrades died long and agonising deaths to defy Thatcher's attempts to brand them as criminals. The criminalisation policy was focused on naked, isolated prisoners but its rationale went far beyond the grim prison cells of the H-Blocks. It was a British attempt to brand Ireland's struggle for freedom as 800 years of crime.
But the real criminal was Maggie Thatcher. The real criminals were those who beat and starved naked and defenceless prisoners. The real criminals were the British army and RUC gunmen who fired 40,000 plastics bullets at peaceful demonstrations during that awful month of May 1981, killing men, women and young children.
And there were others who were guilty of silent indifference in the face of British inhumanity and British criminality. The Dublin government stayed silent while Kieran Doherty, an elected member of the Irish parliament, died in Long Kesh.
SDLP MPs stayed silent while Bobby Sands, their fellow MP, died in Long Kesh. The silence and indifference of the post-nationalists parties, north and south, is in stark contrast to their current hysterical attacks on republicans.
Eddie McGrady uses every forum available to attack and berate Sinn Féin. But we believe the SDLP is much less vocal when it comes to the many, many victims of collusion and state violence.
The British Prime Minister and the British Secretary of State continue to cover up the activities of their agents and to hide the truth about collusion with loyalist death squads.
But we see little evidence of indignation and outrage about these deaths or the cover-ups by British politicians. Far from achieving a ban on plastic bullets, as they promised to do before endorsing policing arr-angements, the SDLP now sit on a Policing Board which has purchased tens of thousands of these lethal weapons for use against their own people. Why is this so? Well, challenging British violence validates the republican analysis so, while republicans are publicly attacked at every opportunity, British and loyalist violence is paid only lip service.
Of course there is criminality in our society but that is not unique to the north of Ireland and, of course, everything possible must be done to bring criminality to an end.
So let me be absolutely clear, Sinn Féin is opposed to criminality and to crime. No republican should be involved in any way in such activity and if they are, they should stop.
Anyone involved in criminal activity, no matter what their politics, should be subjected to due legal process and their victims are entitled to justice. There should be no equivocation about any of this.
But neither should there be selective condemnations or a hierarchy of victims in which some victims are elevated above others. No-one has a monopoly on loss and suffering.
The challenge for all of us is to ensure that the political conditions which created and sustained conflict and armed groups are removed and are never repeated.
This is at the heart of the peace process – the creation of a viable political alternative to conflict.
Sinn Féin has been the dynamic behind this. We are committed to the successful conclusion of the peace process and have the determination and ability to achieve this. In the negotiations that will follow directly from the forthcoming elections Sinn Féin will defend and build upon the progress already made.
We will face up to the difficult issues and we will play our part in resolving these difficulties.
The agenda of progress and of change must continue because the status quo is not tenable.
The opponents of Sinn Féin and of the peace process can only stall change. They cannot prevent it.
Pat Doherty is the Vice President of Sinn Féin.
Copyright © 2005 Irish News
Friday-Monday, 8-11 April, 2005
Adams backs non-violence
By Irish Republican News
Sinn Fein President has described his appeal to the Provisional IRA last week to commit itself to purely political and democratic activity as an attempt to break the "downward spiral" of the peace process and "create the right political context".
Speaking in Derry today, Mr Adams expanded on his historic appeal for an end to armed struggle which he said was "aimed directly at IRA Volunteers and the IRA support base".
"The logic is straight-forward," he said.
"The IRA is being used as the excuse to delay the process of building peace with justice on this island.
"Furthermore, unless there is bold and decisive action the peace process is going backwards. Who do we expect to take such bold and decisive action? Ian Paisley? David Trimble? Paul Murphy? Michael McDowell?
"The downward spiral of the peace process is not in the interests of the majority of people on this island.
"It is therefore not in the interests of republicans. It is not in the interests, in my opinion, of the IRA."
Mr Adams’ address was welcomed by political and church leaders in Ireland, Europe and the U.S. In an initial response, the IRA said it would give Adams' call "due consideration."
The IRA has substantially disarmed in recent years but has rejected calls for it to disband or stand down, pointing to the failure of the Dublin and London governments to abide by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
It had been reported that a decision by the IRA on Mr Adams's appeal could be expected within weeks.
However, Mr Adams told journalists in Derry today that he believed the process could take longer.
"I have to say that in my opinion, it is not likely that the IRA's process can conclude as hastily as that. Not if there is going to be a proper inclusive debate, with the possibility of the response that I am looking for."
The Catholic Primate of Ireland, Archbishop Sean Brady described Mr Adams's address as “helpful and very significant”.
A spokesman for the administration of the US President, Richard Boucher, said it was encouraged, although he added that it is waiting for concrete action in the form of an IRA response.
US Congressman Peter King said he believed the IRA could now wind up.
"In terms of Irish history this is certainly an enormous statement, the fact that he's asking the IRA to stand down. When you look at this ... in the full context of history it's a very, very dramatic step forward.
Mr Adams has again rejected suggestions that Sinn Féin is merely engaged in a pre-election media stunt.
“It was an attempt to create conditions where there can be proper engagement. This is about leadership. It is about trying to give leadership in difficult circumstances.
“The atmosphere was getting poisonous for the last few months. If things remained where they were, things were going to get more and more poisonous.
“If the situation had continued without an initiative like this, I think the whole thing would just have gone down the tubes in the months ahead and I could not, as part of a leadership, allow that to happen,” Mr Adams said.
Referring to the initiative as “a very sensitive and delicate part in this new phase in the process”, Mr Adams admitted that many republicans will have difficulties with the development.
“This is going to be a very difficult discussion for republicans to engage in, and don’t think for one moment that when I made my remarks republicans were jumping up and down in front of their television screens and shouting ‘hallelujah’,” Mr Adams said.
“I want to see people take ownership of this debate.
“This is a very, very difficult issue for people to come to terms with and they have to be given the space,” he said.
Mr Adams also repeated his insistence that a viable, non-violent political alternative now exists to replace armed struggle.
“I was one of those people who always argued for an alternative and who defended, when there was a need to defend, armed struggle.
“It is now my view that there is an alternative. There is a change in the confidence of nationalist and republican people throughout this entire island.
“There is, for the first time since the 1920s, a viable Sinn Féin structure throughout the entire island. There is an all-Ireland agenda.
“The Good Friday Agreement essentially is an accommodation within an all-Ireland context, so all of those issues need to be driven ahead.
“The way forward is the way that I outlined. Those of us who want this to work have a duty to take risks for peace and to try and give others from opposite political views the opportunity to work with us in the time ahead. I have set out the course of action that we want people to take and I’m not going to unsay that,” Mr Adams added.
Tuesday-Friday, 12-15 April, 2005
McGuinness discusses Adams initiative with US envoy
By Irish Republican News
Sinn Fein MP Martin McGuinness, taking two days off from his Westminster re-election campaign to visit the US, had a 45-minute meeting with the Bush administration's envoy to Mitchell Reiss, in Washington on Wednesday. Mr Reiss described it as a "good meeting" and a "business-like session", held at Mr McGuinness's request.
They discussed Gerry Adams's recent appeal to the Provisional IRA, the upcoming elections, and how the peace process can be put on course, Mr Reiss said.
Speaking following the meeting, Mr McGuinness described Mr Adams's appeal to the IRA calling for it to adopt only democratic and political methods as "a hugely significant initiative aimed at advancing the peace process and moving us out of the current deep impasse.
"This was a genuine attempt on behalf of Sinn Fein to show the necessary political leadership at what is undoubtedly a difficult period in the process.
"Gerry Adams's initiative has been well received by both the British and Irish governments and by the Administration and political opinion here in the US. The fact that I am here in the US while other political leaders in the North are engaged solely on the election campaign is a demonstration of the seriousness with which we are taking forward this initiative.
"There is a narrow window of opportunity to get down to serious negotiations after the Westminster and local government elections. If this is to succeed then it is important that all in political leadership including the two governments display the necessary political will to see real progress made. That will involve difficult decisions for all, not just republicans."
Asked if he was optimistic about the IRA response to the Sinn Fein leader's speech, Mr Reiss said, "I wanted to hear from Martin how he saw things developing in the weeks and months ahead and I have no reason to be less or more optimistic."
Mr McGuinness was also a guest yesterday of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy at a lunch hosted to mark what was described as the "historic initiative" taken by Sinn Fein.