N.IRELAND: Adams Seeks International Support to Force Britain Out

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sarah O'Hara

DUBLIN, Feb 25 1995 (IPS) - Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams Saturday urged the international community to pressure Britain into pulling out of Northern Ireland, his call coming days after the British and Irish governments unveiled a framework agreement for peace talks.

“In the United States and in Britain, the European Union and internationally, solidarity work must aim to bring maximum pressure on the British government to adopt a policy of disengagement based on Britain becoming positive persuaders for ending the union,” Adams said.

His comments were made in Dublin at this weekend’s annual conference of Sinn Fein, the political ally of the Irish Republican Party (IRA), which has been waging a violent struggle to force the British authorities to quit Northern Ireland.

The British government have said repeatedly, over the last year in particular, that it has no selfish or strategic interests in maintaining control over Northern Ireland which has been partitioned from what is now the Republic of Ireland for 70 years.

The British say they will stay as long as a majority so wish, and they refuse to act as ‘persuaders” for a united Ireland.

The mainly Protestant majority is pro-British union, and have no incentive to leave the United Kingdom. The minority Catholics who say they have been discriminated, seek a united Ireland.

“Unionists traditionally support the union because it enables them to be ‘top of the heap’ in the Six Counties (Northern Ireland was formed from six of the nine counties in Ulster, the northern part of Ireland, where Protestants are in the majority),” Adams said.

“The northern state was founded and is sustained on discrimination. It was and is underwritten by policies determined by London … it is British policy which labels nationalists generally, and Sinn Fein voters in particular, as inferior and second class,” he went on.

Although Adams made several references to “ending partition”, his speech also emphasised the importance of the democratic process in achieving Sinn Fein objectives.

He talked about “making new alliances” and “generosity” in response to previous wrongs inflicted, and of “solving problems, democratically”.

If there is to ever be a united Ireland, which has been top of the IRA and Sinn Fein agenda for the last 25 years, it would be achieved through debate and agreement, he said.

By way of emphasis he said that while Sinn Fein is keen to see “the end of British involvement in our country”, there was also a need “to make peace with a section of our people (Protestants) whose political leadership has sought so far only to oppress us. This is our historic task”.

Northern Ireland has been at peace for more than five months following the IRA’s ceasefire on Aug. 31 and then that of the pro- British loyalist paramilitaries in October.

Since then the Irish government in Dublin and the British authorities have been working towards finilising a framework agreement to advance the peace process, leading up to the ‘Framework for Peace’ document released earlier this week.

The Framework document reiterates previous policy statements by the two governments that there can be no change in the status of Northern Ireland without the agreement of a majority within the province.

In a separate document also published this week, the British government proposed a 90-member assembly for Northern Ireland, which might be monitored by a panel of three representatives elected by the people by means of proportional representation.

The assembly would cover a wide range of issues, but it would have no tax-raising powers and no governmental control — at least initially — over law and order or Northern Ireland’s controversial armed police force, Britain’s Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Sinn Fein are willing — and anxious — to enter talks on the Framework Document but the two pro-British Northern Ireland parties said they will not hold negotiations on what they claim is a nationalist agenda.

But deputy Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness, who has most influence with the IRA, told delegates attending the conference that this was not Sinn Fein’s intention.

“We are not looking for a victory over unionists or over anyone else. We want to be inclusive, to build an Ireland where all can be equal and free from oppression,” McGuinness said, adding that “we (republicans and unionists) must build the future together as equals”.