Interview with Sinn Fein leader

By Sean Healy If the dramatic ending of the Irish Republican Army's cease-fire on February 9 was aimed at breaking the 14-month deadlock in the Northern Irish peace process, it has certainly succeeded. But now the British government looks poised to exclude the republican party Sinn Féin, and the sizeable section of the population it represents, from the process altogether. While one of the key demands of the republican movement, for Britain to set a date for all party talks, has been met with the announcement that they will begin on June 10, recent events have shown the direction in which Britain wants to take such talks. Preliminary direct talks between the British government and the government of the Republic of Ireland began on March 5, with the pro-British Unionist parties boycotting and Sinn Féin excluded. When Sinn Féin leaders, including president Gerry Adams, turned up at the gate of Northern Ireland's former parliament at Stormont seeking entry to the talks, they were denied it. Britain's position has been that Sinn Féin will remain excluded from multiparty talks until the IRA resumes its cease-fire and lays down its arms. Speaking of the incident, Sinn Féin national executive member Dodie McGuinness told Green Left Weekly, "All Sinn Féin was seeking to do was defend the right of those who elected us. We do have a clear mandate from our constituency, and we were seeking to exercise that." Given such a position from Britain, the IRA has refused to declare another cease-fire and decommission its armed units. Said McGuinness, "Opinion polls have repeatedly said that popular support is behind multiparty talks with no preconditions, which involve all parties, multiparty talks convened without being mixed up with issues like decommissioning and elections. This is something else entirely." Britain's plan at this stage revolves around the talks themselves, starting on June 10, and around elections in the north, ostensibly to elect negotiating teams to represent sections of the northern Irish public. Accompanying elections would be a referendum, in both the north and the south, on support for the peace process. Sinn Féin's opposition to such elections in the north has been clear from the beginning. Memories of Stormont, which existed as an oppressive, Unionist-dominated and gerrymandered institution right up until 1972, are still fresh in the minds of many. In fact, in an article published soon after the ending of the cease-fire, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams described any such new body as a "unionist quango", one to be used by British Prime Minister John Major to buy "off unionist support at Westminster". Dodie McGuinness added, "We have all contested elections since 1982, for local councils, for Westminster, for the European parliament. The parties do have a mandate, including our own. Why do we need another such test?" Replying to claims by some press commentators that the reason for Sinn Féin's opposition to such elections lies in its lack of public support, she continued, "We have figures stretching back all the way to 1982. We've contested most elections, and most of them were in the period of armed conflict. In all of these, our electorate is clearly there." The proof of this is clear from surveying northern Irish politics. Sinn Féin remains, for example, the second largest party on Belfast City Council, and it has a large number of local councillors throughout the northern six counties. Until the last election, when he was narrowly defeated, Gerry Adams was the elected MP for West Belfast. Sinn Féin and the more moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) are the only parties with significant support in the nationalist communities of the North. In spite of this, John Major seems convinced that elections will damage Sinn Féin and has worked to build a consensus with the Dublin government and the Unionist parties around their necessity. As yet, however, no date has been declared for an election, nor is there any clarity on what the status and powers of such an elected body would be. Further, there has even been the proposal put forward that only those parties who explicitly "renounce violence" will be allowed entrance, though again the status of this proposal is still up in the air. Such a prerequisite is clearly aimed at Sinn Féin and the republican movement, which in turn have pointed to the uselessness of such a "renunciation" when British troop levels in northern Ireland are the same as what they were before the cease-fire in August 1994 and when the Royal Ulster Constabulary remains in place. On the substance of the talks themselves, Dodie McGuinness pointed out, "There's been no indication at all of what's to be discussed, except of course for Unionist demands for the decommissioning of weapons to be the main item of discussion. "We would like to see a range of issues discussed, such as the status of the police force, questions of justice and the continued imprisonment of political prisoners. And we've stated that we're prepared to discuss any issues. The British and Irish governments have not; they've been very vague about it." From Britain's attitude, it's become clear that their continuing motive is not a lasting peace in Ireland but the total defeat of the republican movement and the aspirations for a united country. Asked what she believed was needed for the peace process to continue, McGuinness replied, "The process has to be involving; all parties have to be involved, with no-one ruled out. It's only then that they'll be able to work out a package of changes, similar to that worked out by Gerry Adams, [SDLP leader] John Hume and [then Irish PM] Albert Reynolds before the cease-fire, which still hasn't been acted upon. It's only then the present vacuum can be filled."