Sinn Fein's Ard Fheis (annual conference) was held in Dublin on February 26-27. Media attention focused on the party's response to a joint statement from the British and Irish prime ministers last December, known as the Downing Street Declaration. The 270 journalists present, including TV crews from 13 countries, attended despite Sinn Fein making it clear that the Ard Fheis would take no decision on the declaration. MARTIN McGUINNESS, a Derry councillor and member of Sinn Fein's national executive, spoke by telephone with Green Left Weekly's CATHERINE BROWN about the conference and Sinn Fein's peace strategy.
"The main message to come out of the Ard Fheis is a unanimous endorsement of Sinn Fein's peace strategy and total support for the efforts of Gerry Adams and John Hume", stated McGuinness.
From early 1993, Gerry Adams from Sinn Fein and John Hume, leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, held talks culminating in a joint statement that was presented in October to the Irish and British governments. Without knowing its content 72% of Irish people in the south indicated support for the Hume-Adams initiative. This Irish initiative and the revelation that the British government was holding secret talks with Sinn Fein pressured John Major's government to be seen to be acting. Hence, the Downing Street Declaration.
When the joint government declaration was announced on December 15, the media responded with headlines such as "Peace Within Hours" and "Historic Peace Settlement".
The British Daily Mirror carried a front-page photo of a wall outside Sinn Fein's Belfast office with the word "Peace" written on it. The article claimed that even in the republican heartlands, "surrender" was being demanded. But an Irish Voice journalist observed the same wall and the words cropped out of the photo "Peace: Support the Adams/Hume Process".
Although there is a strong desire for peace in the nationalist areas of the north, there is general agreement with the words of a former 1980 hunger striker, Tommy McKearney: "I don't think that means it's reached the stage where they are prepared to accept any solution".
The governments' declaration talks of supporting "self-determination". But it reaffirms the Unionist veto over the future of the six counties of the north of Ireland's. Sinn Fein's response was to seek clarification of this apparent contradiction, thereby placing the onus on the British and Irish governments to prove it was a real peace proposal.
"Our ability to make a decision about the declaration is hampered by the British government being reluctant to give us the clarification which we require", explained McGuinness. "The Downing Street Declaration was born from the Irish peace initiative championed by Gerry Adams and John Hume."
In the declaration the British government claims it has no strategic or economic interest in Ireland. Albert Reynolds, the Irish prime minister, welcomed this claim, commenting, "British imperialist interest in Ireland is dead, even if we still have to resolve some of its legacy".
McGuinness responds, "Obviously, they have a political interest, and if the British government didn't have a political interest, then they would have stated that. That's one of the difficulties we are facing at the moment.
"I still think the situation is hopeful. There are areas that are worthy of further exploration and we are attempting to do that."
But McGuinness insists that the route to peace lies in the British government dropping the Unionist veto over the future of the six counties.
"The British government says that for Sinn Fein to be involved in talks the guns must be left at the door. Fair enough, but I think we should go a little further. Let everyone leave all the guns — British guns and Irish guns — outside the door. Let's leave beside them in another pile all the injustices which exist in the northern state.
"The greatest injustice ever inflicted on the beleaguered nationalist community was to be trapped in a gerrymandered, undemocratic sectarian state. If the British government is prepared to say that the Unionists will not have a veto over British government policy and that guns, vetoes and injustices will all be left outside the door, then there is no good reason why talks cannot take place in an appropriate atmosphere. Let us walk into the conference room as equals and not second class citizens."
The British government is trying to pressure Sinn Fein into giving an immediate response to the declaration, but McGuinness argues it is important that both the party's ranks and the broader community have time for direct input into the decision-making process.
This input includes the republican prisoners. On December 28 at a meeting in County Tyrone attended by Republican prisoners home on Christmas parole, senior Sinn Fein figures and members of the republican and nationalist communities said the mood was one of disenchantment. While they agreed the Downing Street Declaration plan was not enough for a lasting settlement, they accepted Sinn Fein should seek clarification on its details before making a formal response.
"It is essential that the situation [in the north] is demilitarised", explained McGuinness, adding that even Albert Reynolds now supports this demand. "Most people in the nationalist community find it incomprehensible after the British government were in contact with Sinn Fein, both directly and indirectly, for the greater part of last year that we now have a situation since the Downing Street Declaration there has been no contact whatsoever. People find that absolutely incredible."
On the BBC program Panorama, McGuinness recounted a discussion he and other republicans had with the British government representative last March. The representative said that eventually the "island of Ireland would be one". McGuinness added, "There was a clear indication from him that eventually the British government would be prepared to embark on a process of disengagement from Ireland".
"Obviously we viewed his comments with scepticism", McGuinness explained to Green Left Weekly. "But he did say that the British government had decided years of trying to marginalise and isolate Sinn Fein hadn't worked, and that a new approach was needed and that included a dialogue with Sinn Fein."
Loyalists were enraged when Sir Patrick Mayhew, the Northern Ireland secretary, didn't deny the conversation but merely questioned whether the representative was "authorised".
"Within the nationalist community, or that section of the nationalist community Sinn Fein represents, we have been involved in in-depth debates and discussions about the positive and negative elements of the declaration.
"Along with that ongoing process Sinn Fein took a decision to establish a peace commission which had the responsibility to travel around the country to receive submissions from the general public, also our opponents. This was a phenomenal success from our point of view. Every area it went to there were dozens of submissions, totalling over 100. Next week the final one will be held in Belfast.
"It was particularly heartening that people from both communities participated. At the first hearing here in Derry, Unionists came along and they made no bones about the fact they were Unionists, but they had no difficulty coming into a Sinn Fein peace commission stating their view. We regard that as a welcome development. If only we could transfer that kind of attitude on to their political leaders — there's absolutely no reason why republicans, unionists and nationalists and others can't sit down and work out a new future for this island."
McGuinness stressed that Sinn Fein and the Irish Republican Army "are two separate and distinct organisations". Sinn Fein, he explains, wages a political struggle, "while the IRA fights a campaign against the British forces of occupation".