Britain's failures to make peace

The following is extracts from a speech given by Sinn Féin president GERRY ADAMS in West Belfast on February 15, just days after the ending of the IRA's cease-fire. For many years, Sinn Féin has sought through patient but intense dialogue to engage our opponents, to exchange views, debate the issues and to build with them a permanent and democratic peace through agreement. Eighteen months ago, when John Hume and I, along with Albert Reynolds and elements of Irish America, persuaded the IRA to call a complete cessation, we did so on the basis of a clear commitment by all the major Irish nationalist parties to pro-actively pursue a new, negotiated and democratic political arrangement. In addition and crucially, there was a public commitment by the British government to convene with the Irish government the necessary peace talks to achieve this agreement. That was a year and a half ago. The commitments given then have not been honoured. In 18 months there has not been one word of negotiation. On the contrary, the British government has been engaged in a very high-risk strategy to stall and string out the peace process, stretching it like a piece of elastic. It has engaged in the classic British counter-insurgency strategy of divide and rule. It has used one stalling device and precondition after another to undermine and fracture the nationalist consensus in order to prevent inclusive dialogue. Why? Because negotiations frighten this British government. People in Britain must by now be asking if John Major is afraid of sitting down in an inclusive political process to discuss real and fundamental political, democratic and constitutional change in all the relationships in this island and between the people of Ireland and Britain. Until now the British government has refused to address the injustices and inequalities which led to conflict. The list of British failures is depressingly long and well known: 1. No movement on the central issue of an inclusive political process in which all parties with a democratic mandate can participate as equals. 2. No movement towards all-party peace talks, which are essential for political settlement. On the contrary, two preconditions — the surrender of IRA weapons and elections to a unionist quango — have now been introduced. 3. The British have reneged on and broken every commitment they have made both in public and in private. 4. The Mitchell report on decommissioning and the twin track process itself were unilaterally dumped by John Major. 5. Sinn Féin and our voters are still treated as second-class citizens. 6. British troop levels, which remained throughout 1995 at their 1992 level and which continue to train and patrol in parts of the north, have now been strengthened. 7. The civilian population continues to be used as human shields by British forces. 8. There has been additional spending on military installations and only a tactical reduction in military bases. 9. There has been no change in the RUC [Royal Ulster Constabulary] and no meaningful debate on policing. 10. The British deny having political prisoners. 11. Prison conditions for Irish political prisoners in Britain have significantly worsened. 12. The British continue to stall on a meaningful approach to the request for the transfer of Irish prisoners back from Britain. 13. The British government introduced a conditional 50% remission scheme for prisoners. This means in practice that only an additional 40 republican prisoners will be released over the next five years, an average of eight a year. 14. British paratrooper Lee Clegg was released by the British after serving just two years of a life sentence for the murder of a teenage girl in West Belfast. He was welcomed back into the parachute regiment and promoted. 15.The RUC escorted Orange [loyalist] marches through nationalist areas. 16. The RUC continues to attack peaceful nationalist demonstrations. 17. Plastic bullets are still seriously injuring people. 18. Harassment continues. People are assaulted. Young people in particular are targeted for harassment and abuse. 19. The British continue to block efforts to get at the truth behind collusion between elements of the British forces and the loyalist death squads. The collusion saw weapons being shipped in from South Africa and information on potential targets being supplied by British intelligence to the death squads. 20. Repression continues. The various wide-ranging special laws, the Prevention of Terrorism Act and Emergency Provisions Act, have been renewed. 21. There is no peace dividend for areas of deprivation — not one new job in West Belfast. 22. Catholics are still victims of discrimination. 23. Families whose loved ones were killed by British forces are still denied access to the facts. The inquest system hides the truth. For our part Sinn Féin has demonstrated a real and determined commitment to democratic negotiations. We have sought at all times to play a positive and constructive role in every effort that has been made to reach a settlement, even when we clearly had concerns about these efforts. Unlike others, we have been prepared to engage in talks with anyone or any group without preconditions.