Sinn Féin News, February 7, 2005
Sinn Féin opposed to return to conflict
By Martin McGuinness MP
The Sinn Féin leadership is totally opposed to any return to conflict. It
would have devastating consequences for all of us on this island. Our
priority in the time ahead is to defend the peace process, to pursue the
full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and to uphold the integrity
of Sinn Féin and the rights of our electorate, alongside the rights of all
others. It is for the two governments to decide where their priorities lie.
This crisis began with the DUP's refusal to support last December's
comprehensive agreement and to join in power-sharing government. No amount
of mudslinging and false allegations can alter that fact. But for whatever
reason the two governments chose to acquiesce in the DUP position and their
confrontational approach to Irish republicans ever since is making a bad
situation worse.
A charitable description of this approach by the British and Irish
governments‚ would be that they have misread the events of recent months
with the resulting damage to the peace process. But, unfortunately I don't
believe that to be the case. Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair are far too
experienced politicians and negotiators for this to be a simple case of
misreading a series of events that they didn't anticipate. I believe that
both governments have acted very deliberately in the hope that they may
inhibit or reverse the electoral growth of Sinn Féin. They seen the Northern
Bank robbery as an opportunity to smear republicans, and deflect peoples‚
attention away from the mess they made of the negotiations pre-Christmas all
in one fell swoop.
The simple explanation for Bertie Ahern's offensive and unfounded personal
attacks on the collective leadership of Sinn Féin in recent weeks is that he
knows that a strong Sinn Féin in the South will expose the real criminality
in Irish politics. The criminality of political sleaze, the brown envelope
culture, off shore accounts and tax evasion by the great and the good in
Irish society that has cost the people of Ireland billions of Euro in
Tribunals and lost Revenue. Bertie Ahern and the other political Leaders in
Dublin fear Sinn Féin's determination to give a voice to those who are
disenchanted with the political system because of the corruption and "cute
hoorism" rife in the establishment parties. He also knows that a strong Sinn
Féin will force him and the political establishment to once and for all
address the core cause of political conflict in Ireland - PARTITION.
Tony Blair too fears the growth of Sinn Féin as a political power not just
in the North but as the only Irish National party on the island. He
recognises that a growing Sinn Féin electoral mandate throughout the island
signifies increased broad support for Irish reunification and a demand for
British withdrawal from Ireland. And make no mistake about it; Tony Blair is
a unionist. Tony Blair's hope when he helped negotiate the Good Friday
Agreement was that it would arrest the Sinn Féin vote, that the SDLP and the
UUP would coalesce in a partnership of the centre and Northern nationalists
would conform as obedient British subjects thereby containing the Sinn Féin
threat.
That's not what happened, in fact the opposite occurred and nationalists and
republicans recognised the Agreement as an opportunity to promote the
benefits of all-Irelandism. Seeing the all-Ireland Ministerial Council, the
Implementation Bodies and the areas of co-operation working more and more
people recognised the folly and waste of resources of having two of
everything. Two economic systems, two currencies, two agriculture,
education, health, infrastructure systems etc on a small island of just over
5 million people just didn't make sense.
The electorates, North and South bought into this analysis promoted by Sinn
Féin and endorsed it at the ballot box. Irish unity was now firmly on the
agenda and a vehicle to achieve it peacefully was available in the Good
Friday Agreement. Rather than the Agreement securing the Union as Tony Blair
and the Unionists believed, it actually increased support for Irish Unity
and independence. Sinn Féin was seen as the only party capable of driving
that agenda. That is why the British government - as its Chief Spymaster Joe
Pilling and the British Secretary of State has said publicly in the United
States - is intent on stopping Sinn Féin becoming the largest party in the
North.
But I detect a realisation by the governments that the confrontational
approach that they have adopted towards Sinn Féin since Ian Paisley
scuppered the chances for agreement last December will not work and could
even backfire. Mitchel Mc Laughlin and I met with the Irish Minister for
Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern in Derry on Friday and I have to say that it
was a very cordial but forthright meeting. I came away from that meeting
with the clear impression that the governments wish to reflect on how their
approach is digressing from their stated aim to see the full implementation
of the Agreement. So I hope that cooler heads will prevail in the coming
days and we can leave all the distractions aside and concentrate on getting
the Process back on track.
I have no doubt that the truth about the Bank robbery in Belfast in December
will eventually emerge and I have made my position on this matter crystal
clear. Sinn Féin has no intentions of allowing those who wish to use that
event as an excuse to stall the process or use it as an attention-seeking
device to succeed. Whether it is this side of the Westminster election or
following it this Peace Process has got to be put back together again. A lot
of damage has been done and it will take a collective effort to repair it
but repair it we must. The assertion by the two governments that the IRA is
the only obstacle will only succeed in delaying progress and is downright
dishonest. I believe progress will not be made unless and until the British
Prime Minister, Tony Blair and Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern accept that unionist
opposition to sharing power with Nationalists and Republicans and their
opposition to all-Ireland institutions lies at the heart of our difficulties
at this time.
