[A-List] Northern Ireland: Gerry Adams interview

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Adams urges bill of rights to keep peace process alive

Sinn Féin chief seeks radical reforms to break impasse

Nicholas Watt and Angelique Chrisafis
Thursday February 5, 2004
The Guardian

Tony Blair should be prepared to abandon attempts to revive Northern
Ireland's historic power-sharing executive and press ahead with introducing
radical changes, such as a bill of rights, unless the "crisis" in unionism
is resolved, Gerry Adams said yesterday.

On the eve of crucial talks in Downing Street between Ian Paisley and the
prime minister, the president of Sinn Féin warned that there may be little
point in trying to revive the Good Friday agreement as long as the veteran
hardliner remains the leader of unionism.

In an interview with the Guardian, Mr Adams insisted that the 1998 agreement
must always remain the "first option", adding: "We shouldn't give up on
that".

But in a sign of the despair among nationalists and republicans, after Mr
Paisley's Democratic Unionists overtook David Trimble's moderate Ulster
Unionists in last November's elections, Mr Adams said: "If we exhaust all
the efforts to bring about working institutions, we may have to look at
other ways to move forward in the meantime until the crisis within unionism
sorts itself out, because ... it would be far better if unionism was open to
embrace all of these matters. But life's not like that."

Mr Adams reeled off a long list of "rights and entitlements" which would
help him to rein in hardline republicans who are impatient with the impasse
in the peace process. These include strengthening the Northern Ireland human
rights commission, the equality commission, improving the provision of the
Irish language and introducing a bill of rights.

Mr Adams was speaking to the Guardian in his Westminster office, where his
House of Commons notepaper, bearing the green portcullis, lies incongruously
next to a poster of the 1916 republican easter proclamation. Speaking above
the shouts of anti-war protesters outside, the MP for West Belfast said he
was in London to highlight the "British state policy" of allowing members of
the security forces to team up with loyalist paramilitaries during the
Troubles to murder hundreds of people.

In a sign of how times have moved on since the IRA declared its ceasefire
nearly 10 years ago, relatives of the victims staged their main protest
outside Conservative central office rather than outside Downing Street. This
will be seen as a telling gesture to Mr Blair.

"In fairness to Tony Blair, he has devoted an awful lot of time to the issue
of Ireland," Mr Adams said. "We would recognise him as a prime minister who
broke the mould and dealt with the issue in a way that it should have been
dealt with. But he has an awful lot more to do."

This gentle warning highlights the delicate state of the peace process after
Mr Paisley finally achieved his 30-year ambition to overtake the party of
Edward Carson, the father of Ulster unionism. The success of the DUP in last
year's elections ended a decade of expectations in London and Dublin that
the moderate Ulster Unionists would eventually be persuaded to share power
with Sinn Féin.

To compound the gloom, Mr Trimble's party appears to be disintegrating, amid
bitter recriminations over last October's botched deal, which was meant to
save him and revive the peace process. After months of negotiations, the IRA
agreed to decommission its largest cache of weapons. But Mr Trimble's
failure to secure specific details from the republicans damaged his
reputation, sending unionist voters flocking to the DUP.

The election result has left Mr Adams facing the prospect of having to cut a
deal with Mr Paisley, the grand old man of unionism. The reverend's
firebrand politics has been blamed by many for sparking the Troubles in the
1960s and first radicalised the teenage Mr Adams. As he sat down at the same
table with Mr Paisley on Tuesday, at the start of the Anglo-Irish review of
the Good Friday agreement, Mr Adams was struck by the sight of "this
slightly gaunt, elderly man" who enraged the 15-year-old Adams nearly 40
years ago when Mr Paisley successfully demanded that the RUC tear down an
Irish tricolour in republican west Belfast.

"He radicalised me, because even though I come from a republican background,
I wasn't conscious of that in any real sense and certainly had no awareness
at all of the place I was living in. It was Ian Paisley who led me to wonder
how a clergyman could stand up and threaten to go in and tell RUC to take
the flag out, and if they didn't, he would."

Four decades later, Mr Adams is prepared to "do business" with Mr Paisley
because "I recognise his mandate".

The DUP's decision to sit down with his party in local councils, after
running a "Smash Sinn Féin" campaign, persuaded him that the hardliners will
eventually come in from the cold. "They can be moved. The problem is that it
will take too long."

As the prime minister prepares to meet Mr Paisley today, Mr Adams warned
that the veteran hardliner must not be allowed a veto. In a swipe at David
Trimble, Mr Adams said: "If 'Save Dave' becomes 'Appease Ian', it just
becomes ridiculous."

Sinn Féin will look to the government to reject the DUP's idea for restoring
the power-sharing executive and assembly. It is understood that Mr Paisley
would like to rewrite the agreement by turning ministers into chairmen of
the assembly's committees which would, according to nationalists, downgrade
ministerial status.

"That is not acceptable," Mr Adams said. "This is the DUP trying to get away
from power sharing and to exert a veto and to claw back from the more
progressive elements of the institutions."

To reinforce his message, Mr Adams warned that the Sinn Féin leadership is
facing intense pressure from grassroots republicans. As he prepares for a
nationwide meeting of republicans today, he spoke of how "grumpiness" was
becoming "more jagged".

"As February becomes April, then May, you will find the frustration will
become very open," he said. "The [British and Irish governments] look all
the time to the republicans to stretch ourselves again and again. It's
nearly a matter of saloon bar talk: Adams and McGuinness will sort this out.
That should not be taken for granted."

· John Hume, the former SDLP leader and architect of the Good Friday
agreement who brought Sinn Féin into the peace process, has announced that
he will retire from the European parliament in June. Mr Hume, 67, who said
ill-health had forced his gradual withdrawal from politics, will not contest
his Westminster seat at the next election. Sinn Féin, which is seeking a
foothold in Strasbourg, is expected to launch a major campaign to win the
seat, hammering another nail in the coffin of the ailing SDLP.

The sticking points

· Decommissioning: Ian Paisley will not talk to Sinn Fein without complete
disarmament of the IRA. Sinn Fein argues the IRA has carried out three acts
of disarmament. The party wants the international commission scrutinising
paramilitary ceasefires abolished, saying it is outside the Good Friday
agreement

· Demilitarisation: Sinn Fein wants all British troops out of Northern
Ireland. No 10 is prepared to reduce troops to the "garrison level" of
around 5,000 - the number in place before the Troubles erupted in 1969 - but
only if the IRA unequivocally renounces violence

· The power-sharing executive: The DUP, which publishes its proposals
tomorrow, wants to scrap the 12-minster coalition executive, handing power
to the 108 assembly members to work on a committee system, whose chairmen
would act as ministers. This would be unacceptable to Sinn Fein

· Policing: Sinn Fein wants policing and justice powers to be transferred
from Westminster to a minister at Stormont.