IAIS: ANGRY SCENES AFTER BLAIR MEETS ADAMS Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit News from the Irish American Information Service 13 October 1997 email: gkennedy@iais.org ANGRY SCENES AFTER BLAIR MEETS ADAMS 10/13/97 16:56 EST LOYALISTS jostled British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Belfast tonight just minutes after his historic handshake with the Sinn Fein President, Gerry Adams. They vented their fury as he tried to stage a walkabout at a shopping centre three miles from his meeting with Mr Adams which secured the republican leadership's place at the negotiating table on the future of Northern Ireland. At one stage Mr Blair took cover in a bank as a furious crowd of 100 people jeered and heckled him. One woman shrieked: "Traitor, traitor". Some protesters wearing rubber gloves shook their fists in rage because of his meeting with Mr Adams. Armed bodyguards had to move quickly to protect Mr Blair from the baying mob at the Connswater Shopping Centre as a gang of flag-waving youths looked on menacingly. A Downing Street spokesman said: "Tony Blair was unfazed by angry scenes orchestrated by a small number of people, some carrying cameras. The rowdy scenes contrasted vividly with the warm welcome he received earlier in the day when he met ordinary members of the public." Mr Blair's meeting with Mr Adams inside a ground floor office and well away from the cameras lasted 15 minutes. It was the first time a British Prime Minister had sat down with Sinn Fein since Lloyd George's meeting with Michael Collins in 1921. Both sides described it as "positive and constructive", but the party's chief negotiator Martin McGuinness said there needed to be more. Mr Blair said he believed genuine progress was being made. He wanted to make sure it was deepened and carried forward. He said he had told Sinn Fein he wanted the party in the process provided it was on the basis of non-violence and democratic means. He also stressed the principle of consent. "The will of the people here must be paramount in determining the future," he said. "Everybody who is here has got to be committed to the principles of non-violence. Anybody who departs from that will not be in this talks process. That is the passport to being part of building the future of Northern Ireland. It is an absolute principle and it will not be departed from in any shape or form at all." At the Sinn Fein meeting, Mr Blair also shook hands with Mr McGuinness, party vice-president Pat Doherty and Siobhan O'Hanlon. They met for 15 minutes inside a ground floor office close to the main foyer of Castle Buildings. Irish American Information Service ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytire-10.14.97-11:57:22-5186