from IAIS: LOYALISTS RALLY TO OPPOSE PEACE TALKS


Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit


LOYALISTS RALLY TO OPPOSE PEACE TALKS
10/17/97 12:42 EST

Mr Peter Robinson of the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party)
last night claimed that a plan was afoot to remove Northern
Ireland from the UK. He was speaking at a rally called to
unite unionists against the current peace talks process. "In
the next six months this province will be set, unalterably,
on a course for an all-Ireland republic unless our united
unionist campaign succeeds in stopping it," he said.

During last night's meeting, Ulster Unionist Party executive
member Nelson McCausland addressed the audience, broke party
ranks and expressed his belief that his party were wrong to
enter the multi-party talks at Stormont. Although Mr
McCausland reiterated his support for party leader David
Trimble, he criticised the party negotiators as "old faces"
and "yes men" and said that they "should be spending more
time with their families and developing new hobbies."


In his speech, Mr McCausland argued forcibly against a
united Ireland and said that the way to end partition was
for the Republic to rejoin the United Kingdom. "John Hume
and his friends in government are always telling us that
borders are coming down in Europe. Then let Eire take the
border down and come back under the British crown as part of
the United Kingdom."


During his speech, UK Unionist leader Robert McCartney
reiterated his previous claim that he is "opposed to any
form of sectarian discrimination against my fellow
nationalist citizens" and said that he despaired of elements
at the Ulster Hall rally last week when audience members
began chanting anti-catholic songs.

"When I rose to speak at the Ulster Hall and surveyed the
honest, decent faces of that audience and heard the welcome
they afforded me, I knew I had their hearts. When I sat down
after my address, I believed that I had also shared their
minds. But when a tiny group of foolish people chanted their
sectarian songs I was filled with despair."
__________________________________________________________

The Irish American Information Service is a non-profit
orginization provding up-to-the-minute objective coverage of
news as it happens in Ireland and the North.  Please
visit us on the World Wide Web at http://www.iais.org
 
=================================================================
  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-10.19.97-22:48:10-18852