McGuinness: We Never Agreed to Deliver IRA Weapons Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Irish News Monday, April 19, 1999 'We never agreed to deliver IRA weapons' By Martin McGuinness Sinn Fein chief negotiator The recent decision by the two governments to announce the Hillsborough declaration is a major departure from the Good Friday agreement and a shift to David Trimble's agenda, says Martin McGuinness. The Sinn Fein chief negotiator reviews the progress to date in the peace process and explains how it falls short of what was agreed in last May' referendum.. OVER the last 12 months, since the signing of the Good Friday agreement, the UUP have blocked the establishment of political institutions on the basis of a demand for IRA decommissioning. The effect of the resulting impasse has been to create an almost exclusive focus on the issue of decommissioning. A year in which we could have made significant progress towards a lasting peace and the removal of all guns from Irish politics has, as a result, been largely wasted. By demanding immediate decommissioning the UUP have effectively closed down a process which represents the only possible prospect of creating the political conditions in which the gun can be removed from Irish politics. The vacuum left has been filled by the negative politics and violence of those opposed to the Good Friday agreement. Moreover the recent decision by the two governments to move away from the Good Friday agreement onto David Trimble's agenda is a major departure with profound implications for the Good Friday agreement. If the governments do not move away from this, and back to the letter and spirit of the agreement, then the Good Friday agreement is dead. Removing the Causes of Conflict THE removal of the causes of conflict is the only effective and lasting way to secure an end to conflict, and remove the manifestations of conflict, including all the weapons. And that is an objective to which Sinn Fein is totally committed. It was the basis for the early dialogue between Gerry Adams and John Hume, which set down the stepping stones for the peace process which followed. The progress we have made is obvious. Much has been achieved over the past six years. We have a peace process. IRA guns are silent. We have an agreement, which many believed was not possible. There are procedures and mechanisms for addressing many of the outstanding issues, including the issue of weapons. Yet despite this agreed position, the UUP have attempted retrospectively to link the holding of executive office to the surrender of arms. This approach ignores the entire logic and direction of the peace process up to this point AD a process of persuasion and building confidence in the efficacy of politics. Preconditions and demands have the opposite effect and are therefore totally counter-productive. Presenting decommissioning as a precondition is the best way not to achieve decommissioning. It is also not part of the agreement. On the holding of executive office the agreement is clear and unambiguous. There is no precondition to membership of the executive save sufficient mandate from the electorate and taking the ministerial pledge of office. But despite this collectively agreed position, the UUP has been allowed to reduce the entire agreement and potentially the entire wider peace process to the single issue of decommissioning. Much to be Done Nationalists have real and grave concerns about the issue of weapons. British, RUC, UDR/RIR and loyalist gun, bombs and knives have claimed 1,500 lives. There is a proliferation of licensed weapons, primarily in unionist hands. These weapons need to be dealt with. Nationalists are also angry that at a time when IRA guns are silent but loyalist guns, petrol bombs, hand-grenades, under-car bombs and pipe bombs are being used to kill and intimidate Catholics, unionists chose to ignore this violence and focus instead on those guns which have been silent for almost two years! Despite this nationalists are prepared to see this matter dealt with under the terms of the agreement and in the context of the wider peace process. The logic and implicit obligation of the peace process, if it is to be successful, means an end to violence and the removal of all tools of war. In his most recent comments UUP leader David Trimble claims that all aspects of the Good Friday agreement are in place save the one issue of decommissioning. And he challenges Sinn Fein to set out our position. While some progress has been made we are still far short of what the Good Friday agreement promised. For example, the British government is obliged under the agreement to publish an 93overall strategy94 on demilitarisation. This should tack amo ng other things the dismantling of hilltop forts in South Armagh, Derry and Belfast (Divis Tower, New Lodge flats and RVH property at Broadway); the standing down of the RIR; the ending of British army patrolling; the withdrawal of plastic bullets:, action on the 140,000 licensed weapons; keeping the RUC out of sensitive areas; the closure of the interrogation centres at Castlereagh, Gough and the Strand Road. This was promised last November. We are still waiting. The recent controversy surrounding the killing of human rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson and the criticisms of the RUC by the United Nations Special Rapporteur Param Cumaraswamy, the US International Relations Committee and the European Union have all again put the spotlight on the unacceptability of the RUC; on allegations of collusion between it and loyalist death squads; and of sectarian harassment of Catholics by that force. We need fully independent international investigations and inquiries into the killing of Pat Finucane; the killing of Robert Hamill; the killing of Rosemary Nelson; the Dublin/Monaghan bombings and the Brian Nelson affair. While the Patten Commission was set up in June 1998 there is no specific date for the publication of its report. Policing is for nationalists a touchstone issue and currently we see no change in the situation. If anything it has deteriorated. -- there has been no changes to the Emergency legislation. All such laws in place before the signing of the agreement are still in place. -- the Criminal Justice Review is not tasked to report until Autumn 1999. -- there is widespread dissatisfaction among nationalists with the judiciary, particularly after the recent Clegg decision. -- the Commissioners for the new Human Rights Commission have just been appointed. -- there has been no real progress on the critical issue of the equality agenda. The Equality Commission has not yet been established and the unionists succeeded, with SDLP support, in preventing agreement on a separate stand-alone equality department in any future executive. -- nothing concrete has yet happened on the Irish language front. There have been lots of plans and promises but no action. For example, there was a commitment to ratify the European Charter for Minority languages in respect of Part 3 for Irish in 1998. It has not yet happened, nor has the promised extension of Irish language broadcasting involving Telifis na Gaeilge been implemented. And of course, 11 months later none of the institutions AD the executive, all-Ireland ministerial council, British-Irish council, all-Ireland policy and implementation bodies AD agreed in April 1998 and voted for in the referendums in May 1998, are not yet in place because of the UUPs refusal to honour its commitments. So, clearly from this review of what has yet to happen it is obvious that Mr Trimble's claim that everything other than decommissioning is in place is exposed as bogus and fanciful. Honouring our Commitments Notwithstanding that fact let me spell out once again for Mr. Trimble and his colleagues Sinn Fein's approach to the decommissioning issue and how we believe it can be satisfactorily resolved. The terms of the agreement in relation to the issue of decommissioning are unambiguous. All parties are committed to total disarmament. They are also obliged to use any influence they may have, and to continue to work constructively and in good faith with the international commission to achieve this end in the context of the implementation of the overall agreement. All of the parties are obliged to work constructively and in good faith with the independent commission. Sinn Fein has honoured and will continue to honour this obligation. The agreement is also absolutely clear about the role of the independent commission, that is, to monitor, review, verify and report. But nowhere in the agreement, including the very detailed and specific section on decommissioning, is there any decommissioning precondition. The obligations on all parties to the agreement is to the achievement of an objective over which none of us have any direct control; to an objective which can only be worked for politically and can only be accomplished by the voluntary actions of those in possession of arms. Hence the obligation on all of the parties to use any influence they may have in that context. Sinn Fein has done so and will continue to do so. We have honoured, and will continue to honour, every commitment and fulfil every obligation contained in the Good Friday agreement. That's our assurance to M. Trimble, to the two governments and other parties, and to the two million people on this island who voted in the referendums last year. But let me be absolutely clear. Sinn Fein cannot deliver IRA weapons. Such a demand is not part of the Good Friday agreement. If it had been we could not have agreed to it because it is something which we cannot deliver. The only way to remove weapons and prevent any recourse to armed actions is by proving that politics works, by demonstrating the viability of politics, and. by moving steadily towards a lasting peace based on equality, justice and freedom. This is the project which Sinn Fein embarked upon more than 10 years ago and to which we remain committed. This is, in our view, the only effective way to achieve disarmament and a permanent end to conflict. ================================================================= 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-04.24.99-12:58:00-12090