An Phoblacht/Republican News  ·  Thursday November 23 1995

United demand for talks

BY LIAM O COILEAIN

``All of us are very very sceptical about anything that the British government would put its hand to at this moment in time,'' Martin McGuinness responded on Tuesday evening in Dublin when asked by reporters if he thought that the announcement that night by John Bruton and John Major would be a fudge for the US president's visit.

McGuinness added that ``most people who have been through the past 15 months in the North have an expectation that the Clinton visit and the major international focus that will bring to the North represents probably the last chance to convince this British government that they must move in the direction of real change and real negotiations.''

McGuinness was speaking outside the Ambassador Cinema in Dublin, where he joined Fianna Fáil, Labour Party and SDLP politicians for a public meeting organised by the Irish National Congress on the theme that `Britain must move for peace'.

``If we are to learn anything from other arenas in the world, that is that we do not attempt in any circumstances to bring about the surrender or humiliation of an opponent and that you accept the sensible way to move forward is in the context of real negotiations to resolve the issues at the heart of the conflict,'' he said.

``One thing that has become abundantly clear over the course of the last 15 months and it's something that the British government and the unionist political leadership need to deal with, is the reality that they have shown no inclination whatsoever to change or to embark on real negotiations to deal with all the issues which go to the heart of the conflict.''

The meeting itself took place against a background of curiosity about the nature of the deal struck between Bruton and Major but the message from the speakers was very clear. The British government needed to move towards initiating talks and nationalist and republican Ireland needed to preserve a united front.

McGuinness stressed that the peace process was in crisis because of Britain's ``unrealistic and stupid demand that the IRA surrender'', of which there was ``no possibility whatsoever''.

The message from republicans was quite clear. ``We are prepared to talk about IRA guns. But we'll also talk about the British guns. If the British think that they are getting off that hook then they are sadly mistaken because we are not going to let them off it, and if there is going to be any serious attempt to resolve this issue, then all of the guns and all of the injustices which have existed need to be decommissioned and that can only be done at the negotiating table.

``Unless this approach to be announced removes the preconditions and gives us an opportunity to deal with all the injustices that have existed, that our people have endured as a result of British rule in this country, as a result of partition, then, it will be worse than useless, to use the words of John Bruton.'' He urged people not to be demoralised but ``to have confidence in the strength that we have built and let the pressure remain on the British government and let the unionists grow up and realise that they must, along with the rest of us, be part of the solution.''

WHO'S LOOKING FOR IT

Former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds described the British government's position as ``untenable, indefensible, inflexible and belligerent''. He pointed out that nowhere in the Downing Street declaration were there words like `decommissioning' or `precondition'. ``Who's looking for this decommissioning?'' he asked. ``The RUC are not looking for it, the British army are not looking for it, the majority of people in Northern Ireland in an opinion poll said they wanted talks with the unionists and Sinn Féin, even the Belfast Telegraph has called for talks without any preconditions. ``Quite clearly [the British government] are going back to their old ways, of symbolic surrender, because that's what handing over arms is all about.''

He had not criticised the Dublin government because ``it's more important that Ireland speaks with one voice in this situation''. ``But it's not going to work because everybody should keep on saying what the conditions were for the cease-fire, that there would be talks after a reasonable period of time.

``We're not going to be pushed around. We're not going to be demoralised by a colonial type attitude towards talks. We have a right; we demand justice. We will get those talks, and if we are going to get them then why wait?''

SDLP Councillor Denis Haughey felt two things stood out. ``The British establishment doesn't particularly want talks at the moment and the unionists are scared witless of talks''.

Britain's 15 months spent talking about guns demonstrated that ``almost as if in a perverse way they are determined to prove that guns are the only thing they understand''.

Labour Party TD Tommy Broughan also regretted how John Major and his government had dragged their heels, especially in recent months. He said that the gap between the cessation and the start of substantive talks ``seems dangerously long'', adding that ``up to tonight the British seem incapable of taking the imaginative leap that is necessary to begin full-scale talks''.