No release, no deal. That was the message delivered by Gerry
Adams to both the British government and republican activists at
a Saoirse conference in Belfast on 30 November attended by around
200 people. The Sinn Féin President restated his party's
commitment to refuse to sign up to any negotiated peace deal
until all political prisoners are freed.
The issue of prisoners is, said Adams, a fundamental one and
constitutes a ``central sinew'' of the peace process. Any political
settlement would be unfeasible and unworkable if there were still
prisoners, either republican or loyalist, still in jail.
He also raised the question of the British government's deadline
of May next year for parties at the Stormont talks to come to an
agreed settlement. ``Have they got arrangements for the release of
all prisoners by May?'' he asked. Without that, he said, ``there
cannot be a settlement... We have been clear about this from the
start. The release of prisoners has to be a part of any deal and
we want to give an assurance to people about that. Sinn Féin
wants to see the release of all prisoners.''
The working conference, which was called to review the last
Saoirse campaign and to plan activities for the coming year, was
also addressed by Martin Meehan, the Saoirse Northern
Chairperson. He reminded activists that December is traditionally
prisoners' month and asked that extra efforts be made to
highlight the conditions for prisoners, particularly those in
English jails, throughout the coming month. He also called on
former prisoners and prisoners' families to do everything they
can to help ensure that the issue is moved up the political
agenda.
Leo Green, from the Sinn Féin POW Department, brought up the
matter of Lee Clegg and Ian Thain and the double standards of the
British government in dealing with their sentences. He pointed
out that 60% of the 384 republican prisoners currently held in
Long Kesh have served longer sentences than either Clegg or
Thain, even though the majority of them had been charged with far
lesser offences. He also pointed out that every single republican
prisoner had served longer than the British soldiers responsible
for the murder of innocent nationalists on Bloody Sunday and
longer than the countless other members of the Crown forces who
had murdered nationalists over the past 28 years.
Other speakers at the conference included Carol Ni Chulainn from
the ex-prisoners support group Tar Anall, Phil McCullough of
Belfast Saoirse and Eoghan Mac Cormaic head of Saoirse in the 26
Counties, who gave delegates information about the various
functions and activities in which their organisations are
currently involved.
Underlying this, however, the basic message remained the same:
all prisoners must be released as an integral part of the peace
process, not as an optional extra, to be added once a settlement
has been reached. The use of Irish republican prisoners as, in
effect, political hostages, held by the British as a lever in
negotiations is not acceptable. Where the British have been
saying to republicans that once there is a deal they may think
about prisoners, republicans are emphatically replying to the
British that without the release of all prisoners, there will be
no deal.