Exclusion is old agenda
BY MICHEAL MacDONNCHA
The storm of reaction to the deaths of the two RUC members in
Lurgan has been directed primarily at one group of people - Sinn
Féin voters. Like everyone else these voters were shocked and
disappointed at what happened in Lurgan, but media spins designed
to create blame and guilt are aimed at isolating those voters
once again, just as repeated attempts are made to isolate their
chosen elected representatives.
The tens of thousands of people who voted for Sinn Féin on both
sides of the border this year did not vote for fatalities at
Lurgan; neither are they nor the Sinn Féin representatives they
elected in any way responsible for such deaths. The IRA was
responsible and it has neither sought nor obtained an electoral
mandate. Sinn Féin sought a mandate and received it on the basis
of the party's peace strategy. That peace strategy remains the
bedrock of its policy and the entire focus of its activity.
When the political and media establishment hit out at Sinn Féin
they are returning to the old agenda of exclusion - the agenda of
not treating Sinn Féin voters on the same basis as every other
party, the agenda that has helped create the conditions for
conflict. This policy of exclusion did not come about after the
ending of the IRA cessation at Canary Wharf last year; it dates
back to the days when Sinn Féin first obtained a significant
electoral mandate in the Six Counties in 1982. It was wrong to
exclude Sinn Féin voters and Sinn Féin elected representatives
then. It was wrong during the IRA cessation of August 1994 to
February 1996. And it is wrong now. Wrong and counter-productive,
reinforcing the inequality that is at the root of why a section
of Irish people in 1997 still resort to armed force for political
objectives.
Does this mean that Sinn Féin is pursuing a `dual strategy',
armed struggle and party politics, that it wants conflict outside
the negotiations and talking inside? Emphatically no. All Sinn
Féin's efforts have been directed at bringing about real
negotiations in a peaceful atmosphere. In rejecting the
accusation of a `dual strategy' in the aftermath of Lurgan, Sinn
Féin President Gerry Adams said his party was as committed as
ever to its peace strategy. On his responsibility with regard to
the IRA, he said:
``If I am measured it is because it is part of my responsibility
to persuade the very organisation which carried out these actions
that when there is a credible process of negotiations then it
should enhance that process, as it said it would and as I believe
it will.''
Sinn Féin with others achieved an IRA cessation in 1994, the
culmination of years of work. The quid pro quo was a real process
of negotiations. That process did not come about, for all the
reasons with which we are familiar; the unwillingness of the
British government to engage being the primary reason. Once the
initial cessation was met with British bad faith and once it came
to an end it was always going to be extremely difficult to
rebuild the peace process.
Among the difficulties are the double standards which are
applied. The numerous breaches of the loyalist ceasefire have not
been followed by ritualistic denunciations of the loyalist
parties and calls for their exclusion from talks. Who now
remembers the name of the young man killed by the British Army in
Derry last July? When Dermot McShane was crushed to death by a
British military vehicle there were no calls for the cutting off
of contact with the government which directs the British Army.
Other salient difficulties have been the lack of real movement on
political prisoners, with some having entered their 21st year in
jail; the failure to demilitarise; the absence of equality of
treatment for nationalists in the Six Counties; all issues which
can be addressed immediately without reference to negotiations.
Despite all these difficulties Sinn Féin has continued to face up
to its responsiblities, to engage with all those who can help
rebuild the peace process. The main purpose of the party's
meetings with the British government representatives has been to
work through the difficulties and create stable conditions for
real negotiations in a peaceful atmosphere. That is why the
decision of the British government not to hold a further meeting
between its officials and Sinn Féin is so negative. Inevitably
that decision will have to be superseded sooner or later. Sinn
Féin and the British government will have to meet again.
Gerry Adams pointed out this week that when in the past it has
suited the British government to acknowledge that Sinn Féin is
not the IRA and is not responsible for the IRA, then the British
government has done so; that is, when it has been in talks with
Sinn Féin. It cannot have it both ways.
It has been a dark week for hopes of rebuilding the peace process
but the work of rebuilding goes on. What was said here last week
holds. The political landscape was changed irrevocably from the
early 1990s when the republican peace strategy was put in place.
There can be no turning back.
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