Republican News · Thursday 28 June 2001

STUNT POLITICS THREATEN PEACE PROCESS

The peace process is facing its most serious threat yet,

according to Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has said.

Adams was speaking after a week of loyalist attacks in North

Belfast and repeated calls from the SDLP for IRA decommissioning.

Rowing in behind the two unionist parties this week was John Hume

of the rival nationalist SDLP. ``Do you respect the will of the

Irish people at all?'' he asked the IRA, while calling again for

the army to decommission. Perhaps Hume had forgotten that the

people have already spoken and that it was Sinn Féin's strategy

they endorsed, not his.

The SDLP's focus on IRA weapons, with the odd reference to the

inclusion of loyalist weapons thrown in ``in order to give an air

of legitimacy to their demands, is disappointing to say the

least,'' Sinn Féin's Mitchel McLaughlin said.

``At a time when nationalist postal workers are prevented from

going to work, nationalist school children are prevented from

attending school, continuous attacks on nationalist homes and

businesses and the murder of a Catholic in Coleraine at the

weekend, the SDLP focuses its attention on IRA weapons that have

been silent for almost seven years,'' he said.

It seems that the SDLP is now intent on ``assisting David Trimble

in his agenda for collapsing the institutions'', McLaughlin

continued, ``rather than keeping its nerve and insisting that if

he succeeds in bringing down the political structures, that the

two governments proceed without delay in implementing all aspects

of the Agreement within their power to implement''.

Unionism requires a degree of ``joined-up thinking'' between the

grassroots and its leadership, he said. ``I would urge unionists

to consider the alternatives if they succeed in collapsing the

Executive and the Assembly.''

Unionists should also consider the fact that republicans are now

politically stronger than they have been for some time, he added.

Meanwhile, Sinn Féin Assembly member for Fermanagh South Tyrone,

Michelle Gildernew MP, branded the announcement by the DUP that

their ministers will resign in the event of UUP ministers

resigning as ``the latest piece of stunt politics from the DUP''.

At a time when the UDA is actively attempting to violently

collapse the Good Friday Agreement, she said, political unionism,

in the form of the UUP and DUP, is attempting to achieve the same

goal.

``The UUP policy is now mirroring that of the DUP. David Trimble

has set his sights on collapsing the political institutions. He

revealed this strategy in his letter to the UUP delegates on

October 26th last year.

``It is no surprise then that the DUP have decided to row in

behind this policy with their latest stunt announcement in the

Assembly today.''

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