Republican News · Thursday 25 October 2001

Adams commends IRA's "liberating step"

BY FERN LANE

Just hours after the IRA's historic announcement, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams was in Westminster Central Hall in London to present a lecture commemorating the 1981 Hunger Strike.

"Today there was a statement from IRA," Adams told the audience. "A few months ago, there was a statement from the IRA and the IICD. The response from unionists was to reject it and the response from the British government was not much better. The result was to move away from the scheme which the IRA proposed.

"The hunger strike could have been sorted out if politics had been made to work, the 3,000 people who have been killed might never have had to die if politics had been made to work.

"In my view, what the IRA has done today is courageous. It is going to be hugely difficult for many republicans to come to terms with. This whole question of arms is an emotional one. But this is a liberating step by the IRA, provided that others see it as that. Provided that, unlike the hunger strikes, the system doesn't see it as anything other than what it is. Provided that the British prime minister accepts his responsibility to uphold the primacy of politics. Provided that unionists build upon the potential which has been offered.

"When I think about what has happened today, I hope that in a decade's time there isn't someone like me talking about how this step was mishandled, how it wasn't seized upon, how it was misconstrued and misrepresented as something other than what it is - which is republicans trying to save the peace process."

Adams was joined on the platform by veteran campaigner and former Labour MP Tony Benn. Introducing the lecture was Jennifer McCann, a former POW who served ten years in Amagh prison, taking part in the blanket protest. In the packed hall were several British members of Parliament and representatives from, amongst others, Cuba and Palestine.

Tony Benn told the audience that it was an "enormous honour to be here on what is an historic day; the beginning of the demilitarisation of the Six Counties. To be on the platform with Gerry Adams, a great patriot, a great statesman, someone whose contribution will always be remembered, makes this a special honour".

"What I believe has happened over the last 24 hours is that we have taken a giant step towards the original Good Friday Agreement and that must necessarily mean also the full implementation of the Patten Report in order to see that the policing of the Six Counties is something which can command the support of all communities."

Before he began his lecture, Gerry Adams presented Tony Benn with a plaque, which included Bobby Sands' famous line that "our revenge will be the laughter of our children" to thank him for his support of the cause of Irish freedom over the years. He commented that if successive British governments had listened to the advice of people like Tony Benn to talk to republicans, the peace process may not have taken so long.