Principles unchanged for sister of hunger striker

Bernadette Sands McKevitt is a spin doctor's dream. She's bright, well-groomed, friendly and very, very electable. Hearing her almost Jesuitical arguments and authoritative use of language, it's hard to believe the myths already growing around her: that until four years ago, she worked in a Dundalk factory; that until last winter, she confined her involvement with the republican movement to attending rallies and generally being supportive of republican ideals.

"I was always there in the background," she explains. Her obvious skills, her easy command in a leadership role, are noticeable.

A sister of Bobby Sands, she denies ever having being a member of the IRA, following earlier reports that a recent IRA resignee was the sister of the dead H-Block hunger striker. She describes her new public role as one adopted reluctantly because politics is being put before principles. She has not campaigned on other issues, such as the Louth-based lobby against British Nuclear Fuels.

Ms Sands McKevitt is vice-chairwoman of the 32-County Sovereignty committee, which sprang into being last December following the resignation of 30 Louth members of Sinn Fein.

Never a member herself, she approached the dissidents after hearing Rory Dougan, an Armagh man now living in Louth, explain their opposition to the leadership's involvement in the British-Irish talks, in particular the prospect that Sinn Fein will establish closer links with Westminster. Mr Dougan accompanies her to our meeting.

Ms Sands McKevitt says she wants "to keep the republican movement intact". With Sinn Fein likely to confirm support for the two referendums at its meeting tomorrow, and to introduce changes to its own constitution which will allow its elected representatives take their seats in the Northern assembly - opening the possibility of sitting at Westminster - Ms Sands McKevitt is starting to articulate a radical role which separates republicanism from the political parties who espouse its ethos, and keeps it outside the political process.

"Let the leadership do what others have done before them - they did not take the movement with them, they changed their name and went off as a different political party. At least let us keep the name."

She's proud of progress to date. "For such a small committee, my God we've been heard, we've just marched into a lot of places where other people had to do a lot of crawling to get in the door."

The question is why. Ms Sands McKevitt ascribes that impact to the "desire of the Irish people for freedom and self-determination". Be that as it may, the potential splintering of the republican movement's military wing, reportedly also for reasons of sovereignty, makes arguments like those of the 32County Sovereignty Committee illuminating listening.

"Peace is not what our people fought for, they fought for independence. Looking towards the millennium, it's time to lift the scourge [of British rule] off our backs. Regardless how difficult it is to face that problem, let's face it and let's take whatever comes with it."

If independence from Britain - not peace - is the ultimate objective, she argues that only a stated commitment by Britain to withdraw from Northern Ireland within a specified time-frame will suffice. Demographic arguments do not impress her.

"It's not a matter of Catholics and Protestants and who outbreeds whom. This is the unionist veto dressed up in consent. Irish people are entitled to their own independence, not at the whim of whenever people decide to allow them."

How might unionists accommodate their own identity in the political system she envisages? "The same way nationalists are being asked to deal with their aspirations - what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. No one will take away their British citizenship - they can be British the same way French people living in Ireland are French, or Romanians living here are Romanian."

As part of "the republican family," Ms Sands McKevitt does not condemn the use of violence in pursuit of the republican cause. The night we meet, she wears mourning, returning from the funeral of Ronan Mac Lochlainn, shot dead by gardai last week during an attempted robbery in Ashford. The attempt was condemned indirectly by Gerry Adams.

"The last three volunteers to die were from the 26 Counties," she remarks. "The Six Counties don't have any greater charge on republicanism."

An interesting remark: a more regularly active military command structure in Northern Ireland may mean that Northern units are more convinced of the need to escape the circularity of armed struggle. Or it may signal a changed marketing strategy.

"You don't need what I call `the row of 40 medals on the chest' syndrome to prove your republican credentials," she argues.

She distances her committee from direct responsibility for such actions, while otherwise elaborating the belief that republicans have a right above and beyond any political agreements to maintain their principles.

"We do not have a military wing," she continues, "and we have always emphasised that we prefer peaceful means, but we are a republican committee in that we uphold the declaration to achieve our objectives by whatever means are necessary."

That entails the right to take up arms. "People I know are very concerned about the decommissioning issue - they feel it's a major factor in whether or not they support Sinn Fein." She will not identify anyone specifically.

The capacity to carry weapons seems an implicit part of the committee's objectives. "The Sinn Fein leadership said they would never enter the talks with preconditions, and they did; that they would never accept Mitchell, and they did; that they would not endure a decontamination process, and they did. Now they have told us they won't accept decommissioning . . ."

HAS she a problem with decommissioning? She pauses momentarily. "Well, it's not for me to say whether they should or they shouldn't, what I'm saying is `look at what's been said and what's actually taken place'. "

Ms Sands McKevitt believes that people are being "duped". She is "angry at the wasted opportunities" and at "the flowery language" used to cover up what she sees as "deception". No real debate is taking place within Sinn Fein, she argues.

"The ploy that's being used is a system of drip-feeding to allow people to become used to the particular issue, so that by the time it actually happens, there's not as much resistance as there would have been. You're talking here about principles that have always been enshrined in the republican ethos: within politics you can change your policies and various things, but fundamental principles remain the same."

Mr Dougan intervenes to distinguish what they both refer to as the "constitutional nature of the 26-County referendum" from "the consultative nature of the Six-County referendum". Sovereignty lies with some of the Irish people in the first case, he believes, but in the second, sovereignty is vested in the British government, and therefore the referendum comes with strings attached. Both are wary of the Sinn Fein leadership. "What should be an issue of principle is being turned into a vote of loyalty to the leaders," says Mr Dougan. "We hope that enough people will follow their conscience and stick to their principles. But we will keep working - we will not go away."

Ms Sands McKevitt talks about their understanding of republicanism like a trained advocate. Their principles are democratically-based, she reasons, because of the December 1918 all-island elections, through which the then Sinn Fein party achieved a parliamentary majority.

The 1919 Sinn Fein Dail declaration is the Sovereignty Committee's mandate, and it lodged a copy with the United Nations on one of a number of recent visits to the United States, when it also met Irish-American fund-raisers.

That position represents an interesting shift from republicanism's traditional emphasis on the 1916 Proclamation, which had been asserted without a democratic mandate. Follow the argument, and new age republicanism can operate a contorted, self-serving catch-22 logic, whose intricate theological twists allow it to absolve itself of many major ethical concerns now tacitly accepted by the Sinn Fein leadership.

Ms Sands McKevitt insists that the referendum in Northern Ireland is therefore "illegal and undemocratic". "Because the referendums are being held on the same day, [the two governments] are trying to tell the world that this is the Irish people exercising their right to self-determination, which is totally incorrect."

She vows she will not enter politics, and that the committee will not engage in the political process. It seems to view this as a lesser activity: on this reckoning, democracy and politics are separated, with the committee's democratic mandate established 80 years ago, and in no need of reassertion. Both seem to expect that Sinn Fein's meeting tomorrow will carry a Yes decision. But Mr Dougan asserts: "We will not go away."

But how can they assert power without a contemporary democratic mandate? "We don't want power," Ms Sands McKevitt concludes.

What about influence? She smiles. "We've broken the mould so far, we've done a lot of things that are very unpredictable. We're trying not to make the mistakes of the past."