The following is an edited version of the speech by the president of Sinn Fein, Mr Gerry Adams, to the party's ardfheis at the RDS on Saturday:
"THIS ardfheis takes place against a background of great challenges for republicans across the country. There is great hope and concern sitting alongside each other. We have just heard that David Trimble won the vote in the Ulster Unionist Party meeting today and we welcome that. Well done David. The political landscape of Irish politics is changing and republicans are at the forefront of that change.
[In this presidential address] I will be reporting back to you on the phase of negotiations which has just ended. On Good Friday, when these talks concluded in their last plenary session, I spelt out the Sinn Fein position. I made it clear that the presence of the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and the British prime minister had created a focus which broke the stalemate. I outlined our view that British policy in Ireland has manifestly failed, that partition has failed, and that the days of unionist rule are gone forever. I made it clear that there can be no going back to the domination of a one-party unionist state supported by the British government.
When the vote was taken I did not vote and Sinn Fein has yet to make a decision on this document. I had previously made it clear that our negotiating team would report back to the ardchomhairle which would assess the document in the context of our peace strategy and that we would approach this development in a positive manner.
That report was given to the ardchomhairle at meetings yesterday [Friday] and last Tuesday. The ardchomhairle agreed a report should be given to this ardfheis. They also agreed that a motion to adjourn the ardfheis be put to you all.
I want to encourage you all to give your views in an open, frank and comradely way about where you think we are, where our struggle is, how last week's developments fit into this and how we move from this point forward towards our goal of unity and independence. On Easter Sunday all of our speakers called on all republicans to examine the document in great detail. While this is probably a necessary exercise, it is not enough to read this document on its own, line by line or word by word. Parts of it are ambiguous and contradictory. It needs to be examined in the context of strategy and struggle. And in preparing for the next phase we need also to examine the positions and strategies of our opponents and enemies.
I have always made it clear that while our goals and principles must not change, our strategic objectives, strategies and tactics must be constantly reviewed and rooted in objective reality. It is crucially important that all of us are totally involved in making the decisions which will prepare this party to fulfil the historic challenges which face us.
Whatever else the Good Friday document does, it has the potential to redefine the relationship between these islands, thus concluding one phase of our struggle and opening another. The background to the agreement was the IRA cessation of August 1994. The republican objective was to genuinely explore the possibilities of a just settlement. The IRA initiative was abused by those politicians resisting change and by securocrats who cannot accept the fact that the IRA is intact, strong, undefeated and undefeatable. Their obstructionist approach led to the breakdown of the first IRA cessation.
There is no big secret about republican strategy, just as there is no big secret about British government and unionist strategy. They want to maintain the union and we will always want to end it. The talks process has not settled centuries of British interference in Ireland, nor could it. Britain has never had any right to be in Ireland. Britain will never have any right to be in Ireland. But the British government can play a positive role before leaving by trying to redress some of its wrongs and by helping to create the conditions for a peaceful transition to a just settlement.
We knew from the outset that other parties had already subscribed to a unionist veto described euphemistically as "consent". The reason we cannot subscribe to a unionist veto is . . . that it . . . led to partition and to great suffering by nationalists under Stormont. Pandering to that veto has fed unionist intransigence to this day. Republicans seek agreement between the people of this island as a way of resolving this conflict. That means winning unionists, or at least a sufficient number of unionists, over to the goal of a United Ireland.
Much has been said about the agreement [and] it is up to us collectively to decide how we approach it. On the one hand it upholds the unionist veto over the constitutional position of the North, and on the other hand it reduces the British territorial claim . . . while it compels unionists to accept key and fundamental changes involving all-Ireland dimensions to everyday life.
While the agreement is not a settlement, it is a basis for advancement.
Sinn Fein will subscribe to what we view as positive in the agreement, to those aspects which contribute to moving us towards our overall objectives, and it is you, the activists, who with the leadership, shall decide on that.
There was a two-week period of intensive multi-party negotiations which started on March 30th. In the run-up to this date, and following our expulsion from the talks, we had a series of meetings with the British and Irish governments and with President Clinton and his officials in the White House. Our concerns as we approached this intensive period were that the two governments had yet to agree on many of the substantive issues and David Trimble had, and has, yet to bring himself to recognising the legitimacy of our mandate. In the absence of agreement between the governments, we feared that the British government would go down to the wire on some issues and that the Irish government would be forced to negotiate up, which is always more difficult than negotiating down.
In the first day or so it became obvious that Senator Mitchell had no paper to deliver. I went to see Bertie Ahern in Dublin. I left assured that he was focused on all the issues and that his engagements with the British Prime Minister, which were due to start later that week, would concentrate on the substantive issues. As it transpired, Mr Ahern and Mr Blair made progress. Meanwhile, back at the talks venue, the unionists were still blocking and impeding progress. Mr Trimble had a series of meetings with Mr Blair and that week passed without a paper being tabled at the talks. On Sunday ain],
Rita O'Hare and myself met the Irish government. [several of us] met the Irish Government. Bertie Ahern's mother took seriously ill that day and despite this he saw ourselves and other parties. At midnight on Monday the paper was eventually tabled.
None of this, and none of the potential or the possible potential of the current situation, would even be on the horizon if the IRA had not shown the great courage and taken the initiative for peace in August 1994. Last week we paid homage to the men and women of 1916. Even those who have some sense of admiration, and I think the plain people of this country have a deep sense of admiration when they pay tribute to the men and women of that time, to the IRA volunteers who went out and declared a republic in this city, we don't distinguish between that generation of IRA volunteers and this generation of IRA volunteers.
I think it is important, to those of us who have been at the receiving end of much of what has happened to our lives, and to many other people who have died and have given their entire lives to this struggle, to have some sense that not only has the IRA not been defeated, but that the IRA is obviously a thinking organisation which has the strength to take an initiative for peace and despite all of the difficulties, to repeat that against all of the odds.
Some people. . . might think my remarks are provocative, but they're not. When I pay tribute to the IRA, I do so in terms of friends and neighbours who I have known, who you have known, young men and young women. Think of the last two IRA volunteers who died, the cream of their generation. Two young men - talented, intelligent young people - and in paying tribute to them we remember the families of all of the people who have died. Let us go forward with the sense of this struggle being at a high point.
Our task must be to articulate and develop the core republican positions in a way which is reasonable and attractive to the broad mass of the Irish people. This cannot be a Northern struggle with the South tagged on. It has to be a truly national struggle. Unionist nervousness should not blind us to the enormity of our task and to what has to be done in the time ahead. Last year I stressed the need for republicans to be concerned about what was happening inside unionism. I want to tell you again: "We must make every effort to ensure that Northern Protestants and unionists are not forced to occupy that political space we wish to escape from". Today, more than ever, we need to hear the many voices of unionism. Unionists are now having to deal with a range of political issues which surface in the form of raw emotions. We must not allow our hurt make us insensitive to the hurt and pain of the unionists. We must make it clear that we have no wish to dominate them in the way we were dominated in the past.
Looking into unionism today I see confusion and fear. Many believe they are being moved into a position of second class citizenship. These perceptions have become magnified since April 10th. Let us spell out to the unionists that republicans have no wish to discriminate against you, to dominate you, to marginalise you, to make you second class citizens in the land of your birth.
Today [Saturday] the Ulster Unionist Party is meeting; they are worried, divided, concerned. Change is never easy. I understand the difficulties facing David Trimble. The anchor of change has to be dialogue [and] in his heart of hearts Mr Trimble knows that. He also knows that the real significance of last week's events for unionism was that the Ulster Unionist Party was moved further than it wanted to go. But if unionists are to play a positive role in the shared responsibility which must shape a shared future for everyone on this island, unionism will have to move even further into the modern age.
David Trimble says that in his opinion the union is much safer under the agreement than it was before. But he knows the truth is that the union has been severely weakened. While I am conscious of Mr Trimble's difficulties and ready to engage directly with him, I must also remind him that the challenge for him is to join in managing and planning the future along with the rest of us. It is my view that this will happen but only when there is no alternative. That is why the role of the British Prime Minister is so crucial. Up to this point, British policy in support of the Union, as well as the unionist veto, has been at the root of the conflict here. That is why the focus of all democratic opinion must be on securing changes in British policy and removing the veto.
Yesterday [Friday] I spoke to the Taoiseach. Downing Street also phoned Parnell Square [Sinn Fein's Dublin headquarters] and I spoke to Tony Blair, who I will be meeting again on April 27th. I took the opportunity to impress upon him once again that the British responsibility in Ireland is to right wrongs. In my view, Mr Blair understands that he must bring changes urgently on the ground and in these areas which have suffered most from the blight of British militarism and the British presence.
His is the biggest responsibility because he must face up to righting the wrongs, which are the historical and contemporary legacy of Britain's involvement in our affairs. When Irish republicans talk about British interference and the British presence we do not mean the unionist people.
One of the big challenges facing us in the time ahead is how we deal with the new structures which are being proposed. This must be part of our evaluation. Irish republicans have an emotional and an understandable political as well as a constitutional block to participation in a Stormont parliament. If that abstentionist policy underpins our contest in the Assembly elections then the seats in the cross-Border bodies, which have the power to make and implement policy on an all-Ireland basis, and which would rightly belong to our electorate, could be allocated to other parties. We need to ask ourselves if this serves our struggle. If it does, fair enough; if it does not, then we have a duty to look at alternatives based upon a coherent republican strategy. We cannot, and we will not, recognise as legitimate the six-county statelet. And we can and we will continue to reject partition and British rule. That is our credo.
Northern nationalists willingly and consciously share in the sovereignty of the Irish people. This needs to be given recognition and accommodated at this time as part of the forward momentum of a transitional process. Accordingly, we have advocated that Irish citizens in the North be entitled to return representatives to the Dail and to participate as fully as possible in the political life of the nation.
The Irish Government has a responsibility to develop the citizenship right of those in the North to its fullest extent.
All political prisoners must be released. When I talked to Tony Blair on the first occasion that he came to Stormont I said to him: "I'm not negotiating with you on the issue of prisoners . . . They have to be let out."
We [Irish republicans] are deadly serious about turning the division of 1798 and 1916 into a reality. It will not be easy . . . but we will persist. The prize is freedom.