THE following are extracts from the address by the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, to his party's ardfheis at the Ambassador Cinema in Dublin on Saturday.
FIRST of all let me reassert the centrality of our goals in whatever strategy we pursue. Let me also reassert the legitimacy and achievability of these goals. Some may think that this is a very defensive thing to do. Maybe it is. But it is necessary in struggle at all times to defend the struggle. It is necessary to uphold the possibilities, to give hope, to be confident in our own strength. It is also necessary to know our own weaknesses.
All of this brings us to our current strategy. This has been underpinned for some years now by the policy position Towards a Lasting Peace in Ireland - the vehicle - which was ratified by the 1992 ardfheis. Apart from the serious commitment to develop a feasible peace process which this contained, and we have seen the effects of this commitment in recent years, this departure involved a key and relatively new element. That was a decision by us to engage our opponents on the question of peace and to stand up to them while reaching out for allies on this fundamental issue.
In other words, we decided to go on a political offensive, to take initiatives, to go toe to toe with them in the battle of ideas. This was at a time when our struggle was on the defensive. When the British were seeking yet another pacification pact with Dublin. Our political offensive wrong footed them. The initial success of our strategy may also have wrong footed some of our allies and confused some activists.
In a struggle like ours, a conspiratorial movement, which is our broad background, there will always be fears of a sellout - of a leadership going soft. The greater the dependency there is upon a leadership and the more political underdevelopment there is among activists the more these fears will grow to be exploited by our opponents, to cause confusion and division.
Fortunately, we have avoided this so far and to the degree that any confusion exists this can be easily dealt with in open and comradely discussions. Of course there is always a danger of us being outmanoeuvred. This is all the more so if our struggle is reduced to a high wire act with a minimum, as opposed to a maximum, participation by our activists and allies. In other phases of the struggle many nationalists and republicans depended upon the IRA to go toe to toe with the British on their behalf.
But as we in Sinn Fein sought to advance our peace strategy all of these old certainties were removed and in the fluidity of that situation we could look to no one else to deliver for us. We had to rely upon our own skills, our own judgment, our own ability. For many Sinn Fein activists, that was a new experience, bringing new pressures and new challenges.
Our goal remains an Irish socialist republic. Our primary objective at this time is an Irish national democracy. This requires a democratic and a negotiated settlement of the conflict in our country. Our strategy is to create political conditions which tilt the range of possibilities in that direction or which makes movement in that direction irreversible.
Our opponents also have their strategies and their objectives. We should not be confused about this. The British government remains the continuing source of the major political difficulty endured by the people of this island. That government is involved in a real negotiation but its objective is not a democratic peace settlement.
Its negotiation is with Dublin, the SDLP and the US administration, in an effort to outflank us. That is with bigger players who it hopes will accept less. London's overall aim remains to pacify Ireland and to concede the minimum possible. The maximum which London will concede is directly related to the amount of political influence which can be created. In this spectrum of possibilities, the British government has no bottom line.
Nevertheless, its objective is a lasting political settlement on its terms. If they succeed, no matter how imperfect this settlement may be from the Irish viewpoint, the British will aim to sell it as a lasting settlement. For example, the partition of Ireland by British government standards represented a lasting political settlement, a flawed one, but one which suited London.
So we are at a very defining and dangerous point in our struggle and the stakes are very high. In essence our immediate tasks are democratic ones. The Six County statelet is not a democratic entity. In fact, it is a failed political and economic unit. The establishment of democracy throughout this island is therefore of primary importance. Democracy means equality - it is a variety or form of society which formally recognises and guarantees the equality of all its citizens and the equal rights of those citizens to determine the structure and administration of the state. Our urgent priority, therefore, is to assert equal rights for all citizens. In the debate and argument with all of the protagonists to this conflict and in a proper all party format we, along with others, can win the argument for democracy. It is, however, imperative that there must be no preconditions to that debate.
To set any parameters on the negotiations for democracy is a contradiction. From a republican perspective proper all party talks have a definite potential to create a democracy within which the struggle for the republic can be pursued. I know that many republicans have become extremely sceptical and suspicious of the very concept of all party talks, especially if these are limited to a partitionist framework. Republicans also know that a lack of focus and attention by Dublin, or a refusal to pro actively seek the shared objective of an Irish national democracy, or a failure to marshal all available resources, will mean that the result of negotiations will fail to produce the change necessary to provide stability and a permanent peace.
However, the democratic instincts and aspirations of popular opinion throughout the island of Ireland, if mobilised, can provide an effective counter to all that. But only if mobilised, only if people power becomes an active ingredient in the negotiations; only if the people own the process. For all these reasons, even in an optimum situation, international assistance is required to tilt the balance of possibilities towards the democratic conclusion. In particular this means Irish America and the US administration.
It is the type of real negotiations proposed by Sinn Fein - inclusive, everything on the table and everyone at the table, no vetoes, no predetermined outcomes and with an agreed time frame - which the British and the unionist leaderships have been attempting to prevent since the inception of the peace process. Their opposition to negotiations is in line with their political objectives. The unionist leadership, supported by this British government, do not want change.
They are conservative in their instincts and in their politics. They want to maintain a status quo which perpetuates supremacy, inequality and repression. But real negotiations inherently imply change - political, constitutional, social economic and cultural change. A negotiated settlement clearly requires change. John Major, David Trimble and Ian Paisley know, as history has proven, that change can only be in the direction off democracy, of equality, of justice and of freedom.
They know that at the end of a process of inclusive dialogue, of real negotiations, the union with Britain cannot be strengthened, only weakened, that their demands for a return to Stormont become ever less and less realisable, that equality and justice become inevitable. Conservatives always fear the consequences of change. They fear that change, once started, will become unstoppable. They fear that change will leave them behind.
As democrats, as nationalists and as republicans, real all party talks, as the first step on the road to a negotiated settlement, remain an important objective for us to achieve. We need to break the political logjam which has sustained the British presence and unionist rule in the Six Counties for 75 years. We wish to see change. We are not afraid of the prospect of inclusive and fair negotiations. A successful conclusion will only be achieved if all involved reach an agreement. There are three main areas which have to be dealt with. These are:
1. Constitutional and political change;
2. Demilitarisation;
3. Democratic Rights.
Constitutional and Political Change we are to restore the peace process here must be a concrete prospect and facility for substantive change. There is a need for fundamental constitutional and political change if we are to bring a peace process to a democratic conclusion. Sinn Fein's objective is to replace the British jurisdiction in Ireland with a new and democratically agreed Irish jurisdiction. We know that others hold a different view. New relationships will have to be forged between all the people of our country. This will be difficult. It demands honest dialogue and a process of inclusive negotiations without preconditions and without any predetermined outcome.
Demilitarisation
THE British have successfully militarised an essentially political problem. There needs to be an end to all forms of repressive legislation; an end to house raids; arrests and harassment. There needs to be a decommissioning of all the British crown forces, including the disbandment of the RUC. British spy posts, - whether in housing estates, sports fields, farming land, on hill sides - wherever they are, they should be dismantled. If we are to agree a lasting peace then there needs to be the permanent removal of all of the guns - British, loyalist, unionist, as well as republicans.
There needs to be a speedy release of all - political prisoners, whether in Ireland, Britain, Europe or the US. However, instead of taking a progressive attitude to the prisoners issue and building confidence, the British government's attitude is punitive and negative. This is most graphically and tragically illustrated by the treatment of Paddy Kelly who is now terminally ill with cancer. That he was denied proper medical treatment at any time is reprehensible. That this occurred in the course of an IRA cessation is barbaric. John Major should immediately authorise Paddy Kelly's release.
At a wider level, the British attitude to the political prisoners, and in particular their blocking of transfers of POWs in England, underlined their failure to move away from the old agenda. What prospect was there of good faith or positive engagement from a government on the wider constitutional and political issues when their attitude to individual prisoners and their families remained so bitter and vindictive?
Democratic Rights
IT could be argued that some of these issues I have mentioned need careful management, or that they are part of the give and take of negotiations. The same thing cannot be said of the need to restore democratic rights. The absence of democracy and the presence of religious, political and economic discrimination, of cultural discrimination, has contributed to the conflict. This needs to be rectified immediately.
On August 31st, 1994, the IRA announced its historic complete cessation of military operations. This was the decision which presented everyone, but particularly the British and 26 County governments, with a unique and unprecedented opportunity to build a lasting peace. That potential for peace was most effectively summed up by the Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney when he described the promise of the new situation as a "space in which hope can grow".
We tried to deepen that space. We tried to widen it and to nourish that hope. Our goal then was to turn that moment of pause into a permanent settlement, a lasting peace. We set ourselves the task of building with others a new beginning for all of the Irish people.
But a cessation is not peace. The mere absence of war is not peace.
So, sadly, that new chapter has for the moment been ripped from the pages of our history by a British government unwilling to seize the opportunity which the Irish peace process represented.
Anglo Irish history and the international experience, teaches us that the road to peace is often tortuous. It is dangerous and fragile, fraught with tremendous challenge. It demands that we take risks.
We face perhaps the greatest challenge of our history - how to overcome the fear, the suspicions, the lack of trust and confidence which has been deepened by the British government's attitude to the peace process. To achieve that we need to look at the lessons of August 1994, at what persuaded the IRA to call its cessation and at the elements of the peace process which offered so much hope.
The package which I had worked out with Mr Hume, the Irish government, under Mr Reynolds, and key elements of Irish American opinion was a political and diplomatic alternative which aimed at removing the causes of conflict in our country. That package would not have been possible had it not been for the willingness of President Clinton to ignore bad advice from London and to implement, for the first time, a new US policy towards Ireland.
The alternatives we presented sought to effect new agreements on constitutional change and political arrangements, and a new dispensation which would be acceptable to all the people of the island. It sought to bring about democratic rights and to remove issues of inequality and injustice in the North and the total demilitarisation of the situation including the removal of the apparatus of war and the released of prisoners.
It was the argument that a determined, approach on these matters by the breadth of Irish national political opinion with the public commitment by both governments that negotiations would commence after a specified period of three months, without preconditions, vetoes or any attempt to pre determine the outcome, which delivered that IRA cessation.
What we have seen in the intervening 19 months has been delaying, obstruction, convolution, contortion, dilution and dishonesty. At times, if this were not so serious, the responses of the British have bordered on farce - proximity talks 400 miles apart and only this week, a proposal for a "broadly - acceptable" elective process which is acceptable to no one and confusing to everyone.
The breaking of the commitment to negotiations by the British undermined one of these two key elements of the peace process. The second element, the commitment on the Irish side to a consensus approach to addressing the causes of conflict was significantly weakened by the collapse of the Reynolds led government and election of a new Taoiseach, John Bruton.
Once the basis of the cessation had been removed through the reneging on the negotiations by the British and the breaking of the nationalist consensus by the current Irish government, the collapse of the peace process became inevitable.
In his recent speech to the Fine Gael Ardfheis, Mr Bruton addressed the collapse of the peace process. There is no doubt a temptation for political leaders or their advisers to seek to absolve themselves from responsibility from the present difficult situation. While this may be satisfying in party political or propaganda terms, much more is required from all of us if we are to face up to the challenge of restoring the peace process.
For that reason I have studied everything John Bruton has said and I have tried to be very measured in my responses to his comments. I know that successful peace making requires that each of us must try to see the situation from a different viewpoint. It is in that spirit that I direct these comments to Mr Bruton.
If we are to restore the peace process - and in my view we must restore it - the Irish Taoiseach cannot act as a facilitator. He has to reach beyond his party political analysis and represent the interests of the Irish nation, and he must understand that the Irish nation extends beyond the state which he governs.
He must also face up to the British government so that government understands that it has to play a full partnership role in the search for peace. The reality is that this has not happened and this has eroded confidence in the peace process and contributed directly to the ending of the IRA cessation.
Clearly what is required is an effective political process which removes the causes of conflict and delivers the changes necessary to a lasting political settlement. This must involve:
Agreement by both governments to initiate inclusive and comprehensive negotiations, without preconditions or vetoes and with no attempt to predetermine or preclude any outcome. For instance, the Government of Ireland Act must be on the agenda;
There must be specific and unambiguous assurances that these real negotiations will begin at the earliest possible time and be conducted with an agreed time frame. There should be clear procedures which prevent obstacles being erected around any issue;
International assistance and guarantees are required to ensure that commitments given are honoured.
In the context of negotiations, an Irish democratic strategy should be agreed to guide the negotiations; secure democratic rights in the transition period; remove the consequences of conflict; to establish agreed structures to implement this Irish democratic strategy and the employment of all available resources in pursuing it.
The objective reality is that peace in Ireland can only be achieved through honest dialogue and democratic negotiations based on equality. This is not a military problem. It is a political problem which was militarised by the British. It needs a political solution.
Let me be very frank about John Major's handling of the peace process.
For the last number of years Mr Major has embraced the rhetoric of peace making but avoided the real challenges. In doing so he has blamed the unionists and everyone else. It isn't just that he has failed to meet the challenges. That would be bad enough but he has gone further by pro actively seeking to frustrate every positive effort to tackle the causes of conflict.
He, more than anyone else, bears the greatest responsibility for the current impasse. Think back on the opportunity that has been wasted; reflect on the expectations which greeted the IRA initiative of 1994.
This universal sense of hope has been dashed by Mr Major's refusal to convert a cessation into a permanent process for justice and peace.
Could it be that it is not only because the Tory establishment does not want to preside over the type of change that is required in our country, but that they also resent the fact that all the initiatives originated from nationalist Ireland - and initially from myself and John Hume.
Having said all of this I must also make it clear that if John Major is prepared, even at this juncture, to engage properly in the necessary honest dialogue to restore the peace process, then we will meet him halfway. Peace making is a two way street.
Crucially, we cannot have peace in Ireland unless the British government wants peace also and is totally committed to bringing it about and sustaining it through risky and dangerous times. I regret the ending of the cessation. My heart goes out to those who died or were injured in the London bombings, and to their families. To the families of Inan Ul Haq Bashir and John Jeffries, I extend our sincerest condolences. No words of mine can ease the pain which they are enduring.
I extend our condolences also to the family of IRA volunteer Edward O'Brien. His death was a particular source of sorrow.
There will be some commentators who will read this speech for signs that the IRA is going to resume its cessation. They should know that this would not be the vehicle for such announcements. I want to see an end to all armed actions and I am working for that end, but there needs to be an understanding of the difficulties which British bad faith has created for all of us. There are efforts by both John Major, John Bruton and others to scapegoat Sinn Fein.
The last 18 months have been a learning process and there are lessons for us all. One thing is clear. The IRA cessation should not be devalued. It is real evidence that, despite, provocation and a clear lack of positive involvement by the British government, the IRA's commitment stretching over a year and a half to enhance a real opportunity for peace is a genuine one.
I want now to address the unionist Section of our people and I would like to do so at two levels. That is at the level of organised unionism and at the community level. I am, making this distinction because I believe different things are happening at these two levels.
But before I do, let me say to unionists I am speaking to you in a spirit of openness, honesty and frankness, I know you are listening and I'm choosing my words very carefully to ensure there is no confusion in your minds about republican intentions.
We want to make peace with you, we want to end the centuries old conflict, we want to be reconciled with you; this is your, country every bit as much as it is ours and we want to share it with you on a democratic and equal basis. We take no comfort from the fact that you live in fear about your future, that you feel besieged by Irish nationalists on one side and on the other sided - "you are distrustful of the British government. We know this instills a deep sense of insecurity and that this makes movement difficult.
I am concerned that you appreciate our commitment to reconciliation with you on the basis of respect for your beliefs, your tradition and your hopes for the future. It isn't easy for either nationalists or unionists to trust each other. I'm not going to ask you to forget the past nor to forgive republicans for the pain we have visited on you. At the same time I don't expect nationalists or republicans to forget what you inflicted on us. However, the wrongs of the past must not paralyse us. We must not be trapped in a web of suspicion and doubt about each other.
WE need to open up our minds unconditionally to one another. In this way we can learn more about each other; in this way we will find common ground and a shared understanding will emerge about the future.
Can we restore the peace process? We have to. Can it be done through the proposals presented by London and Dublin? This is a time for clear heads and steady nerves. It is my firm conviction that we will get a peace settlement but I cannot say when this will happen or whether indeed it can happen under the present administrations.
The "framework for an elective process" released by John Major on Thursday provides yet more evidence of his concern to stay in power and of the protracted effort to subvert and frustrate a meaningful restoration of the peace process. That the Irish government permitted the British government to take such decisions is not encouraging.
It took over 50 years for Stormont to be overthrown. There is no way that Sinn Fein will be party to any restoration of that kind of institution. Our preference would be to boycott both the election and the elected body. However, we live in the real world. We will be guided therefore by whether it is necessary to defend our vote or to uphold the rights of our electorate. Some of you may have hoped that towards the conclusion of this speech that I would have been able to look forward to a more trouble free future for our party and for the rest of the people of this island. The last 18 months have shown everyone what the future could be like. It was a good 18 months and as people embraced the new possibilities they became incredulous as other politicians rejected every meaningful offer to talk. The people of our island have the right to peace. We have the right to shape our own future.
No British government has the right to condemn us to continued conflict and division. But we have to face up to the reality that John Major has frittered away the best opportunity for peace in 75 years. In developing a strategic overview and in seeking to restore the peace process, this fact cannot be avoided. For years we were told that the British government was neutral, that it had a benign attitude towards Ireland, that an IRA cessation would be met with a generous and flexible response. We were the ones who were sceptical about this.
I was the one who insisted, even as the IRA announced its cessation, that the struggle was not over. Sinn Fein's vision of the future is both realistic and obtainable. There is no doubt that the peace process can be restored if the energy and concern that exists within nationalist Ireland and internationally can be structured and organised. In this context the Dublin government have a weighty responsibility.
Our last ardfheis was the first one in 25 years without conflict, so we are well schooled in the politics of repression but we know also that we need to be generous and flexible. So we extend the hand of friendship to our enemies as a sign of our strength and our willingness to be inclusive.
We are united, we are stronger than ever, we are more experienced. We face the future confident of our own strength and conscious of our weaknesses and prepared for the work which we need to do.
There are no partial solutions and there can be no partial negotiations about the future of the people of this island. The position has now moved on beyond such arrangements.
All the main players know that and as John Major casts about for other ways to keep himself in power we must continue to press forward with the democratic option, that is, for an end to the British connection and for a lasting peace in our country.