GERRY ADAMS:
On the peace process in Ireland

Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein President, addressed an overflow public meeting 
at the University of NSW on February 27. The following are edited extracts 
from his speech. The full speech is available on video from ABC Sales.

The relationship between our country and our nearest offshore island has 
been one of colonialism, of domination ... the history of Ireland-Britain 
has been a very troubled one.

The peace process is an unprecedented opportunity to correct and to place 
this relationship on an even keel — to right the wrongs and to make for 
the first time a new history for the people of Ireland.

I think that we, who live in Ireland, whatever the divisions created, 
whatever the difficulties, have a right to start to make our own history.

In this century the British involvement in Ireland, the divisions between 
our people which are artificial have to be overcome.

Solidarity

One thing has been constant is that the Irish of Australia have not 
forgotten their homeland. They have remained in contact. The contact has 
taken many ways and many means and not least through solidarity with 
struggles for peace and justice.

For us who still live on the island, the encouragement and the support from 
our brothers and sisters from all parts of the globe is all important.

You have an interaction between the Irish on this planet with those who 
remain on the island and with governments who in turn speak to the Irish 
Government, speak to the British Government, to encourage and to persuade 
them that this process has to be brought to a democratic conclusion.

I could not stress enough that if you want some sense of the seriousness of 
this.

We've made a journey from Ireland to here just to bring this message: the 
importance of people here in Australia as part of the international 
community to be part of the thrust forward towards democracy and freedom 
and justice in our country.

If it's left only to the relationship between Britain and Ireland, because 
of our size, because we are not as powerful as our nearest neighbour, we 
are therefore at a great disadvantage.

International dimension crucial

So the international dimension can make the difference.

President Mandela gave unflinching and visionary support to the peace 
process and particularly to Sinn Fein because we, in our turn when his 
people were in struggle for democracy, we were avowedly anti-apartheid and 
we gave all the assistance that we could; President Clinton, because the 
Irish Americans put the issue on his agenda, because he himself was 
intellectually and emotionally involved in the whole process of what was 
happening in Ireland, he moved on the issue; the Canadian Prime Minister; 
and so on.

And hopefully, the Australian Prime Minister will also.

When I was first granted a visa to go the USA I was denied — not that I 
ever had any great urge — the right to go to London.

I could go to Washington, could go to the White House, but couldn't go to 
another part, as it is, of the British state which we are unwilling 
citizens of.

The British I think were gently embarrassed. So they could either have the 
plane doing a detour around London or they could lift the exclusion ban. 
And they lifted the exclusion ban.

When we went to New York, my voice could not be broadcast by the British 
media. US broadcasters who are very robust, assertive broadcasters could 
not understand this.

They thought it was quite bizarre — that the mother of democracies was so 
frightened of information, so frightened of the truth that my poor 
unfortunate voice had to be banned.

And the British again changed that.

There are two gentle examples of how changes can be made.

You can bring about change

I have been reminding people of the use of plastic bullets back in my home 
lead bullets.

Plastic bullets are indeed very lethal weapons. So even if each of you here 
decided that you'd get 10 people, 20 people or 30 people to write to your 
politicians to ask them to raise this issue with British politicians and 
with the British Government, even in a quiet way, you can bring changes 
about in this situation.

Because children, Irish children, are being killed by the use of these 
weapons.

There never was a time more than now that this lobby, this very powerful 
lobby is needed.

Making peace

For we are moving quite swiftly to the first anniversary of the Good Friday 
Agreement and the talk back home is about the agreement being parked, about 
the process being postponed, about deadlines being missed.

The issue of decommissioning ... has been grasped by the Unionists as a 
tactical device ... some of the more reactionary elements there actually 
want to use it to collapse the peace process.

In all of this, the process of making peace is much more difficult than the 
process of making war because in making peace you have to make friends of 
enemies.

There have in my country been 30 years of conflict and a hundred years and 
another hundred years and another hundred years of the type of relationship 
which I described in my opening remarks.

There is obviously a huge gap of distrust.

We who see ourselves as progressive, we who have a vision for the future — 
what we have to do, without patronising the Unionist section of our people 
is to understand where they are coming from; to understand their fears and 
to seek to bridge the gap of distrust that currently exists between us.

So the whole issue of de-commissioning is not about guns. In fact it's my 
view that if the IRA had no problem with de-commissioning that some other 
issue would have been seized upon.

It's about those who are afraid or against change; it's about the dead hand 
of reaction which you see elsewhere throughout the world — being afraid of 
the transformation or against the transformation which is required.

Decommissioning

There are all the matters of injustice which have to be de-commissioned 
alongside the question of weapons.

I am totally and absolutely committed to taking the gun out of Irish 
politics — all of the guns, not one section or the other section but a 
total de-militarisation of the situation.

There are eight armed groups — not just the IRA but eight armed groups in 
the situation.

There is the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Loyalists, the Ulster Defence 
Association and these two groups in deference to them are are on cessation.

There are over 130,000 licensed weapons in the hands, mostly of the 
Unionist section of our people.

There is an organisation called Ulster Resistance which is actually armed 
with weapons brought in by British Military intelligence.

There's the RUC, there is the Royal Irish Regiment which is a locally 
recruited regiment of the British Army and there is the  British Army 
itself.

And then there are some smaller Loyalist and Republican groups who are not 
on cessation.

That issue, I just mention it because I think it is actually watergate of 
this phase of British rule in our conflict.

Because the British, in the personage of their official forces, have killed 
400 citizens and by virtue of covert operations agents have killed hundreds 
of citizens.

I think it's up to the British Government to initiate the same sort of an 
independent inquiry into the murders, the same sort of inquiry which was 
established to investigate what happened on Bloody Sunday.

So this is the complex, dangerous and risky context in which we in Sinn 
Fein are going to keep the guns silent.

Progress

It's very important that we do not for one moment underrate or 
underestimate or undervalue the progress which has been made, because 
mighty progress has been made.

We have come a very long way. We have a very difficult task ahead of us but 
it's my view and my conviction that we are going to get to the destination 
that we want to.

I think part of the challenge of it is that political leaders have to show 
that politics works. The fundamentals have yet to be changed. One year from 
Good Friday the fundamentals have been addressed but they have yet to be 
altered.

What is required is the primacy of politics, the primacy of peace keeping, 
the keeping of commitments made. That's what's required and that's the 
challenge not just for Sinn Fein but paradoxically it's a bigger challenge 
for those who are opposed to us.

Historical compromise

It's important to know that the deal that was done on Good Friday was a 
historical compromise, probably the historical compromise of this time.

And all other possibilities probably rest on that historical compromise 
being honoured and being implemented.

Over the last year, despite the progress that has been made there have been 
voices of concern, there has been to some degree a gradual slide into some 
sense of negative dissolution.

I have to say that it's my conviction that we are going to get to a 
democratic peace settlement.

If you watch what is happening you'll see things going back and forth but 
the overall question is whether the movement is progression or regression.

I think overall the movement has been progression.

And the popular will of the people of Ireland and hopefully the strength 
that lies in the international community can be harnessed to ensure that 
this unique opportunity for peace is not squandered.

There is a period of leadership opening up, a period in which once again 
Unionists and Nationalists, and Republicans will have to show that we are 
prepared to take chances, that we are prepared to lead from the front.

But what Unionists must do, they must accept that the structures which have 
been agreed for the first time since partitions, structures of an old 
Ireland nature which the British Government was supposed to put in place 
and transfer power to it by March 10. [The March 10 deadline has since been 
put back to March 29 — Ed]

The Irish Government has to transfer power to it by the same date, the 
Unionists have to show leadership by accepting that that's what they signed 
up for, that's what they compromised on on Good Friday and that is what is 
to be established without further delay.

The most important thing was the referendums, North and South, where the 
vast majority of the people voted, after an intense debate, to all of these 
changes, for all of these transformations.

Mr Trimble, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, has displayed 
leadership before, his biggest step forward was to say "yes" to the 
agreement and he must be confident that he is not going to be left alone 
be supporting him in so far as he implemented this agreement.

Vision

What do we want in Ireland? We want a situation where no one else kills 
because of the political situation; that no one else is killed; that no one 
ever spends another day in prison; we want a situation where the aged can 
be cherished; that the youth, we have a vast youth population on the 
island, that they can be given equality.

You know this peace process is not about me, isn't about David Trimble or 
Tony Blair or any of the other leaders in the situation.

It's about our children.

Bobby Sands as you may know was the leader of the second Hunger Strike, the 
Hunger Strike of 1981. And ten men died on hunger strike at that time. The 
women in Amarh enjoyed the same beastial conditions as the men and over a 
five-year period all of the prisoners, and 85 per cent of the prisoners 
were in prison as the result of forced confessions, as a result of special 
evidence.

What they were all denied — normal rights, the normal decencies and 
dignities that human beings deserve.

Bobby Sands had every right to be vindictive, to be bitter, to be righteous 
in his anger against those who inflicted those privations upon them.

But what he wrote when he wrote about revenge. He wrote "let our revenge be 
the laughter of our children".

I think that for me is a sense of what this peace process is about.

What will it mean when we have peace on the island of Ireland?

It will mean that our young people can grow up with all the joy and all the 
opportunities and all the lack of tension, pain and grief that currently, 
at least until now has been their lot.

I'm pleased to say that I've come here interested in the [republican] 
debate on your own history for as a republican and a democrat I want to see 
an end to English rule in my country.

I want to see an end to partition. I want to see an Irish republic 
enshrined on the island and developed by the people to suit and to reflect 
all of our needs and all of our diversity as a nation.