................................................................................
ON THE RECORD
GERRY ADAMS INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 1.11.98
................................................................................
JOHN HUMPHRYS: And now Northern Ireland. This morning
a Loyalist Paramilitary group said they shot and killed a Catholic man in
Belfast early yesterday morning. Yet more proof, if we needed it, of why the
peace settlement matters so much. And it is under threat again. The key
deadline in the agreement passed yesterday without being met. New north-south
institutions, in which ministers from Belfast and Dublin would work together,
should have been set up. That hasn't happened because there is still no
Executive in Northern Ireland - no Shadow Executive. And that is because the
Unionists have said that Sinn Fein cannot sit on the Executive until the IRA
starts - I should say the Ulster Unionists have said - Sinn Fein cannot
sit on the Executive until the IRA begins to hand over its weapons. And that
they have so far refused to do. The Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams, joins me
from now Belfast.
Good afternoon Mr Adams.
GERRY ADAMS: Good afternoon John.
HUMPHRYS: There's no doubt is there, that that
dreadful incident early yesterday morning has underlined the importance of
getting this agreement through and making it work. Are you going to use your
influence, the influence that you have as leader of Sinn Fein to persuade your
colleagues in the IRA to hand over some weapons so that we can break this
log-jam.
ADAMS: Well first of all John people here will
be slightly aghast at your question, given the fact that a Catholic man was
killed by Loyalist and pro-British elements, and Sinn Fein signed up to an
agreement on Good Friday which we are keeping. The mechanisms which were
established under that agreement bind all of the parties to deal with the
decommissioning body, and to use our influence and all of our positive and
constructive influence to try and resolve this issue of decommissioning. It is
not a pre-condition to movement on any other matter, and the deadline which was
missed yesterday was missed because of the wilful and deliberate go-slow by the
Ulster Unionist Party who are concerned to undo and to rewrite the agreement
which their leader made on Good Friday. And I think this is why we need to be
very very focussed on what has to be done.
What has to be done in the first
instance is that all parties to the agreement - that includes us, it also
includes the two governments - have to honour the commitments which they made.
And yesterday I spoke to your Prime Minister Mr Blair for half an hour, and I
put it to him that as both a party to the agreement and also as head of the
British Government that he has a responsibility to see the implementation of
this agreement in as urgent a way as possible.
HUMPHRYS: And what did he say to you?
ADAMS: Well, that's a matter for him to make
clear to you, but let us be very very sure about all of this. In terms of what
is required here it is a new dispensation. The agreement on Good Friday as
I'm sure your viewers will know, put forward mechanisms and institutional
ways of dealing with a range of social, economic, political, cultural,
institutional and constitutional matters, all of which show the need for the
type of transformation which is required. Now six, almost seven months later,
the only institution which is in place is the Shadow Assembly. The agreement
makes it very very clear that the Executive, the Shadow Assembly, the
cross-border bodies, the Council of Ministers, the implementation bodies are
all inter-dependent and interlocked.
HUMPHRYS: And it is clear is it not, that there
cannot be progress on those other things until there has been some
decommissioning.
ADAMS: Well, with respect ....
HUMPHRYS: That's perfectly clear isn't it....
ADAMS: How is it clear John?
HUMPHRYS: Whether it's in the agreement or not,
let's put that to one side, but the fact is, it was the spirit of the
agreement. It is now accepted by some of your colleagues in Dublin, and indeed
in the SDLP that there has to be give on this issue. There is not going be
progress without it is there?
ADAMS: Well, with respect, if I can say so,
just don't in a trite way, and in a half a sentence say 'let us put that
aside'. That was...
HUMPHRYS: Well, you've explained the position. I
mean you had explained your view of the position, so we're clear on that and I
hope that we can move on a little bit from that in this interview.
ADAMS: Well, if you would stop interrupting
John, perhaps I can explain what people here voted for, because people here in
this island, this is what is significant, in my opinion and I've said this
many times, wasn't even the agreement, but was the referendum, and that
referendum was voted for by people both sides of the border in unprecedented
numbers. And they voted after a very very detailed public debate, the type of
measures which we are seeing being prevented now on the contrivance and on a
false pre-condition being set by the Unionists. Now why are they setting that
false pre-condition? Because they're against the kind of changes which are
required, and all of us know, and we're bound to after yesterday and after the
events of the summer to know that peace is more than a cessation, peace is the
process of justice, peace is people having ownership in their daily lives,
having a place in society, having an involvement in society. Now how can one
party - imagine if this was happening in Britain - if everyone fought an
election and if under the terms of that election and the various agreements
made, citizens were to be represented in a government and in the other
institutions if they got enough votes..
HUMPHRYS Yes, but look, it isn't just a matter of
one party here is it. We've got Seamus Mallon saying Sinn Fein.....
ADAMS: No, with respect don't be misquoting
Mr Mallon - please don't be misquoting Mr Mallon.
HUMPHRYS I can hardly misquote him since I've not
offered you a quote yet, so let me get....
ADAMS: Well, you've already misquoted him
earlier on if I can say so John.
HUMPHRYS: I think not, because I haven't mentioned
him at all. Look, let me give you the quote.
ADAMS: You've mentioned the SDLP and you've
mentioned Dublin.
HUMPHRYS Well, let me give you a quote...
ADAMS: And please, as someone who is living
in a city which in a few days' time is going to bury a victim of sectarian
killings, let me cut across the nonsense which you are talking. If this was
happening in Britain it wouldn't be tolerated for one day. A man was killed
because he was a Catholic, because those who killed him are trying to prevent
the type of changes which were signed up on Good Friday....
HUMPHRYS: And everybody condemns that
unreservedly...
ADAMS: Well, it isn't a matter of condemnation.
We've gone beyond condemnation. It's a matter of Mr Trimble deciding on
which side is he on. Is he on the rejectionist side, those who don't want
these type of changes, or is he among those of us who signed up to this
agreement.
HUMPHRYS: It isn't just Mr Trimble is it?
ADAMS: Mr Blair also has to make up his mind
where he is on this.
HUMPHRYS Well, if I can now give you the quote
from Seamus Mallon. "Sinn Fein", and I quote verbatim, "should recognise the
moral and political obligations to decommission". That is a verbatim quote.
Let me give you another one from Bertie Ahern. "The reality is we
must make some progress on this". Those are quotes.
ADAMS: Well yes, partial, out of context
quotes, but yes..
HUMPHRYS: How out of context Mr Adams.
ADAMS: Let me finish please.
HUMPHRYS: They're straightforward quotes and you
know they are.
ADAMS: Well, because you fail to tell your
viewers that Sinn Fein appointed Martin McGuinness to deal with the
decommissioning body.
HUMPHRYS: That is well known.
ADAMS: Let me finish please. The
deommissioning body is the institution and the mechanism which was established
on Good Friday to work out all of these matters, and every party is obliged to
deal with that body and to work all of these matters out and especially
this issue of decommissioning in good faith and constructively and positively,
and we are doing that, and there can be no doubt at all that the Republican
guns have been silenced, that they have been taken out of commission, and that
the space created by all of that should be built upon by politicians and moving
on the other agreements which were made on Good Friday, not - I could seek out
a reason not to talk to Mr Trimble. I could demand that he resigns from the
Orange Order, I could demand that he uses his influence to resolve this ongoing
pain around the siege of Garvaghy Road.
I could demand that Mr Blair calls off
his soldiers in South Armagh and Tyrone where there huge wholesale military
operations on a daily basis, and ongoing harassment of the local Nationalist
population. I make all those points to illustrate to you that any of us who
wanted an excuse not to move forward could have many excuses. The killing
yesterday should be an incentive for people to move forward, and as I put it to
your Prime Minister yesterday, this deadline has been passed, he now needs to
focus as he did before, and I welcome the presence of the Taoiseach coming here
on Monday as they both did before, as President Clinton did before to honour
the commitments made on Good Friday.
HUMPHRYS: Is it possible that this could derail
the whole process, because we have a situation where David Trimble is saying:
we will not set up this executive unless and until the IRA begins to
decommission its weapons. As you will know he is in a very large extent held
hostage by his own party on this. Is it conceivable, is it conceivable that
that whole thing could come off the rails at this stage. Would you allow that
to happen?
ADAMS: Well, first of all Mr Trimble is not
hostage to his own party. Mr Trimble is exactly in step with his own party. The
positions which he is articulating are his and we shouldn't present him as a
victim to the machinations of other Unionists. He is the man who is refusing to
move forward, he has to show leadership.
Secondly, Sinn Fein have shown over the
last number of years our commitment, our creativity and our imagination in both
establishing and maintaining with others the momentum towards peace. We can do
no more than is humanly possible if others are wilfully and deliberately
refusing to move. What's at fault here and what's at the core of all of this is
a lack of political will on behalf of the Unionist leadership and in that case,
then it's over to the British Prime Minister to make progress.
HUMPHRYS: And without that, is there the danger of
a return to violence?
ADAMS: Well, don't, if you can excuse me again
for being a bit belligerent with you, talk about a return to violence, or the
possibility of a return to violence, what was the killing of a Catholic in this
city if that wasn't a return to violence.
HUMPHRYS: I mean an end of the IRA ceasefire..
ADAMS: I know precisely..
HUMPHRYS: ...is that a possibility.
ADAMS: That's why I correct you John because
sometimes the killings of Catholics..
HUMPHRYS: Alright, I take that point..
ADAMS: The killings of Catholics do not
register on the Richter scale of indignation among broadcasters like yourself.
HUMPHRYS: Is there - let me repeat the question -
is there - rephrase the question - is there the danger if this does not sort
itself out one way or the other...
ADAMS: As far as Sinn Fein is concerned we are
totally wedded to peaceful and democratic means and we will do all in our power
despite the begrudgers and despite those who want to bring all of this
down, we will do all in our power to prevent that from happening.
HUMPHRYS: And the IRA?
ADAMS: Well that's a matter for them, John, you
know that well enough.
HUMPHRYS: But you have influence.
ADAMS: Aren't we using our influence. I mean I
am here - I have to keep telling you this - I am here in the seventh month
almost of this agreement with only one institution in place, with a refusal to
move on all of the other institutions agreed and a refusal to honour the
commitments made. The contrivance and the precondition which has been
established. I am not going away. I am totally wedded to this. We will keep
focused on it. But the responsibility at this time is to make sure that those
who are against the agreement or who are trying to revise it are not given
political cover and anyone who makes excuses for Mr Trimble is giving him
political cover.
HUMPHRYS: Gerry Adams, many thanks.
ADAMS: Thanks John.
...oooOooo...
|