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ON THE RECORD
MARTIN MCGUINNESS INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 26.3.95
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: John Turnbull reporting. Martin
McGuinness expects to meet the Northern Ireland Minister Michael Ancram this
week. It will be the first meeting of its kind there's been between Sinn Fein
and a government minister. And that implies that great progress is being made
towards a permanent end to violence in Northern Ireland and a new political
dispensation. Some say don't you believe it. Mr. McGuinness is in our studio in
Londonderry.
Good morning to you. Good afternoon to
you.
MARTIN MCGUINESS: Good afternoon.
HUMPHRYS: Have you got a date yet, for that
meeting?
MCGUINNESS: No we haven't got a date but I expect
that the beginning of next week that we should have one.
HUMPHRYS: What makes you say that? Have they said
that's going to happen?
MCGUINNESS: Well they haven't said that at this
stage but I think there is a great expectation now that a meeting between Sinn
Fein and British Government ministers will take place some time next week and I
think many people will be very disappointed if that doesn't turn out to be the
case.
HUMPHRYS: Great expectation on your part or have
you had some indication from Downing Street that it is going to happen?
MCGUINNESS: Well we've had no indication from
Downing Street but there is an international and national expectation that
British Government ministers should be sitting down with Sinn Fein.
HUMPHRYS: When that happens, and I say when not
if, because clearly you're absolutely convinced it is going to happen, when
that happens it is only a stage in this process isn't it? The most important
stage comes later, that's to say the all party talks and you won't get to those
all party talks unless and until you meet the conditions that the British
Government has set out.
MCGUINNESS: Well you see the position is that the
British Government has to recognise that Sinn Fein has a substantial electoral
mandate, that we have a right to be at the negotiating table and no one has the
right to prevent us from going there. British Government are also need to
understand that they shouldn't approach the business of developing the
situation with Sinn Fein as if each time they're about to cross the rubicon.
We haven't yet reached the rubicon, but we're moving in that direction and
clearly the British Government have to understand that an essential part of
moving forward to all party talks is meetings with Sinn Fein. When we get to
all party talks everything will be on the table, we will discuss all the issues
which are of relevance and now this particular conflict that will be the
decommissioning of all weapons, the demilitarisation of the situation. Now the
decommissioning of all injustices which have existed within these states since
its foundations in 1920.
HUMPHRYS: And crossing the rubicon in very simple
terms means getting rid of the weapons and that, as it stands, it appears
you're not prepared to do or the IRA is not prepared to do. Under these
conditions.
MCGUINNESS: Well Sinn Fein's objective is to
permanently remove the gun from Irish politics, all the guns, British guns and
Republican guns and clearly we have a situation now where the situation here,
in this state has moved on dramatically in the course of the last seven months.
The situation polictically and militarily has been transformed by the courage
and the imagination of the Irish Republic and Army. What we need the British
Government to do is recognise now that we are moving forward steadily and that
there's a major expectation that they, along with the Dublin Gfi govern will
bring all the parties to the negotiating table for all party peace talks. What
we also have to remember is that this business of demilitarisation and
Britain's refusal to discuss it is all rather silly, particularly in the
context of the meetings which I've been involved in at Stormont, where on five
occasions the issue of demilitarisation has been discussed in depth between
myself and British Governments over several ... There's no reason whatsoever
why Michael Ancram cannot come to the table to discuss this very important
element of the peace process with me.
HUMPHRYS: Well it may or may not be silly but the
fact is the British Government holds the whip hand in this and if it says:
we're not going to get to those all party talks unless and until you do X,Y and
Z, it can do precisely that.
MCGUINNESS: Well you see the British Government
really isn't in a position to dictate to Sinn Fein. The reality is that we
have a peace process which has been up and running for some time. The
international community is looking on, they're looking to see if the British
Government develop this process and the quarters of power all over the world,
the British Government have been seen as delaying, stallling and negative in
the process. What we need to see is imagination from the British Government,
we need to see political imput and a whole hearted involvement of that
government in the development of the peace process.
HUMPHRYS: Yes but that is the whole point isn't
it? Whatever the rest of the world may think, viewed from Westminster and
indeed from Belfast, the British Government can if it chooses stall, it can
delay if that's indeed what it is doing. It would say that, of course it
isn't doing that but it can do it if it chooses to because it has peace and so
long as peace lasts, that's all right.
MCGUINNESS: Well we haven't reached a political
settlement, we haven't negotiated the final settlement to this conflict and I
am sure that there are many people in Britain and within the British
establishment and all the political parties in England who recognise that we
to move forward as speedily as possible..(interruption)..The British Government
haven't got the luxury of being able to stand back on the issue of
demilitarisation, I mean the reality is that the British Army have been
involved in the killing of hundreds of civilians here in the North of Ireland,
elements within British military intelligence have supplied weapons to a
Loyalist death squad who've killed hundreds of civilians here in the North of
Ireland. The British Government and its Army are very much a part of this
equation and that aspect of it needs to be discussed because it's of great
importance to our people.
HUMPHRYS: You say the British Government doesn't
have the luxury to be able to stand back and watch but it does. It has
precisely that luxury because, let me repeat, there is peace so long as people
aren't being killed in the streets and villages of Northern Ireland, so long as
London isn't being bombed, that's exactly what the British Government can do
because there is no pressure on them at this stage. You say from outside the
country, well may be, but that's pressure it can withstand.
MCGUINNESS: Well I say I don't think they can
withstand that pressure and the British Government needs to recognise that
there is no room for complacency within this process. We clearly have a
situation now where there is a major expectation that we must move forward to
all party peace talks. People recognise that Sinn Fein have a substantial
electoral mandate, unlike that of the small Loyalist parties which met with
British minister Ancram last week. The reality is that the British Government
is going to have to engage with Sinn Fein, it's going to have to move the peace
process forward and it's going to have to recognise that we must approach a
situation where all the parties are at the negotiating table for all party
peace talks. There's no way around it.
HUMPHRYS: Isn't the reality that it's you, who
don't have the luxury of being able to wait?
MCGUINNESS: Well I think Republicans have been very
patient in the course of the last seven months. I think Republicans have been
positive, we have been constructive, we have attempted at each stage of the
process to overcome any obstacles which have been placed in our way and many
obstacles have been placed in our way by the British Government. The British
Government needs to recognise that there is a whole world out there waiting to
see, as in South Africa and in Palestine, that development of the Irish peace
process and I think that the British Government needs to recognise that that
reality is before us all.
HUMPHRYS: But what do you say you're widely seen
by people you would call volunteers as a Republican leader to whom they listen,
to whom the volunteers listen, what do you say to the men from Armagh who
perhaps has an armorlite underneath his floorboards and he says: Martin, when
am I going to have to give this up? What's happening here?
MCGUINNESS: Well I think that Republicans have shown
now great imagination and courage in the course of the last seven months and I
think that they along with everybody else expects that the end result of all of
this will be the all the parties at the negotiating table for all party peace
talks and there's no doubt whatsoever that we have created the situation in the
course of recent months which is unprecedented within this country and even
within the entire community, including amongst many Unionists, Protestant,
Catholic, Nationalists people, there is a major expectation now that this
process needs to be moved on, that the British Government have to stop it
stalling, it's delaying and recognise that we cannot squander this opportunity.
HUMPHRYS: But he says to you, this IRA man whom
I've created here, he says to you: I don't see any political change coming as a
result of this, I don't see a united Ireland on the horizon as a result of
this, I don't see anything very much happening. So what do you say to him and
at what stage do you say it to make him give up that armorlite?
MCGUINNESS: Well what I say to everybody is that the
situation within this country has moved on dramatically in the course of the
last seven months. A peaceful environment has been created, this peaceful
environment allows all the parties to come to the negotiating table, to
negotiate the future of this island and we, as Irish Republicans, have a
responsibility to go to that table on the basis of seeking the discommissioning
of all the injustices which have existed within this state.
HUMPHRYS: But you will not get to that table and
the other parties won't join you at that table and the British Government won't
accept that you should be at that table, until that man in Armagh either gives
up the Armalite or you have a very clearly defined set of procedures under
which he is going to give it up, that's the reality isn't it. And until that
happens the British Government can wait.
MCGUINNESS: Well that is not the reality. The
reality is that the British Government has the largest army in the field within
this state, thirty thousand armed soldiers. The reality is that I am prepared
to go to the negotiating table and sit with people who have persecuted the
community which I come from. Those other parties who have an objection to
sitting with me at the negotiating table, cannot sit in their ivory towers and
say we're not part of this conflict. The British Government and the Unionists
Parties who have all given moral support to military forces have to recognise
that in this conflict all the parties to the conflict eventually have to come
to the negotiating table and I think when we look at other peace processes
throughout the world we have clearly seen the situation where you can't resolve
the conflict, you can't remove all the weapons out of the equation until you
get an overall political settlement. I think that's a sensible way to move
forward.
HUMPHRYS: But you keep saying "they have to do
this", "they have to do that", "they have to do the other" - they don't have to
do anything so long as people aren't being killed. And you know as well as
anybody else that the longer the ceasefire lasts, the more difficult it is
going to be to end it.
MCGUINNESS: Well I mean who's looking to end it,
what we're looking to do is get all the parties to come to the negotiating
table, what we're looking to do is get all the other parties to recognise that
we have a glorious opportunity here which has to be developed and that apart
from the British Government and the reluntance of the Unionists there is a
whole world out there, including the entire Nationalist community on the island
of Ireland, which is demanding further development of the process which is
expecting all-party peace talks.
HUMPHRYS: You say who - as you ask me - who is
looking to end it, isn't the answer that some in the IRA may well be looking to
end it unless something happens fairly quickly, one hears that Easter is some
sort of deadline, that may or may not be true.
MCGUINNESS: Well I mean Ken Maginnis was forecasting
the end of it a week after it started, he forecast the end of it the week
before Christmas, he forecast the end of it a week after Christmas.
HUMPHRYS: So you're saying it's totally open
ended? Are you saying it's totally open-ended then, that the IRA, the guy in
Armagh to whom I refer is prepared to wait indefinitely?
MCGUINNESS: Well I'm not prepared to put myself onto
a position where I am a spokesperson for the IRA. What you have to recognise
is that I am a spokesperson for twelve point five per cent of the people who
live within this state, who have yet to see their political representatives sit
down with British Government ministers and it is encumbent and there is a great
responsibility on the British Government to move this peace process forward.
HUMPHRYS: Are you confident that you can hold the
IRA behind you, if that's the right expression, for as long as it takes, that's
the question isn't it.
MCGUINNESS: Well it's not my responsibility to hold
the IRA, it's the IRA's responsibility to look at the process which is
developing and they said in their statement of the 31st August that they wish
to enhance the peace process. We definitely have a viable peace process up and
running but what we need to see is a rejection from the British Government of
whole hearted intent on their part to move the situation forward towards
all-party peace talks. There isn't anywhere else for anybody to go but to the
negotiating table.
HUMPHRYS: Martin McGuinness, thank you very much.
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