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ON THE RECORD
JOHN BRUTON INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 16.6.96
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Well we'll be hearing more from Mr
Howard later in the programme but first more on the bombing and its effect on
the peace process. On the line from Dublin is the Prime Minister of the Irish
Republic, John Bruton. Now, Mr Bruton, Good Afternoon.
JOHN BRUTON: Good afternoon.
HUMPHRYS: Isn't it the case that that bombing has
ended whatever hope there might have been of getting Sinn Fein into the talks?
BRUTON: I believe that the events of the last
week have done appalling damage to any credibility that Sinn Fein had in their
proclaimed pursuit of peace. When you bear in mind that first of all they
accepted IRA denials of involvement in the killing of a member of the Irish
Police and then subsequently had to go back on that. When you consider that
Sinn Fein couldn't even bring themselves to condemn either the killing of an
Irish Garda Siochana member or the appalling outrage in Manchester. The
credibility of Sinn Fein is open to question and I think it's very important to
bear in mind that they are now betraying the people who voted for them in
Northern Ireland in the recent elections. They voted - who voted for Sinn Fein
- voted for a peace strategy. They were told that Sinn Fein was following a
peace strategy. There is little evidence remaining that that is the case now,
when you bear in mind that they couldn't even condemn the murder of a member of
the Guards and that they have been struck mute as well in their reaction
to this appalling atrocity in Manchester, which was designed, because of the
day that was chosen, to drive the British and the Irish peoples further apart
and to make peace and a settlement more difficult. And, yet, Sinn Fein
continues, unfortunately, to fail to disavow the IRA.
HUMPHRYS: So, therefore, the answer to my question
is Yes. It has ended hopes of getting Sinn Fein to talk about peace because
there is no peace.
BRUTON: There is no peace. Well, we-There
hasn't been peace since the IRA reinstated their campaign of violence and
murdered ....Bashir (phon) and John Jefferies (phon) in London and when units
of the IRA have been involved - only in the last week - in the killing of Garda
Jerry (phon) McCabe in Adare in County Limerick. There isn't peace currently.
There may be people within Sinn Fein - and they ought to be encouraged - who
are trying to get the IRA to change its course and trying to get Sinn Fein to
have the courage either to disassociate itself from the IRA or go to the IRA
and get the IRA to stop the campaign. There may well be. I believe there are
people within Sinn Fein who are of that mind but it is now long past time for
them to make up their minds where they stand.
HUMPHRYS: And in the absence of that happening,
you seem pretty pessimistic about the prospect of getting Sinn Fein involved at
any stage in the future?
BRUTON: How could a political party be committed
to peace and not condemn the killing of Garda McCabe? How could a political
Party continue to associate with the IRA after the appalling events in
Manchester? That's the question they must answer for themselves. It's not for
me to answer that question for them. They must answer that as people who claim
to be Irish democrats. They must answer that question for themselves. The
questions now need to be put by the people in Sinn Fein to themselves about the
viability of their peace strategy, in the light of what has happened. It's for
them to answer that question, for themselves, now.
HUMPHRYS: And how long are you prepared to give
them to come up with an answer to that question?
BRUTON: Obviously, we're having to review very
seriously and fundamentally our relationship with Sinn Fein, with the
Republican movement, as a whole, in the light of what has happened. Irish
Governments in the past have shown great resolution since the State was founded
in 1921, in being willing to face down the men of violence in this State. We
have never been lacking in that regard in the past. But in recent times we
have been trying - I believe entirely justifiably, and this applies to the
previous Government as well as this one - to find a way of bringing the
Republican movement, which previously was attached to violence into ordinary
democratic politics. That was always going to be a difficult task and there
were going to be discouragements, that was clear.
HUMPHRYS: But this is more than a discouragement?
BRUTON: What has happened now is far more - as
you are about to say - is far more than a mere discouragement. This is a slap
in the face to people who've been trying against perhaps their better instincts
to give Sinn Fein a chance to show that they could persuade the IRA to
reinstate the ceasefire and that Sinn Fein could represent Republican people.
HUMPHRYS: And, what else needs to happen? What
else do they need to do to prove that, in fact, we've been conned? You've been
conned, Dublin's been conned, the British Government's been conned, everybody
has been conned. They never did intend there to be a true ceasefire, a true
end to violence?
BRUTON: Yesterday, I said that what is needed
now and I repeat it here is an unconditional and irrecovable ceasefire. There
can be no going back this time. No looking over the shoulder to the option of
violence, if politics doesn't go their way. This time, they must come
irrecovably into the political process. That, I believe, is essential. How
they phrase that, how they put it is a matter for themselves because it is
important to make the point that at this juncture it is for Sinn Fein to
convince the rest of us of their commitment. It is not for us to tell them
exactly what words they must use, for we, if you like, take the responsibility.
They must take the responsibility
themselves now to find the words that will convince the people of Britain, the
people of Ireland that there will be no more Manchesters, no more Adares.
HUMPHRYS: But, you want more than words now, don't
you?
BRUTON: We want visible commitment on their
part.
HUMPHRYS: And, what does that mean?
BRUTON: Already, Sinn Fein have committed
themselves on a contingent basis to the Mitchell Principles. The Mitchell
Principles disavow violence for political means and say that the arms that were
used - the bomb-making equipment that was used in Manchester, the Kalashnikov
that was used to kill Gerry McCabe - that those arms, those weapons have to be
destroyed. That's what Sinn Fein have agreed to in the Mitchell Principles -
that those weapons have to be destroyed in the interests of public safety.
Public safety in Manchester, public safety here in Ireland.
Now, it is for them. I believe, having
accepted those principles - which they did last week, or a week or so ago - it
is for them, now, in the light of what they have accepted in the Mitchell
Principles to demonstrate what that means, what that commitment means in
practice, so that people will be convinced of their bona fides.
I think that there has been too much of
an endeavour in the past - on the part, perhaps, mostly of the British
Government but also of the Irish Government - of trying to choose the words for
Sinn Fein, telling that if you use...you must use this word, or don't use that
word, that we won't accept this. That has the perverse effect of taking the
burden off their shoulders, or relieving them of responsibility. They have the
responsibility now. Sinn Fein and the IRA have the responsibility now to find
themselves now, in their own way, the words and the deeds that will convince
people that there never will be violence of this kind in pursuit of political
objectives. They have the job - not Michael Howard, not the Irish Government
- they. Sinn Fein and the IRA have the job of finding the right words.
HUMPHRYS: Right.
BRUTON: And finding the word...the right deeds
that will convince people.
HUMPHRYS: And when you say the 'right deeds', what
you are saying is before they can be brought into the talks, before they can be
given democratic respectability, as it were, there must be destruction of IRA
weapons...
BRUTON: No. No, no.
HUMPHRYS: Is that what you're saying?
BRUTON: I think it's important in a matter of
this seriousness that you shouldn't attempt to put words into my mouth.
HUMPHRYS: No, I'm trying to understand the point
you're making.
BRUTON: Well, I appreciate that but I think you
should not use the method of putting words in my mouth. It doesn't assist in
the process.
HUMPHRYS: No, no, I promise you I'm not trying to
do that. I'm genuinely trying to understand the point you're making.
BRUTON: Oh, I appreciate that. I'm glad to
know that. The position is that we want them to show, in light of the
principles that they have accepted - they have accepted The Mitchell Principles
now. They have said that if they went into the talks, if there was an IRA
ceasefire they would accept the Mitchell Principles. It is for them now to
show how they intend to translate that into reality. Everytime an Irish
Government official or British Government official attempts to put the words
out for them that creates them - for Sinn Fein - an opportunity to go off in
another direction and then say that we're being subject to the politics of
precondition, or whatever..
HUMPHRYS: I understand that
BRUTON: What's important now is that they
recognise that they have the freedom and the responsibility themselves to
choose their own words and their own actions-that will convince people. And we
should not, I believe, get into the prescriptive mode, as far as that's
concerned because that actually, in a perverse way, as I've said already, it
relieves the Republican movement of the responsibility for finding the words
and the actions themselves, of their own hearts, and in their own hearts that
will convince other people in Ireland - whether they be of the Unionist or
Nationalist tradition - and the people of Britain that this time the peace is
for keeps.
HUMPHRYS: Prime Minister, thank you very much
indeed.
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