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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 28.1.96
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. Sinn Fein says the
Northern Ireland peace process is now in danger because Mr Major wants an
election there. We'll be asking if it can be rescued.
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HUMPHRYS: And, now, to
Northern Ireland. What's happened this week seems to prove the old adage that
in THAT part of the world it's always one step forward and two steps back. The
Mitchell Commission which was set up to get rid of ONE roadblock standing in
the way of permanent peace has done its job and produced its report. Now
there's another roadblock. Mr Major says he wants there to be elections in
Northern Ireland before there can be all-Party talks. The Unionists agree - it
was their idea. Sinn Fein is implacably opposed. But what does that really
mean? Martin McGuinness is one of the leading figures in Sinn Fein.
Mr McGuinness what have you got against
elections?
MARTIN MCGUINNESS: Well, we've absolutely nothing against
elections. Sinn Fein is not afraid of elections. We have over the course of
the recent while proved our mandate consistently, and I think that all of us
here accept that if there were to be elections, then the three major Unionist
Parties and the the two nationalist Parties would undoubtedly be returned with
roughly the same mandates as they have at the moment. The question really
isn't who's afraid of elections, the question really is who's afraid of
negotiations, and I think the events of this week have clearly shown that the
British Prime Minister John Major and the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party
David Trimble are afraid of negotiations.
HUMPHRYS: So, will you not take part in those
elections?
MCGUINNESS: Well, I think that that's an option
which will have to be considered by the Sinn Fein leadership along with others
and we will do that in due course.
HUMPHRYS: So you've not set your face against it?
MCGUINNESS: Well, I think that what we have to do
is have a discussion about it. Clearly what we're seeing here is a very
determined attempt by the British Prime Minister and the Unionists to yet
again put off and delay and stall all-Party peace negotiations, and I think
that in the context of us being seventeen months into a process that is quite
disgraceful and quite cowardly, and very selfish indeed.
HUMPHYRS: So when are you going to reach a
decision? When will you tell us whether you're going to take part in those
elections or not?
MCGUINNESS: Well, the Sinn Fein National Executive
will meet and discuss that and in due course we will make our decision known.
HUMPHYRS: When? When is that likely to be?
MCGUINNESS: Well, I think it'll happen in the
course of the next few weeks.
HUMPHRYS: If you don't take part in those
elections, then of course you'll hear -- have already heard from the Unionists
amongst others, saying: you're scared because you're afraid you'll be kicked
out.
MCGUINNESS: No. Quite clearly, Sinn Fein's mandate
will be quite solid in any election, and I think the Unionists know that full
well. What the Unionists are trying to do is buy more time. The question I
repeat is not who's afraid of elections, but who is afraid of negotiations?
And, Mr Trimble who has proved himself to be quite a selfish Unionist Leader
has also proved himself to be afraid to sit at the negotiating table with the
rest of us.
HUMPHRYS: What you could do of course is you
could take part in the elections and then if you were so opposed to the
assembly and the thing that it willlead to, you could say: Well, we'll boycott
the assembly.
MCGUINNESS: Well I think all of these options will
have to be considered in due course, and our national leadership will consider
all of these matters, but in reality what we all have to do is recognise at the
end of a week in which a very determined attempt was made by the British Prime
Minister, and by the Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party to kill all hope and
be silent we must recognise that a job of work still has to be done. We must
not become dispirited, we must not become demoralised or downhearted, and we
clearly have to challenge and expose the negativity of the British Government
and the Unionists to the international community.
HUMPHRYS: And the way to do that you believe is
to have these all-Party talks, and the surefire way, the absolute certain way
of getting those all-Party talks, without even having to decommission any
weapons before them, is to take part in the elections.
MCGUINNESS: Well, what you have to clearly
understand is the strategies and the tactics being employed here by the British
Government and the Unionists. Everyone in this island is absolutely disgusted
with the behaviour of the British Prime Minister and his cowardice. They
clearly see that what is happening here is a British Prime Minister attempting
to buy Unionist votes in order to stay in power, and of course in the grand
plan of where we go from there in relation to the next British General Election
it's also obvious that the Conservative Party are going to fight that election,
and one of the major items in their manifesto will be the non-break-up of what
they call the United Kingdom. So, John Major is showing himself to be what he
really is, and that is a very dedicated and committed Unionist.
HUMPHRYS: Yeah, but in a sense it doesn't matter
what his motives are. What matters is what you would get out of these
elections, and Mr Major, he's made it absolutely clear again in an interview
this morning, that what you would get is the all-Party talks that you want. So
therefore it's very very hard to see why you should not be sitting there this
morning and saying: Alright, we don't like the idea of elections. We think
it's maybe time-wasting or whatever else you may think it is, but it means we
will get what we have always said we wanted which is all-Party talks.
MCGUINNESS: That is not necessarily the case. What
we've seen over the course of the last eighteen months and even for some months
before it is the British Prime Minister and his representatives speaking with a
forked tongue. So, Republicans are very cautious when we hear these comments
from the British Prime Minister. The Unionists have laid their cards on the
table. They believe that the establishment of an assembly or a convention will
deal with only the issue of what they call the decommissioning or what we call
the surrender of the IRA. So, in reality, nationalists are looking at the
prospect of the establishment of an elected body in the North with some
considerable dismay because of the tactics and the strategies being employed by
the British government and the Unionists. And, the Unionists of course have
received considerable support from the British Prime Minister in their
intransigence. And it's also very important to point out and I think this
will maybe be lost on people, that in the course of the last eighteen months we
have not had one major statement from any senior member of the British
Government exhorting the Unionists to sit at the negotiating table with the
political representatives of Irish nationalism on this island.
HUMPHRYS: If you don't like that particular path
that - clearly you don't - that Mr Major's outlined, then what about the
Commission's path that they have set out - Senator Mitchell's path, and the six
principles that he has strongly recommended that you adopt. Now, are you going
to accept all of those six principles?
MCGUINNESS: Well, the British Prime Minister has
effectively placed the Mitchell Report, the Mitchell Commission Report into the
dustbin. So, it's all very hypothetical and academic at this stage. What we
have to do is recognise that we have a British Prime Minister who nailed his
colours to the mast in the course of this week on Wednesday afternoon when he
said there were only two ways into talks with Sinn Fein. He said: One: there
must be an actual decommissioning or surrender by the IRA, and Two: Sinn Fein
must take part in elections. So effectively the British government have dumped
the Mitchell Report and for many people it has become water under the bridge.
HUMPHRYS: But you've never allowed the British
Government in the past to write your agenda for you, so what you can do here,
you say Mr Major has put that in the dustbin, you can say we're taking it out
of the dustbin. Mr Major set up, along with the Dublin Government this
international commission. We will take those recommendations, we will put them
on the table and we will endorse them in the way that this international and
independent commission said we should.
MCGUINNESS: Well, Sinn Fein's position on the
Mitchell body was that we were prepared to be constructive in relation to the
Mitchell Report.
HUMPHRYS: Not still prepared?
MCGUINNESS: What we are saying here and what we are up against is a British
Prime Minister which is saying quite clearly that he is being supported by the
leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. That it really doesn't matter what Sinn
Fein does-
HUMPHRYS: Well-
MCGUINNESS: -in relation to the Mitchell Report.
They are not going to go down that road. The road that they have now paved out
for themselves is the road to an elected Party, a return to an assembly or a
convention which they hope will be a springboard to a full blown assembly in
the North of Ireland. Sinn Fein is totally and absolutely opposed to the
concept of an internal settlement within the North.
HUMPHRYS: You keep telling me what Mr Major
wanted, you keep telling me what the Unionists want, but you're not telling me
what you now are prepared to do. You're avoiding that issue all the time. Are
you prepared to accept those recommendations, those six principles that were
enunciated by the Mitchell Commission? That's a straightforward subject to
deal with. You think they're important, you had trust in the Mitchell
Commission, you said so.
MCGUINNESS: Yeah and I have no problem dealing with
it at all. The reality, and we have to face the reality, is that we're having
this conversation against the background of the British Prime Minister
effectively dumping into the bin a report which he jointly commissioned with
the Dublin Government in the first place. I will tell you what I want, I will
tell you what I believe all the people of this island want. I will tell you
what the international community expects. They expect to see all the Parties
sitting at the negotiating table, dealing with all of the issues at the heart
of this conflict.
HUMPHRYS: Right, and that's-
MCGUINNESS: So what we have seen in the course of
the last week is a British Prime Minister attempting to kill hope and the
failure, if there is a failure in all of this, is a failure of Mr Major, not
our failure.
HUMPHRYS: And if and when you get around that
table, again Senator Mitchell has said what you ought to do, once you get into
those talks then there ought to be some decommissioning of weapons, do you
accept that?
MCGUINNESS: Well Sinn Fein's position has been made
quite clear in the submission which we made to Mr Mitchell prior to the
announcement of his document. And, we have said that we believe that it is
possible to bring about the removal of all of the guns, not just the guns of
the IRA but the guns of the British Army, the RUC and over one hundred and
fifty thousand weapons held in the hands of Unionists as a part of a negotiated
settlement. What we have to do is apply the rules of conflict resolution as
they pretain in other parts of the world and recognise that what we have to get
into negotiation for is to remove all of the injustices, all of the
discrimination, all of the inequalities that have existed in this state since
it was founded in the early 1920s.
HUMPHRYS: Mr Major has said, the British
Government has said, that they no longer have a selfish interest in Northern
Ireland. Are you saying that they've now changed that view, that they do?
MCGUINNESS: Absolutely. I think that the course of
the last eighteen months has clearly shown that the British Government are
acting in their own self interest. Number One: to stay in power by buying the
Unionist votes and Number Two, clearly, making in the course of recent... made
it quite clear that one of the central platforms in their manifesto at the next
British General Election will be the non-breakup of what they call the United
Kingdom, the devolution for Scotland, an issue which they intend to fight out
with the British Labour Party. So, what the British Government have done is
clearly put their own self interest over and above the quest for peace and a
negotiated settlement on this island.
HUMPHRYS: Martin McGuinness, thank you.
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