Adams answers to Chicago Audience on Future of Power Sharing in Northern Ireland.

By Peter Schmidtke

Republicans in Ireland owe a debt of gratitude to their counterparts in America and abroad.

That was the message presented by Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams in a March 14 discussion sponsored by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations.   The talk was attended by more than 200 Irish Americans and interested others in the upscale International Ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel in downtown Chicago.  

Adams, clad in one of his trademark dark blue suits, spent an hour of an unseasonably warm winter afternoon outlining Northern Ireland's landmark Good Friday Agreement and thanking Irish Americans for their proactive support of Sinn Féin over the last several decades in working to secure peace.

Sinn Féin, Gaelic for "We Ourselves," is both the oldest party in Ireland and the only party that is organized throughout the entire island.  It is also the third-largest party in Ireland, behind only Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.    
The agreement referred to by Adams was signed into law in April, 1998, by governments in both Dublin and Great Britain and passed in a referendum later that year by over 71% of the people in Northern Ireland and over 94% in the south.  

The Good Friday Agreement established elections for the now-suspended joint Catholic-Protestant Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly which has operated in fits and starts and has been suspended four times, most recently on Oct. 14, 2002 amid allegations that republicans in the government were operating a spy ring for the IRA in which the IRA was allegedly given sensitive information about British security forces and other key British and unionist figures.

Sinn Féin and Gerry Adams
"Essentially, what Sinn Féin is about is the decolonization of the island," Adams said in his introduction to members of the audience, who were clustered around tables in front of the speaker's podium in groups of eight or nine.

The population of the metropolitan area of Chicago is greater than the whole of Ireland, Adams pointed out.  "Yet there are many hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world who are proud to be Irish, and even more who wish they were Irish," Adams said to a laughing crowd.  "Especially this time of the year."

Adams, who himself was arrested for alleged connections to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and held without trial from 1973 to 1977, said that Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland were denied basic human rights.  "Mention one of them, and you'll find that the state had a statute to take it away or neutralize it."

And although he did not refer to it during his talk, Adams was sprayed with automatic rifle fire by Ulster Freedom Fighters in 1984.  He was hit in the neck, arm and shoulder.

In his search for peace, the Sinn Féin leader said that he and other republicans have looked at processes around the globe, including those in South Africa, the former Soviet Union, and the former halves of the now-reunified Germany. 

"One of the lessons we learned is that nothing is intractable," Adams said, emphasizing the word 'nothing'.  "And you need dialog, you need to talk to people, listen to people, and treat everyone as equal, no matter what you think of them."

Sinn Féin's attempts for peace and equality for Catholics in Northern Ireland has been a "David vs. Goliath" struggle, Adams said.  It was this reality, he said, that forced them to seek support from Irish in Chicago and around the world. 

"Within Irish America, there has always been a section who have kept faith with what's happening back home."

Adams articulated the importance of Irish Americans' concerns by relating how two Irish American activists organized a forum in New York on peace in Northern Ireland prior to the 1992 U.S. presidential election and tossed out questions to presidential hopefuls, including then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. 

"So it was done, and Bill Clinton, in fairness to him, agreed the U.S. had to change its policies to allow for dialog with Sinn Féin and people like me."
This shift in attitude, Adams said, helped the peace process through "difficult times with the British" and helped secure the involvement of Senator George J. Mitchell as secretary of state for economic initiatives in Ireland.

Although Adams said he believes that U.S. foreign policy officials are now undoubtedly focused on Iraq, he related how he met several days prior with President Bush and U.S. State Department Policy Planning Director Richard Hass to ensure their continued support for peace in Northern Ireland.

"Why would Bush take time out?" Adams asked the audience. "Because of that process started by concerned Irish here and elsewhere.

The Agreement and Prospects for Peace
Regarding recent meetings in Hillsborough in which British Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for "acts of completion" or total disarmament by the IRA to restart the Good Friday Agreement, Adams said that Britain and the Ulster Unionists have not fully implemented important elements of the agreement, including policing provisions and demilitarization of British troops on Northern Ireland soil. 

"He has done a lot- more than any other Prime Minister in a long time-- and I commend him for that," Adams emphasized.  "But obviously the situation has become somewhat skewed because the Social Democratic Labor Party (SDLP), the other nationalist party, has signed onto policing while we have said that we want the British government to bring about changes." 

While Adams said that nationalists and Unionists had agreed upon "a raft of changes" including equality in the criminal justice system, some of the desired changes desired by Sinn Féin, which Adams did not elaborate on during his speech, include allowing ex-prisoners to sit on police boards and implementing a judicial process to settle the contentious issue of on-the-run paramilitaries, or suspects that are still being tracked by the police.

The British Broadcasting Service (BBC) in late March reported that Sinn Féin was edging closer to signing on to the Police Service of Northern Ireland's plan.  If the party officials approve of the plan, Sinn Féin officials say they will take their seats on the new watchdog groups that were established by the agreement, the District Policing Partnerships.
 "And there are also a huge number of British troops in parts of Ireland, where they are very unwelcome," Adams said.  "They have actually remilitarized since the Good Friday Agreement."

Troop levels, according to an article published last month by the BBC, remain at 12,500- far lower than the 27,000 military personnel who were stationed in Northern Ireland during the height of sectarianism in 1972, but still more than Adams would like to see.  (The BBC on March 21 reported that the British government will plan to close 36 more army bases in the north and reduce troops there down to about 5,000 soldiers after they have assurances that the IRA has disarmed.)

Adams appeared weary when he discussed his frustration over nearly five years of sporadic on-again, off-again power-sharing and the lack of any bill of rights for Northern Ireland Catholics. The process, he said, is about trying to ensure a level playing field for every person in Northern Ireland,"

"We're not looking to put the unionists in the place that we're coming out of," Adams stressed.  "I won't get involved in struggle, activism, or a peace process if the end result is that Catholics are elevated to a position of dubious privilege, and Protestants are in a position of disadvantage."

The suspension of the process that could bring about this change is something which Adams reacted to with emotion during his talk.
"How can you have institutions that last only three months, and then another three months?" he said, referring to the four suspensions faced by Northern Ireland's "devolved" government.

"How can the British government step outside of the terms and unilaterally suspend the process?  Could you imagine a crisis in your administration here where someone comes in from outside and suspends your institutions?"

Adams angrily denounced the recent postponement of the upcoming May 1 elections.  "We haven't raised a row about it, but they should have proceeded as they statutorily were deemed to have taken place."
What he said he has raised a row about is the issue of sanctions against Sinn Féin for the IRA's failure to disarm.

Sinn Féin is not the political wing of the IRA, Adams said.  "Obviously there are former IRA people involved, but we cannot be held accountable for anything other than our own party, and our own mandate."

The influence or lack thereof that Sinn Féin wields over The IRA is a point of contention between republicans and unionists-- Ulster Unionist Leader David Trimble still refuses to shake Adams' hands before negations.
 University of Wisconsin-Madison History professor and Northern Ireland expert Jim Donnelly summed up Sinn Féin's sway over the IRA in one word-- "enormous."

"That is not to say Sinn Féin leaders could ride roughshod over the IRA," Donnelly explained in a recent phone interview. "But they do exert a high level of influence."

Peace Eventually?
Adams recounted one recent meeting at Hillsborough in which he and representatives of the British and Irish governments started at 3 p.m. and ended the session at 5 a.m. the next morning. 

"And I said to Mr. Blair, 'There must be an easier way to do this.  Can't we do this during office hours," Adams said, laughing with the audience. The reason they have difficulty in this process, Adams said, is due to the Good Friday Agreement's power as a catalyst for change. "The north is a unionist state, in its core and its ethos.  Why would they (unionists) want to give it up?"

Adams said he believes that unionists in power will not relinquish their hold on the north until they are aware of what he believes are changing sentiments among everyday hard-working Protestants. 

"Am I hopeful about the process? Yes I am.  Because one of the things I've learned is that all things are relative," he said with a pause.  "Compared to the Middle East, compared to other parts of the world, compared to what's coming up, a miracle has been created in Ireland."

As proof, he said that young people who may otherwise have been sucked into sectarianism, both Protestants and Catholics, will now have a future.

"If I'm asked if a disaster could befall this process? Yes.  But if I'm asked it if will eventually work, my conviction is undoubtedly yes.  It is my conviction that I will be one of that Irish generation, God spares me, who will live in a free Ireland for the first time in 800 years."

Adams ended his talk by imploring audience members to continue to ask questions of their politicians, including informing themselves about President Bush's replacement for Hass, whom Adams said he believes will be leaving his position at the White House soon.

Audience Input
"I'm not looking only for questions," joked Adams, "I will take advice from anyone who can give it."

Responding to a question from the audience concerning Sinn Féin's ability to influence the IRA to disarm, Adams again said that there were no "organic links" between the two, a claim with which David Trimble and other Ulster Unionists vehemently disagree.   

"Whatever you think of the IRA or what they've done," Adams countered, "if you see them as people who have taken up armed actions because they believe in what they are doing, and if you find a different way to address the same objectives, then you have a possibility of dissuading them from continuing with armed actions." 

As an afterthought, Adams mentioned what he believed has been one of the more difficult tasks he has had to undertake in this peace process-- persuading other republicans and friends to do things he believes they may not want to do   "That for me is the most difficult part-- trying to persuade those who have been repressed to do the big thing."

Following up on the previous question, another audience member voiced his concern to Adams that both the unionists and republicans appear to be waiting for the other party to make the first move.

"The British government has not specified what they mean by 'acts of completion,'" Adams stressed, adding that the general perception is the IRA will re-engage in the process of de-commissioning.

"If you listen to unionists, though," he said, "They will elaborate on that and will make demands which are just not achievable at this point."  Adams pointed to unionist demands for televising the decommissioning of IRA armaments as one example. 

"So who takes care of the arms issue?" Adams said, palms upturned.  "The commission (Independent Commission on Decommissioning)-- Let's get it out of the political realm, and let's let them deal with it."

Regarding a question from the audience about the impact on the peace process of the arrest in October, 2002, of three Irish republicans who allegedly helped train Columbian guerillas, Adams stressed what he believes is clear evidence that they were not involved.

"You probably don't hear this in the U.S., but there is a videotape of one them giving a lecture in Belfast when he was supposed to be in Columbia."

Adams said that allegations against the three, whom are still facing trial, have nearly collapsed.

"Has the media done damage with this case?" he asked rhetorically.  "Of course, most particularly within unionism and those who do not want the peace process.

Switching gears to respond to a question about what Sinn Féin is doing to change increasing tendencies in children in Belfast towards violence against children of the opposing denomination, Adams said that parents and schools must teach young children, both Catholics and Protestants, to solve their problems by means other than violence.

"But I still can't for the life of me tell the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant," Adams said.  "Some people tell me it's in their eyes, but I can't figure it out."

Following the talk and discussion, Adams outside the ballroom hurriedly questions from radio and print journalists including his viewpoints on President George Bush's policy towards Iraq and the likelihood of a pre-occupied Tony Blair stymieing peace efforts in Northern Ireland.
"I don't think we should cross that hurdle yet," Adams cautioned about Blair's dedication to the agreement. 

"The reality is that Mr. Blair is the Prime Minister, and he has been good in this process."  He stressed that Blair in the first week of March had spent 56 hours in solid negotiations at Hillsborough.

Adams said that while he would like to see disarmament of the regime in Iraq, he does not believe that President Bush should shirk recommendations by the United Nations to continue monitoring Iraq. 

"I say that as a friend of America who praises President Bush on his involvement in Northern Ireland," Adams said with a hint of caution.  "But the U.N is the international forum for resolving these matters."

Before heading down the stairs to the lobby of the hotel with members of his staff, Adams addressed a question posed by The Irish American Post about the degree to which the participants at Hillsborough discussed the possibility of a referendum for a united Ireland.  

"That's something that Mr. Trimble has not mentioned." Adams said.  "Most definitely not for this year."

Trimble one year ago called for a popular referendum to be held in May, 2003, and told the BBC that he was certain the poll would result in Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom, thereby forcing Republicans to cease their calls for reunification with the South.