Sinn Fein Leader Meets with Congressmen to Discuss Disarmament
WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 — Gerry Adams, president of Northern Ireland’s nationalist Sinn Fein party, met with members of Congress Thursday to discuss the Irish Republican Army’s promised disarmament and to condemn recent rioting by Unionists in Belfast.
Massachusetts Democratic Reps. Richard Neal and Jim McGovern were among the ten Democrats and one Republican to attend the meeting, which Mr. Neal, the co-chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on Irish Affairs, hosted.
Sinn Fein once advocated violence as the sole means of bringing about its goal of a united, independent Ireland. In July the IRA, which for three and a half decades employed terrorism to drive the British out of Northern Ireland, announced that it would pursue its goal through political channels only. A private “decommissioning” of the IRA’s arms was planned, to be witnessed by international observers, a Catholic priest and a Protestant pastor. Now, Mr. Adams said, “responsibility lies squarely with the Unionists” to bring about peace.
Unionists, predominately protestants, have been rioting in Belfast for the past week, attacking mainly British soldiers. Mr. Adams said hundreds of Catholic homes had also been attacked, and he called upon Unionist leader Ian Paisley to condemn the violence and bring the mobs under control.
Mr. McGovern said he had had several good meetings with Mr. Adams over the years and was hopeful the IRA would fully disarm. He gave former President Bill Clinton credit for having been very involved in the Irish issue, and he questioned whether Bush was “actively engaged.,” But he expressed hope that the conflict could be ended soon. “The violence has been going on for a long time,” he said. “There are going to be pitfalls in the road toward a lasting peace.”
Neal has been involved with the Irish issue for 30 years and is one of the leaders of Friends of Ireland, another House group. He said Congress unanimously supported full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which called for decommissioning of arms and shared power in Northern Ireland, and he added that he was satisfied with the work of Bush’s special envoy to Northern Ireland, Mitchell Reiss. He said he hoped the IRA would be disarmed within the next few weeks.
While Rep. Neal acknowledged that “my sympathy is with the nationalist cause,” he said that a lasting peace would ultimately depend on the prosperity of both of Northern Ireland’s communities.
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