BY GREG ROSENBERG
At the invitation of the African National Congress, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams toured South Africa June 14-21. Sinn Fein is the leading organization in the fight to rid Northern Ireland of the British military occupation and unify north and south.
"I've come here to learn and listen and to take lessons from the struggle that has been an inspiration to humanity," declared Adams upon arrival at Johannesburg International Airport. "We want to convert the lesson back into our country. We would be acutely interested to learn how the ANC as one of the main catalysts for change was able to prevent the peace process from being slowed down," he said.
Adams held meetings with ANC and South African president Nelson Mandela, Freedom Front leader Constand Viljoen, and Patricia de Lille of the Pan-Africanist Congress, among others.
Adams took London to task for its continued stalling on negotiations with Sinn Fein. "We will never pull out of the peace process but we reject any preconditions to talks," said Adams at a news briefing after his meeting with Mandela. The ANC president noted that his party had refused demands by the former ruling National Party (NP) that it abandon the armed struggle against apartheid.
An NP member asked Adams how he could justify armed actions and violence by the Irish Republican Army. Adams said he found the question "provocative," since loyalist paramilitary outfits in Northern Ireland "were armed with an arms shipment which came to our country from South Africa under the old apartheid regime. British military intelligence, through their agent-negotiated with Armscor-to equip loyalist death squads."