BY NAOMI CRAINE AND ANDY BUCHANAN
NEW YORK - Speaking to an enthusiastic and mainly young audience in Woodside, Queens, September 8, Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness said that despite attempts by the British government to stymie the peace process in Ireland, "We are in a highly advantageous position.

"While progress has not been made in negotiations on a number of issues," McGuinness said, "the spotlight is on the British government. Over 25 years of bitter struggle with the British state they never defeated us - that's what's hurting them now." McGuinness has been Sinn Fein's chief negotiator in talks with the British government.

In his first visit to the United States, McGuinness spoke to audiences in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Hartford, Connecticut. In New York, in addition to the meeting of about 300 in Woodside, the Sinn Fein leader spoke to students at Columbia University and at a fund-raiser at the Plaza Hotel. That event pushed fund-raising for Friends of Sinn Fein in the United States over the $1 million mark since last February.

The British government is demanding that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) "decommission" its weapons before Sinn Fein, the leading party in the struggle to end British rule in Ireland, can be included in all-party negotiations. McGuinness said this demand, which "requires the actual surrender of the IRA and, by extension, of the nationalist people," is not acceptable. He said the republican movement is prepared to discuss decommissioning of the IRA's weapons as part of talks to discuss the "decommissioning of the weapons of the British army, the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary), and the loyalist death squads.

"We can also talk about the decommissioning of the injustices, of the inequalities, and of the humiliations which British rule has meant for our people. Ultimately we want to talk about the decommissioning of British rule in our country," he said.

British government is under pressure
Responding to written questions submitted by members of the audience, McGuinness addressed various issues about the stage of the struggle in Ireland. One questioner asked if more progress was being made in secret negotiations, or if not, was a sell-out being prepared. The Sinn Fein leader replied, "What is going on is what you see." He said the members and supporters of the nationalist movement are being fully informed and consulted. "We go back and forth between the negotiating table and our people. Nobody has the right to accuse us of selling anyone out.

"The reality is that at this point we still have a viable peace process," McGuinness continued. "But we also have the direct refusal of the British government to engage in that process." He reiterated that it is London that is under pressure. "This process has a life of its own. The world expects the British government to move."

Speaking to some 200 students and others at Columbia University September 6, McGuinness compared the situation unfolding in Ireland to the democratic revolution in South Africa. He noted that "900,000 people in the north of Ireland consider themselves British. This isn't a problem, but the British government sets a bad example. We have to accommodate this reality, but change is coming, which they see. They may not like this, just as [former South African president F.W.] DeKlerk didn't, but they can't stop it."

Another participant asked whether a Labour Party government in Britain would help the situation in Ireland. McGuinness replied, "While workers in Britain may need a Labour government, we in Ireland don't." He pointed out that some of the worst Northern Ireland Secretaries were part of Labour governments and noted that the current Labour Party leader Tony Blair refuses to meet with Sinn Fein.

McGuinness answered many similar questions at a community meeting of 250 in Boston September 5.

Growing involvement of youth
Tom Laffey, a veteran activist who spent a year in prison in Texas as one of the Fort Worth Five in the early 1970s, pointed to the significance of the large number of youth who turned out for the meeting in Woodside. "There's been an enormous change, especially since [Sinn Fein president] Gerry Adams came to the United States" on a speaking tour, he said. "It's great to see young people have interest" in the Irish struggle. He also noted the movement against the British occupation in the North has grown in the Republic of Ireland since the cease-fire.

"Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers rekindled the pro-republican support" among Irish-Americans in the early 1980s, noted Pat Williams, a 22-year-old worker at UPS in New Jersey whose parents are Irish. "I think the same thing is happening since the cease-fire."

A young construction worker who came to New York from the town of Fermanegh in Northern Ireland three months ago, commented, "Things have changed a little [there], but not enough," noting that only one year has passed since the cease-fire. He described the discrimination and abuse that workers who are Catholic face in British-occupied Northern Ireland. "If you go through a checkpoint and they see a Catholic name on your drivers license, they take you out of the car and hold you for two or three hours," he said. A few years ago "the cops came to my parents' house at 6:00 a.m. There had been a robbery and we were the only Catholics in the neighborhood, so they tried to put the blame on us.

"I never had any problem getting on with Protestants," he continued. But workers who are Catholic face systematic discrimination in everything from housing to employment. "We don't just want the army off the roads," he said. "We want opportunities and jobs."

Another participant, who emigrated from Ireland eight years ago, said he thought some of the questions asked of McGuinness reflected the fact that supporters of the Irish struggle in the United States "are 3,000 miles away. All the information is filtered through the media," so people get frustrated by not knowing what is happening.

Immediately following McGuinness's speaking tour, Gerry Adams will be in the United States again for five days. The Sinn Fein president will be meeting with Clinton administration officials in Washington, D.C., to discuss the peace process in Ireland. He is also scheduled to speak at Georgetown University September 13 and at the Irish American Center in Mineola, New York, September 15.

Jeff Jones in New York and Andrea Morrell in Boston contributed to this article.  
 
 
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