BY MARCELLA FITZGERALD AND CAROLINE BELLAMY

LONDON - At the end of November it emerged that Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) in Ireland had placed a new initiative - referred to as the Hume /Adams proposals -before the British government six weeks earlier and had not received a response.

The proposals by Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and SDLP leader John Hume were that a new Irish Republican Army (IRA) cease-fire could be declared if three conditions were met. These were:

* speedy entry for Sinn Fein, the leading party opposing British rule in northern Ireland, into all-party talks, with "an indicative time frame" of six months for a settlement to be achieved;

* putting the issue of giving up weapons to one side; and

* for the UK government to demonstrate its intention to have real negotiations through measures such as the early release of political prisoners.

After stalling for so long, Prime Minister John Major was forced to respond after Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuiness made the proposals public at a Mid-Ulster Sinn Fein Conference of 300 in Athboy in the Irish Republic.

Major announced that his government had rejected the proposals in a letter sent to go-between Hume.

The government was slow to make a public statement rejecting the proposals outright. They also made the rejection in the face of the public disagreement of the Irish government, which issued a statement calling on Major to accept the proposals.

Writing in the Sunday Business Post December 1, reporter Tom Gurk ascribed London's lack of interest in entering into negotiations with Sinn Fein to "the inevitable change in the status quo which will follow."

Westminster has made no proposals of their own; instead they make apparently contradictory moves to fend off different pressures.

For six weeks British officials told SDLP leader Hume that they were considering the Hume/Adams proposals, while at the same time inviting pro-British paramilitary leaders David Ervine and Gary McMichael for talks at 10 Downing Street. They have repatriated three political prisoners to Ireland and at the same time intensified the brutality of the conditions for those in British jails.

British Secretary of State for northern Ireland Patrick Mayhew, speaking in Manchester, England, stated, "Sinn Fein say they believe real negotiations are the only way forward. I agree." At exactly that same moment in northern Ireland the Royal Ulster Constabulary were sent to raid homes and community centers, beating people up in Ballymurphy, Belfast.

The day after their rejection of Sinn Fein's proposals the British government announced that 1,000 pounds of home- made explosives had been found near a British army barracks in Armagh, northern Ireland. The British press carried major stories of how the Sinn Fein leadership was not to be trusted.

Since then the government has arrested Roisin McAliskey, whose mother is former Irish nationalist MP Bernadette McAliskey nee Devlin, alleging that she was involved in a IRA mortar attack on a British Army base in Germany.

The background to this situation is the progress made through the summer. Nationalist communities across northern Ireland significantly increased their organization and self-confidence in the course of resisting the systematic Unionist aggression of the "marching season," a series of rightist parades that attempt to pass through nationalist areas.

Over the last two weeks Unionist gangs of up to 500 have carried out attacks on Catholics going to Mass in Ballymena, northern Ireland. "We will protest here as long as [the Catholics] have a church to go to - and that might not be very long" one of those interviewed told the press.

In an attempt to reverse the gains made over the summer, and divert attention from the pressure for negotiations, pro-British forces have carried out a series of provocative attacks against fighters for Irish unity. The most vicious was the police raid in Hammersmith, London, in late September when Diarmuid O'Neill was murdered. Several street actions and public meetings have already been called to protest the police action and demand a public inquiry into the killing of O'Neill.

The court appearances by Roisin McAliskey have been marked by noisy pickets against the British government. The brutal conditions in which she was being held - despite being four and a half months pregnant - have been ameliorated.

The initial response to these attacks is in marked contrast to the campaign to break the 1974 frame-up of the Irish workers who became known as the Birmingham Six. That defense campaign did not get off the ground for several years, and even then campaigners were spat at on the street.  
 
 
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