BY JANE HARRIS
NEW YORK - Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin
McGuinness, both members of the British Parliament, and
Caoimhghin O'Caolain, a member of the Irish parliament will
speak in the United States September 5-7. At the New York
rally, which will be held at the Roseland Ballroom, the
fighters for Irish independence will discuss the current
issues in the struggle for self-determination. Adams,
McGuinness, and O'Caolain, who were just recently granted
visas by the State Department, are part of Sinn Fein's
negotiating team for talks with Westminster scheduled to
begin September 15.
McGuinness, Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, will then fly on to a San Francisco rally on September 6, while O'Caolain will address a Chicago rally the same evening. The theme of these events will be "A New Opportunity for Peace... Talking about the Future of Ireland" (see ad on Page 16).
At a meeting held here August 2, Joe Cahill, Sinn Fein's treasurer, said that the Republican movement was anxious to speak with its American supporters. "The conflict is far from over, and we can't sit on our backsides," he said. "You are the vehicle," he said, reviewing the importance of international solidarity.
In a related development on August 16, Canadian customs officials seized copies of the recently published book Eyewitness Bloody Sunday, by Don Mullan, an author and human rights activist. Mullan was stopped as he arrived in Quebec to attend ceremonies commemorating the Irish famine of 1845-1848. When Mullan asked why he was stopped, customs officials replied that they were acting on instructions to be "on the alert for terrorists."
Not only did customs take the copies of the book, which is the author's account of the day British troops killed 14 unarmed civil rights fighters in a demonstration, but they also confiscated 160 copies of the Breglio Report and other items.
The Breglio Report alleges that British army snipers,
using rifles with telescopic sights, shot at civil rights
protesters from the walls of Derry, Ireland, on Bloody
Sunday, Jan. 30, 1972. Mullen's book, as well as the Breglio
Report contradict the "official" British Widgery Report of
the incident.
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