BY CELIA PUGH AND PAUL DAVIES
DUBLIN-"We are conscious as we enter into the new
millennium of defeating discrimination...of the final ebb of
empire," said Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, addressing
around 1,000 delegates and observers at the party's Ard Fheis,
or annual conference, May 8. The conference took place 14
months after 2 million people in the north and south of
Ireland voted for the Good Friday Agreement, signed by the
British and Irish governments and major nationalist and
Unionist (pro-British) parties. Adams explained that for Sinn
Fein the agreement "is not an end in itself, but is a
transition.... For Irish republicans the struggle for full
independence and sovereignty is not over."
"We stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of the Garvaghy Road," Adams declared. Residents of the mainly Catholic Garvaghy Road in Portadown, Northern Ireland, have been under siege for 10 months by loyalists - those who support the continued British occupation of the northeastern six counties of Ireland. This followed residents' victory last summer in preventing the loyalist Orange Order from staging a sectarian anti-Catholic march through their community. Anti- Catholic discrimination, combined with caste-like privileges for those who are Protestant, has been a central pillar of maintaining British rule in Northern Ireland.
"Friends of Garvaghy Road" groups are beginning to organize in several towns in the north and south of Ireland. Sinn Fein assembly member Dara ÓHagan described the reality of daily harassment for Catholics in Portadown. "Catholic homes have been burnt, Catholic children are abused on their way to school, and if you are a Catholic in Portadown, the Post Office, bank, and leisure center are off limits," ÓHagan said.
The republican newspaper An Phoblacht interviewed one resident, Thomas, whose neighbors fled their home after a loyalist mob erected flags outside. "It's like the Ku Klux Klan burning a cross on your front lawn," said Thomas. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the pro-British police force, told the family that they could not guarantee protection from loyalist attack.
Delegates were angry about British government and Unionists obstruction of progress on other issues registered by nationalists in the Good Friday Agreement. The British and Irish governments have backed Unionist demands to block the convening of a new Northern Ireland Executive that includes Sinn Fein ministers, as well as an all-Ireland Ministerial Council. They demand that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) "decommission their weapons" before these bodies are set up.
Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness explained, "The threat to the Good Friday Agreement does not come from the IRA. For those who haven't noticed, the IRA called a cessation almost two years ago. The threat comes from Mr. Paisley, the loyalist death squads, the securocrats in the British establishment, from the Orange Order at Drumcree, and those who refuse to implement the Agreement." Ian Paisley is a Democratic Unionist Party leader.
Assembly member Gerry Kelly described "a dramatic increase in loyalist attacks" since the signing of the Agreement. These included 10 killings; 29 grenade and bomb attacks; 19 shootings; 11 death threats; 276 families intimidated in their homes; 231 attacks on churches, homes, and schools; 5 attempted abductions, and 48 attacks on persons -within the last year alone.
Responding to demands for IRA decommissioning, Dessie Murphy from South Armagh said, "The only `D' word you'll get from republicans in South Armagh is demilitarization, and we want it now."
The British government is obliged under the Agreement to publish a strategy on demilitarization. This was promised in November 1998, and has not appeared. Sinn Fein demands the dismantling of hilltop forts in South Armagh and from rooftops in Derry and Belfast, the ending of British army street patrols, the withdrawal of plastic bullets, keeping the RUC out of sensitive areas, and the closure of interrogation centers.
Shane Feeney, from strongly nationalist Crossmaglen in South Armagh, told delegates that British army helicopter surveillance and patrols have increased. He told the Militant, "Army patrols on the street often shout `Fenian bastard' as they pass you. The army claim they are dismantling the 29 hill forts. But this is just a publicity stunt. We have evidence that they are bringing in building materials at night to reinforce them." The conference demanded that British troops be withdrawn to barracks pending their return to Britain.
Feeney is 18 and a member of Ogra Shinn Féin, the youth section of Sinn Fein. He said that OSF is growing in the north and south of Ireland. This was evident from the sizable and confident participation of OSF members in all aspects of the Ard Fheis.
Patrick Kelly addressed the conference on behalf of fellow prisoners in Portlaoise prison in the south of Ireland, where 20 political prisoners remain. "We will never countenance being used as pawns" by the Irish government, he said. "Our primary concern is the end of British rule, which is the reason why we are imprisoned in the first place."
The conference discussed increasing harassment of republican activists by the Gardai, the police force in the Irish Republic. Paul Cumberton, a member of OSF, said he was arrested by the Gardai for putting up posters supporting the Garvaghy Road residents.
To loud applause Adams demanded, "NATO bombing of Serbia must end. It is amazing how tons of bombs dropped in the Balkans are morally and politically acceptable, while the silent guns of the IRA, we are told, are a threat to peace." Adams called for "a peaceful negotiated settlement under the auspices of the United Nations" and an "emergency meeting of the neutral member states of the European Union to bring forward a peaceful alternative." He challenged Dublin's refusal to open the borders to those fleeing Yugoslavia, saying, "We say no to racism and we say no to bigotry."
The conference established policy on a range of issues including housing, reform of local government, employment, health, the environment, women's affairs and the European Union. Sinn Fein is standing five candidates in the June elections for the European parliament and over 100 in council elections in the south. The conference reversed its previous position of "wholesale opposition" to the EU to one of "critical engagement."
Pearse Doherty, Sinn Fein national officer, stressed "mobilizations must continue." He told the Militant, "We'll be doing canvassing for the elections but we should remember that mobilization has brought us this far. We've brought our struggle onto the streets like we did around the hunger strikers, Bloody Sunday, and the political prisoners."