“Two months ago the process was close to a deal. Now the momentum is going the other way,” Adams told the 2,000 delegates and guests gathered here. Sinn Fein had been engaged in talks with London, Dublin, and pro-British unionists over the future of the northern counties of this island nation that are occupied by British troops. In return for the complete disarmament of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) it was to be agreed that the elected assembly for Northern Ireland, which has been suspended since October 2002, would be reestablished and London’s right to suspend it be ended.

The IRA, which waged an armed struggle against British rule in the past, has honored a cease-fire since 1997. An earlier agreement fell apart after London and Dublin backed the demand of the right-wing Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) that the disarmament of the IRA be publicly photographed. The IRA rejected the demand as an act aimed at humiliating the group. The DUP is the largest party in the north and would have shared government executive responsibility with Sinn Fein.

Since the collapse of the talks a smear campaign against Sinn Fein and the IRA has taken off. The first focus was a £26.5 million robbery of a Belfast bank on December 20. Police officials in Northern Ireland have claimed for two months that the IRA was responsible for the theft. London and Dublin have seized on the accusations to charge Sinn Fein’s leaders were aware of this. The IRA has denied any involvement. Three months after the robbery, neither the police in Northern Ireland nor London or Dublin, have produced any evidence to substantiate their claims.

As their efforts to maintain momentum over the bank robbery allegations began to fade, the British rulers shifted their fire to the January 30 bar fight in central Belfast that led to the stabbing to death of Robert McCartney. His sisters then began a campaign to demand prosecution of those responsible, alleging that republicans were involved and were organizing a cover-up. A rally they held on February 27 in the Short Strand area of Belfast, a small but strongly pro-republican area, attracted between 600 and 1,500 people, according to news reports. Since then, London, Dublin, and the media have gone into overdrive to smear the republicans.

On February 25, the IRA expelled three of its members after its own investigation. A week later, Sinn Fein suspended seven of its members pending the outcome of any court decisions.

Adams invited and welcomed the McCartney sisters to the Ard Fheis. He told the conference this was a central issue “because some republicans were involved” in the incident. “I could not campaign for the victims of British or unionist paramilitary thuggery if I was not as clear and as committed to justice for the McCartney family,” he said. Adams called for those responsible to “admit what they did in a court of law.” He instructed a solicitor to pass on the names supplied by the McCartney family to the police.

London and Washington have seized on this turn of events to deal blows to the Irish nationalist fight. London has used the bank robbery allegation to end the £400,000 funding Sinn Fein’s four members of the UK parliament receive. London’s Northern Ireland minister also announced February 24 that the MI5 security services would take over powers previously run by the Northern Ireland police, targeting the IRA in particular.

On March 2 Washington announced, in a move primarily aimed at weakening Sinn Fein’s support in the United States, that parties from Northern Ireland would not be attending the annual St. Patrick’s Day celebrations at the White House. The BBC reported March 7 that the McCartney sisters would be invited. Taking advantage of the crude offer by the IRA to the McCartney family to shoot those responsible for Robert McCartney’s murder, the U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland said, “it was time for the IRA to go out of business.”

At the conference, Adams protested that prior to the breakdown of talks “there was a sense of nationalists working together”—the Fianna Fail-led coalition government in Dublin, Sinn Fein, and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (a smaller nationalist party based in the north). He said the elections to the European parliament, where Sinn Fein holds two seats, and “the surge of support for Sinn Fein across Ireland, was the last straw for the establishment.”

The response to the McCartney murder put a spotlight on the discussion at the Ard Fheis on the party’s stance to policing in Northern Ireland. Reporting for the Sinn Fein leadership, Gerry Kelly described how “for generations the police in the north have been an instrument of political repression, counter revolution, and terror. It has been a partisan, political, Protestant, and paramilitary force, which has been used in the main against Catholics, nationalists and republicans.” He explained that a consequence of the now failed December agreement was to be a transfer of control of policing powers to the Northern Ireland assembly. This step, he said, was “the only way policing and justice can be wrested out of the hands of London.” He reported that had the December agreement progressed, Sinn Fein would have held a special conference to assess its stance on the police force.

During the Ard Fheis lunch break, Ogra Shinn Fein, the youth organization of Sinn Fein, led a protest march of several hundred from the conference to the nearby British embassy protesting collusion of the police and army with pro-British death squads in the north.

In addition to addressing the McCartney murder and broader allegations against it, the Sinn Fein leaders put at the centre of the Ard Fheis preparations for the next round of elections, especially in the UK general election likely to be held in May.  
 
 
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