Sinn Féin will do everything to maintain peace process, says McLaughlin
In an address to the Parnell Summer School in Co Wicklow, Mitchel McLaughlin said the British Government could help bring an end to the “armed force dimension of Irish republicanism” by fully implementing the Good Friday Agreement.
But he also warned the cancellation in May of Assembly elections in Northern Ireland could result in the possible meltdown of the political conditions that led to the Agreement.
The Sinn Féin chairman said: “The Sinn Féin leadership is totally committed to doing everything in its power to maintain the peace process and to removing the guns forever from the politics of our country.
“Decommissioning was addressed comprehensively in the negotiations leading up to Good Friday and is addressed directly in the Agreement.
“The section on decommissioning makes clear that addressing this issue is dependent on two key elements: a collective responsibility on all participants to work in good faith with the International Commission and the implementation of the overall Agreement.
“Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, all of the participants have a responsibility to deal with the decommissioning issue,” he said.
Mr McLaughlin said the British government had been “a hugely negative factor” in Ireland but he acknowledged the role and the time Prime Minister Tony Blair had devoted to the quest for peace.
“He knows that Sinn Féin’s position has been consistent and that we want to play a full and advanced role in this quest,” the former Foyle MLA said.
“But he knows also, as does the Taoiseach, that we have made it clear that through the good faith implementation of this Agreement we can achieve an end to the armed force dimension of Irish republicanism,” he said.
Devolution was suspended last October after the discovery of an alleged IRA spy ring at the Northern Ireland Office. Efforts to restore the powersharing executive and Stormont Assembly have so far failed.
Assembly elections scheduled for May 29 were cancelled by Mr Blair four days into the campaign after republicans failed to issue a declaration clearly stating an end to all paramilitary activity.
Mr McLaughlin said the unionist political leaderships’ confidence in its ability to maintain and strengthen the status quo through the Agreement was diminishing.
“If they were, for instance, confident when they accepted the Agreement that it would copperfasten the union, why are they now attempting to frustrate its implementation?
Earlier, senior Ulster Unionist Dermot Nesbitt told the summer school that republicans had to face up to the fact that the IRA and other paramilitary groups must disappear.
The former Stormont environment minister claimed the failure of republicans to grasp this fact caused the crisis in the political process in the North.
“No matter how often Mr Gerry Adams tried to twist and stretch the language he still failed abysmally to give a commitment for an end to paramilitary activity and to state, in layman’s terms, that the IRA was going away for good,” he said..
