Republicans take part in march for truth

Republicans took to the streets today today to demand full disclosure on any state role in murders and collusion during the North’s Troubles.

Thousands of supporters responded to Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams’ call to march in Belfast in a bid to force Britain to acknowledge its involvement.

He told demonstrators gathered outside City Hall that the black ribbon symbol of the March for Truth Rally was being worn in an act of solidarity with all victims, their families and campaign groups.

The West Belfast MP declared: “It also sends a clear message to the British state that we are determined to pursue the truth.

“We are determined to campaign even though it may take a long time, until the British state acknowledges its administrative and institutional use of state violence and collusion.

“The reality, of course, is that everyone knows that these tactics were employed by the British.

“In quiet moments British Ministers will privately admit some of this.

“You the families, and the people who suffered directly from it know the truth. But the British government has never acknowledged it.

“On the contrary, they have employed the full weight of their political influence and authority to deny, cover-up and suppress the truth.”

Amid the street theatre atmosphere, marchers dressed as soldiers and police officers to emphasis their role as combatants throughout the Troubles.

Placards bearing the names of all those killed were held aloft, while others carried coffins along the route.

Mr Adams insisted that the British government cannot have a role in setting up any process to uncover the truth.

“It must be independent,” he said.

“One way of achieving independence is to have an international inquiry.

“The United Nations or another reputable agency must be involved.

“One of the objectives of such an independent, international process would be to agree protocols and modalities which all relevant parties could sign up for.”

The Sinn Féin chief has come under fire over his demands, with opponents accusing him of hypocrisy given the IRA’s history of murder.

Earlier this week Eoghan Harris, a Senator in the Irish Republic and outspoken critic of the Provisionals, claimed Sinn Féin’s victimhood and grievances over unsolved killings was holding back the healing process in Northern Ireland.

Undeterred, however, Mr Adams accused the British state of developing a policy which resulted in thousands losing their lives, being injured or bereaved; and compounding this with an institutional cover-up.

He added: “It is also argued by some that because the British had agents in the IRA that there was republican collusion.

“Yes, the British recruited, blackmailed, tricked, intimidated and bribed individual republicans into working for them and I think it would be only right to have this dimension of British strategy investigated also.

“If the British state used former republicans to do its killing for it then the victims of that policy have the right to truth also.

The infiltration of organisations, the tactic of divide and conquer, of counter gangs, has long been a hallmark of British policy.

“But to compare, as anti-republicans do, this policy with the structured control and direction of unionist paramilitaries in the conduct of their war is disingenuous.

“However, both strategies have a number of things in common. They were about the defeat of republicanism. And they failed.

“That objective has not been achieved. And it never will be.

“On the contrary, Irish republicanism has defeated British militarism, and you, the people gathered here can take great heart from that reality and from your part in that endeavour.”