BY MARCELLA FITZGERALD

LONDON - "Whatever the cause of this morning's incident in Manchester, Sinn Fein's focus remains firmly fixed on the need to restore the peace process and we will not be deflected from that task," said Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams.

Adams was responding to the effort of the British government to justify their exclusion of Sinn Fein from the "all party talks" following a June 15 bombing in downtown Manchester. British ruling-class politicians of all stripes have been clamoring to outdo each other with expressions of outrage over the bomb, which went off outside the Arndale shopping center. The explosion caused massive damage, estimated at hundreds of millions of pounds.

Failure of the police to respond to coded warnings an hour and 20 minutes before the blast and clear the area resulted in 228 people being injured.

There were many international football fans in the city center, intending to go to the big Euro96 soccer match on the day. "The shops stayed open and the police were half-hearted; that's why there were so many people in the area," explained a man selling Big Issue, a newspaper that raises money for the homeless. He had been in the Arndale and had been injured himself.

"I blame the politicians for this," said one rail worker at Piccadilly, Manchester's main railway station. Workers at the station took the initiative to try to clear the area, although the railway bosses kept it open and continued to bring in hundreds of passengers under the high domed glass roof before, during, and after the explosion. "Several expressed the view that Sinn Fein had to be included in talks, others expressed their anger at the IRA, but the discussion was calm," reports a Piccadilly guard (brakeman).

A woman who stopped to talk to Militant sellers who were on the spot in Manchester when the bomb exploded said, "I don't agree with killing innocent people, but I'm Black and we understand that when they are in your country you have to do something to make them leave. I understand why they do things like this bomb. The British should leave."

"This callous act of terrorism while the Queen was reviewing the color of the Irish Guards is an insult to both nations," said British Prime Minister John Major. "I utterly condemn this disgraceful, appalling act of terrorism. If the IRA thinks it can shift the resolve of any government with this action it is cruelly mistaken," commented Labour Party leader Anthony Blair.

Some Tory and Unionist members of parliament have called for the banning of Sinn Fein and a return to internment or imprisonment without trial, which London last imposed on Northern Ireland from 1971 to 1975. This proposal has been rejected by both London and Dublin governments, however, as politically untenable.

The secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Patrick Mayhew, told BBC radio June 17 that, in the wake of the bombing, British government policy remained unchanged. Meeting the next day, the Dublin government policy remained unchanged. Meeting the next day, the Dublin government also adopted a no-change position. Media speculation that Washington would now deny Sinn Fein leaders entry to the United States was without foundation.

The previous week London continued to bar the Sinn Fein delegates, elected by 15.5 percent of the voters of Northern Ireland, from taking their seats at the negotiations over the future of the Six Counties.

On the opening day of the talks the world's press focused on the Sinn Fein delegates, who arrived with a cavalcade of cars and vans from the working-class districts of Belfast only to be barred entry to the talks. "We have been denied our right to be part of the collective challenge of building peace in this country," said Adams, locked outside Stormont Castle. "Our success at the ballot box has confirmed our right to be inside, not outside, these talks," he said, referring to the substantial increase in electoral support for Sinn Fein candidates at the polls.

As the Sinn Fein delegates were being interviewed outside, the proceedings inside Stormont got under way with a rowdy dispute between the Unionist (pro-British) parties over the appointment of George Mitchell, a former U.S. senator, as chairman of the talks. Since the establishment of a united Ireland is both in the interests of U.S. capital and is a popular demand by many working people in the United States, Mitchell is seen by the Unionist parties as "fully in the Republican camp," as Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionists put it.

After David Trimble of the Ulster Unionist Party agreed to the appointment of Mitchell, Paisley erupted, "This is a battle for the soul of this province. I will dedicate my life as never before to overturning the dastardly deed that was done."

Events descended into near farce when a representative of the UK Unionist Party lurched forward to try to sit in the chairman's seat. He was pushed out of the way by British minister Michael Ancram, who then ordered an aid to sit in the chair until Mitchell came in. As Mitchell entered, Paisley and other delegates walked out. They came back later, however, to sign up to the "Mitchell Principles," the conditions laid down for participation in talks by a commission headed by the U.S. politician months ago.

"The British Government has to decide does it want peace or further war," said Sinn Fein leader Pat McGeown. "Our people in struggle will not go away." McGeown was speaking to a public meeting of 100 people in Hackney, North London, on June 12. "We're here to find a way that we, as people who are politically active and interested in moving the situation forward, can recreate the conditions for peace."

The meeting was held in the Halkevi Community Center. McGeown got a warm reception from supporters of political prisoners in Turkey, who are on hunger strike, when he was introduced as one of the Irish prisoners who went on hunger strike in 1981 along with Bobby Sands. The protesters came in to participate in the gathering, which was simultaneously translated into Turkish.

McGeown's tour ended with a meeting the day after the bomb of 300 in the Camden Irish center. There the Sinn Fein leader said there is a long history of the British ruling class ignoring the results of elections in Ireland. The call for a campaign in Britain to demand the British government carry out negotiations without preconditions, making Ireland an issue in the upcoming general election, was met with loud applause.

Anne Fiander in Manchester contributed to this article.  
 
 
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