BY PETE CLIFFORD
LONDON - "A significant step - a moment in history" was how Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams described his December 11 meeting with Anthony Blair in London. It was the first time since 1921 that Irish Republicans had met a British prime minister at Downing Street. Adams, accompanied by six other Sinn Fein leaders, told Blair it was time for London to quit Ireland.

In a sharp reminder that the nationalist struggle remains unbroken, two days later thousands of residents of Derry, Northern Ireland, took to the streets to resist a pro-British march through the city center. Rioting in the face of police and British army assaults continued for 14 hours.

In an interview with the Irish News, Adams said the Republican delegation raised with Blair "our view that the two main things underpinning conflict in our country is the British policy and Unionist veto." London insists that any decisions on the future of Northern Ireland have the consent of those living in the six-county statelet alone, not Ireland as a whole. "Unionists" refers to those who support the continued "union" of Northern Ireland and Britain. Adams declared that there needs to be "a change in British policy away from maintaining the union to ending the union."

Adams reportedly said Sinn Fein was committed to conclude "unfinished business" from 1921. That year Prime Minister Lloyd George brokered a deal with Sinn Fein leader Michael Collins to partition the country. Six counties in the North continued to be ruled by London in collaboration with the Unionists, with independence to the other 26 counties of Ireland.

The Sinn Fein delegation's demands included demilitarization of Northern Ireland; the release of political prisoners; an independent public inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday, when British soldiers shot 14 civil rights marchers dead in 1972; and the release of Róisín McAliskey, who has been detained by London and threatened with extradition to Germany to face frame-up charges. They also discussed the lack of progress at the all-party peace talks, including the refusal of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) to meet with Sinn Fein. Adams called on Blair to press UUP leader David Trimble to meet face to face.

Downing Street itself was full of journalists and photographers from throughout the world. Outside the prime minister's residence 80 supporters of the Irish Republicans enthusiastically sang the Irish national anthem as Adams and his delegation left. Further along the road six retired British Army paratroopers with their red berets and war medals joined 15 fascists from the British National Party to wave Union Jacks and jeer at the delegation.

Most of London's newspapers reacted uncomfortably to the meeting. The Times for example ran an editorial protesting that Adams spoke in Gaelic to a reporter. "The tongue which sounds so odd to British ears," it said, was "designed to suggest that Mr. Adams is the representative of a foreign people come to talk peace and negotiate colonial withdrawal." Adams, the editors protested, is no "Gaelic Mandela."

`Good luck' to escaped prisoner
On the day of the meeting most papers ran stories about an escape the previous day by Irish Republican Liam Averill from Long Kesh prison in Northern Ireland, and called on Adams to denounce this. A few hours before meeting Blair, the Sinn Fein leader responded in a radio interview about when he was interned without trial by the British. "While there are prisoners, there will be prisoners who try to escape. I tried it myself. Liam Averill succeeded where I did not," Adams declared. "Good luck to him."

While being forced to concede the Downing Street meeting, Britain's rulers remain unwilling to pull back from their military occupation of Northern Ireland. The Sinn Fein paper An Phoblacht/Republican News reported November 20, "It is clear that the only cessation being observed by any of the armed groups in the six counties is that of the IRA [Irish Republican Army]. The British Army and RUC [Royal Ulster Constabulary] have intensified their activities in nationalist areas." Francie Molloy, a Sinn Fein delegate to the talks, explained in a November 29 interview that although London made a big deal of its withdrawal of a few hundred troops, "the level of security today is as bad as any time in the past 10 years." Molloy pointed to the strengthening of 19 army spy towers in South Armagh and accompanied stepped-up army patrols in the area. It is as though "they're preparing for trouble," he said.

Clashes in Derry
The events in Derry December 13 began when police sealed off the city center to allow a rightist Apprentice Boys parade through. When several thousand nationalist protesters attempted to gain entry to the town center, the cops set dogs on them. Then, contrary to an agreement, a band on the Apprentice Boys parade began provocatively to play triumphalist songs. Running battles between nationalist youth and the police continued until 4 a.m. The British army moved into the streets for the first time since the IRA cease-fire, and 169 lethal plastic bullets were fired. Police claim 1,000 petrol bombs were thrown at them.

London has also announced its intention to transfer more Irish prisoners from England to Ireland, but insists that the Dublin government enact a new law ensuring that such prisoners serve the same terms in Irish jails. Speaking in London November 25, Gerry O H'Eara, Northern Ireland chair of Sinn Fein, challenged London's claim this was a confidence-building measure. "Transfer of prisoners to serve their sentence near home is universally seen as a right," he said. "Confidence measures are when the doors of Long Kesh are opened." Reflecting a widespread view, O H'Eara declared, "There's no momentum to the talks."

A rally of more than 1,000 nationalists in the Europa Hotel in Belfast November 23 addressed this frustration. Sinn Fein president Adams appealed to the crowd, "Don't sit back and leave it to the negotiators." He argued that Republicans need to "keep focused on the prize. No one knows how its going to work out, but what we do know is the tide of history is going towards an Irish republic."

At the Europa rally plans were laid out for protest actions throughout December to highlight the case for freeing political prisoners. Almost weekly actions are now organized by Sinn Fein Youth, who held their first national conference on November 1. In South Armagh a Farmers and Residents Committee has been organizing public rallies and protests at the extension of the British Army activity. More than 2,000 people marched through the area December 6. The rally platform included Rory O'Hanlon, a representative of Fianna Fa'il, the governing party in the Irish Republic; Séamus Mallon, a member of Parliament (MP) from the Social Democratic and Labour Party; Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness; and farmers leader Declan Fearon.

Rather than report this, media attention has been focused on claims of a split in Sinn Fein in the South Armagh and Louth. Since then a December 8 meeting attended by 150 people in Dublin launched the 32-County Sovereignty Committee. Headed by Bernadette Sands-McKevitt, the new organization opposes Sinn Fein's participation in the current talks. At the Europa rally loud applause greeted Sinn Fein speakers from South Armagh, who refuted claims of any serious division.

The nationalist fight continues to impact on politics in the Irish Republic. The election of Mary McAleese to the Irish presidency is seen as a blow against opponents of the nationalist fight. Coming from Belfast and therefore not a citizen of the 26-county Irish Republic, her election sets back moves to renounce claims for Irish unity. It also registers the shift in the Republic to increasingly discuss and respond to developments in Northern Ireland. One consequence is that Irish parliamentarians frequently travel to visit Irish prisoners in England, stand with nationalists facing Unionist parades, and issue protests about British repression such as the treatment of McAliskey.

The week before the Downing Street meeting, Sinn Fein MPs Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness held a meeting December 4 with the Speaker of the British Parliament to protest their exclusion from that body on grounds that they refuse to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen of England. They have succeeded in shifting the debate from their refusal to take their seats because of this oath to the oath itself and how it is undemocratically used to exclude opponents of the British rulers. Several British MPs said they agreed with the Sinn Fein leaders' protest. The London daily Independent ran an editorial headed, "Not fit to sit in Parliament? It is the oath that is not fit."

Despite the refusal to date of Ulster Unionist leader Trimble to meet with Sinn Fein, he did participate in the first meeting for decades between Unionists and the Irish government on November 20. A few days later he denounced the Irish government's representative in the talks, David Andrews, for suggesting there could be a new all-Ireland body with executive powers. Rising tensions among Unionist forces were sharply exposed when the annual meeting of the Orange Order, which organizes supremacist marches in Northern Ireland, was occupied by about 400 ultrarightist opponents of the group's leadership. Three days after the Downing Street meeting Trimble announced "it is possible" that he'll meet Gerry Adams.  
 
 
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