Adams rips British over suspension

By Patrick Markey

Visiting New York briefly before his meeting with President Clinton and Irish leaders in Washington D.C., Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams last week called for the British and Irish governments to live up to their responsibilities for change in Northern Ireland.

Painting a gloomy portrait of the current negotiations, Adams said the British secretary of state had made a grave error in suspending the fledgling power-sharing executive and thus undercutting the confidence that had been built there.

"When Peter Mandelson suspended the institutions, in my view he made the biggest mistake that this British government has made since New Labor came into power," Adams said.

"Imagine someone coming into this country and suspending the Senate, imagine someone coming into this country and saying to President Clinton, you’re out of a job, you’re suspended," he said.

Adams said if the two governments faced up to their responsibilities to bring about change and faced down those opposing the Good Friday agreement and if politics works, then all change is possible.

"When Peter Mandelson was here he said the institutions could be reinstated as easily as they had been suspended. So it is within his gift to do that. It isn’t conditional on me or David Trimble," he said.

Mandelson suspended the executive after only eight weeks in February after Unionist leader David Trimble threatened to walk out. Negotiations between Sinn Fein and Unionists have caught on the thorny issue of arms decommissioning when the new government was put on ice.

Adams said he could still work with Trimble, but he could not say when the negotiations would crystallize into a re-establishment of the executive.

"The next business that I do with him, the conclusions will be very, very clear. There has to be an end to the wink and the nod that has passed for the negotiations. There needs to be an end to a British government providing parachutes for unionism," he said.