February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Paisley also warned the British government it would face a unionist backlash if it tried to force his party into government with Sinn Fein and accused London of “leaving Ulster an easy prey to terrorism.”
Gerry Adams, who with other Sinn Fein leaders staged a brief photo call with Blair in the entrance to 10 Downing St., said the DUP had already conceded the power-sharing principle during talks at the end of last year. The only remaining question, said Adams, was when.
He called on Paisley to show leadership and begin talks for the sake of the prosperity and well-being of both communities in Ireland.
Paisley, however, in a typically bombastic outburst, warned that unionists faced a crisis “of the most serious nature” and accused Blair of reneging on “solemn undertakings” on decommissioning and the end of the IRA.
Republicans, said Paisley, had made no real commitments on decommissioning, even in their own minds. “They have instead sought to excuse all their murders, killings and criminal acts by stating that they fully justify the armed struggle,” he said.
“The so-called dumping of IRA arms is not at all crystal clear, as they claim, because only they will control any more faked decommissioning and the supposedly independent observers will be appointed by them alone.
“We have IRA/Sinn Fein spokesmen gloating over the dismantling of safety measures to protect law-abiding people and the disbandment of the Royal Irish Regiment,” he said, accusing the party of “using television opportunities to savagely attack Her Majesty’s security forces.”
The British government, he said, was joining hands with murderers but it would be his business to lay it on the “that there can be no place in any future government of Northern Ireland for IRA/Sinn Fein.”
If London and Dublin, said Paisley, “press forward with such measures, then they will have to face the righteous indignation of the unionist population.” He described Sinn Fein as “jubilant terrorists” who rejoiced “in blood letting and acts of the vilest butchery.
“The principles of IRA/Sinn Fein are the principles of fascism and naked dictatorship, with an underlying hatred of righteousness, justice and truth,” he said. “Into their counsels, the unionists of Ulster will never enter.”
The battle, said Paisley, “will not be won by surrender however disguised in the robes of peace. Dishonorable peace is treachery. Honorable peace is guaranteed liberty. The price of that liberty, unionists have been prepared to pay.”
Adams said Paisley had “a choice to make. Either he can join everyone else in building this process and let us get on or he can stand aside. I would prefer he would join us but that is his choice.”
Adams added that both governments needed to make clear to the DUP that they could not avoid a decision. “The governments cannot allow the DUP to delay and delay and delay again,” he said.
Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein chief negotiator, said that he was convinced that the IRA would stand by its commitments and warned it was important that the peace process should not be allowed to falter.
“If you wobble you are in big difficulty. We are not wobblers,” he said. “I think that the DUP need to regain their nerve. They need to recognize that they have a mighty contribution to make and they have to play their part.”
Adams said there was no reason for the DUP not to engage in face-to-face talks with his party but, if they failed to do so, other ways must be found to implement the Good Friday agreement.
Politics, he said, would have to move on and the DUP leader could not exercise a veto over what were the “modest rights” of Irish citizens. The two governments must explore not just how cross-border co-operation could be boosted but also more police reforms.
In response to Paisley’s comments on the “righteous indignation” of unionists and others attributed to a local DUP assembly member in West Tyrone, Sinn Fein has asked if the DUP intends on reviving “Ulster Resistance” of the “Third Force.”
Both these were shadowy loyalist groups that operated in the 1980s. Ulster Resistance imported arms that were later used in loyalist attacks. The DUP was associated at its inception but later distanced itself.
DUP assembly member, Tom Buchanan, told a local newspaper in West Tyrone that unionists there would have no alternative but to “fend for themselves” following the announcement that three battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment are to be disbanded by 2007.
He also told the newspaper that “unionists in West Tyrone have been placed in a position where they will have to protect themselves from possible attacks by republicans.”
Sinn Fein MP for West Tyrone, Pat Doherty, said, given the consequences of identical calls from the DUP in the past, “the import of these comments will not be lost on the nationalist/republican community.”