Repression not the solution to conflict - by Gerry Adams
Friday, 4. September, 1998
As the governments in Dublin and Belfast rush through the most repressive legislation ever on the statute books in these islands, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams argues that history shows such laws to be totally counter-productive
This week the Oireachtas and the British parliament met to debate separate but complementary pieces of draconian legislation which they are rushing into law following the Omagh bomb.
Sinn Fein, along with others, has joined the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), British Irish Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in expressing our absolute opposition to the new legislation. These new laws are a mistake.
The history of Irish-British relationships makes depressing reading. It has been built for the most part on British coercive and draconian legislation.
Between 1800 and 1921 over 100 Coercion Acts were passed by the British parliament to subdue Ireland -- they didn't work!
After partition each state on this island introduced laws designed to defend its interests.
Unionists in the north created the notorious Special Powers Act which found praise in the apartheid regime in South Africa.
The Offences against the State Act in the 26 counties led to executions and deaths on hunger strike.
Following 1969 and the Unionist regime's brutal response to the Civil Rights Movement's campaign for justice and equality and the subsequent militarisation of the situation, London and Dublin revised their arsenal of repressive laws, delegating to their state forces more and greater powers.
The culmination of this 'security' approach was an absence of political progress, accompanied by the torture of detainees; the imprisonment of thousands of people, many of them innocent victims; the killing by state forces of almost 400 citizens, many of them children; and a legacy of bitterness and hostility.
None of these measures contributed in any way to advancing the search for a permanent democratic peace settlement.
In addition the British government found itself repeatedly before the European Court of Human Rights. London holds the distinction of having been found guilty by that court more often than any other state since 1950. It has also been condemned by every major human rights agency in the world.
The British government's role in the north has perhaps best been summed up by human rights lawyer and anti-apartheid campaigner (now a minister in the South African government) Kadar Asmal, who remarked: "The British government has shown scant regard for international opinion and international and domestic legal standards ... My contention is that the United Kingdom is behaving and has behaved in the north in the same way that colonial powers exerted their sovereignty in the old fashioned empires."
This then is the reality of Britain's presence in Ireland and of partition.
The northern state has existed for over 75 years on a life support of oppression, injustice and inequality. It is a history of failure.
The Hume-Adams initiative, the Irish peace initiative, and the peace process which emerged from these, has as its goal a democratic peace settlement. It is about putting our past of conflict and division and fear behind us for ever.
The peace process is a recognition that the Anglo-Irish conflict is not a 'security' problem but a political problem requiring a political solution.
The process of negotiations which commenced in June 1996, concluding in the Good Friday agreement in April this year, is evidence of the success of this approach.
The agreement is a step along the road to a new future; a new beginning in which conflict and violence should have no place.
The peace process and the Belfast agreement are clear evidence of the primacy of politics.
The knee-jerk response of the two governments to the Omagh bomb, with both rushing to the comfort blanket of more repressive legislation, flies in the face of this new real-politik.
The speed with which both grabbed for the file drawer marked 'repression' runs against the spirit and the letter of the Good Friday agreement.
Of even greater concern for people living within the six counties is that the RUC, a force which is universally rejected by nationalists and whose future is under scrutiny as part of the agreement, is being handed enormous new powers which will inevitably be turned on nationalists.
The introduction of internment by other means, and the use of the RUC to enforce it, flies in the face of the spirit of the Belfast agreement.
The victims of the Omagh bomb courageously spoke out in support of the peace process and rejected the clear attempt by a handful of unrepresentative people to derail the search for peace. The two governments must learn this important lesson.
A peaceful future is dependent on political progress and the full implementation of the Good Friday agreement, not on repressive legal and security measures.
The two governments and the political parties must recognise that the Good Friday agreement marks the beginning of a process of change.
To be successful it requires the consent and allegiance of both unionists and nationalists. We need to put the politics of domination and injustice behind us. Sinn Fein is committed to reaching a settlement which will accommodate the rights of all our people, nationalists and unionists.
Even while the two governments are legislating for more repression, Sinn Fein is once again endeavouring through yet another initiative to advance the search for a lasting peace.
The Good Friday agreement recognised the need for fundamental change across the entire spectrum of the equality and demilitarisation agendas and signalled the creation of mechanisms to deliver change in the specific area of justice, policing and human rights.
This is the agenda ... not a return to the failure of security initiatives ... which the two governments must push ahead with with all speed.