Protestants Still Vexed By Sinn Fein Main Party Likely To Attend Talks But Not Sit In Room With Ira Ally
Several thousand Irish Republican Army supporters rallied in downtown Belfast on Sunday, challenging pro-British Protestant leaders to join them at the negotiating table this week.
But the leader of the main Protestant party, David Trimble, refused to say whether he would sit down with the IRA-allied Sinn Fein party Monday, when the British and Irish governments have invited 10 Northern Ireland parties to start talks on the British-ruled state’s future.
Trimble, whose Ulster Unionist Party represents a critical third of Northern Ireland opinion, told the British Broadcasting Corp. there was “not much point entering a process where people listen to you - and then go on and try to impose an arrangement designed to appease terrorists.”
It looks likely that Trimble’s party will remain officially in the process but refuse to sit in the same room as Sinn Fein when the talks begin Monday afternoon. Representatives of Northern Ireland’s two main pro-British paramilitary groups are likely to take the same tack.
Two harder-line Protestant parties, Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists and Bob McCartney’s United Kingdom Unionists, have vowed not to show up at all.
Still, Britain’s political development minister in Northern Ireland, Paul Murphy, said the resumed talks would herald “a new era in Northern Ireland politics,” as Sinn Fein will meet with several other parties for the first time in history.
Murphy called the Ulster Unionists “a major player in those talks because they represent a very important community” and urged them to meet Sinn Fein directly.
“It is by far the best thing for the parties to be together in the same room. After all, the talks process was established by Parliament. People have been elected to talk at it.”
Sinn Fein negotiator Gerry Kelly told supporters in front of Belfast City Hall, among them youthful bands chanting IRA slogans: “You are part of the negotiations.”
“Don’t leave it up to a few of us, sitting up there talking to the Brits,” Kelly, a legendary figure in IRA circles, told the crowd. He was convicted of London van bombs in 1972, and masterminded the biggest jail break in British history in 1983 when he and 37 IRA comrades escaped from the Maze prison near Belfast.
Sinn Fein, which this year topped 16 percent in two Northern Ireland elections, was barred from negotiations until the IRA on July 20 stopped its 27-year-old campaign to end Northern Ireland’s union with Britain.
Talks among nine other parties and the British and Irish governments began in June 1996 in Castle Buildings, an ugly office block in east Belfast within the Stormont complex, the center of British administration in Northern Ireland.
Sinn Fein’s delegation will be led by Gerry Adams, a reputed former Belfast IRA commander who began developing the party in 1981. Joining him will be Martin McGuinness, who reputedly held the IRA’s most senior posts and today is billed as Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator.
The Ulster Unionists were instrumental in founding Northern Ireland as a predominantly Protestant state in 1920.