Oh this is going to be fun..
Adams bid to calm IRA killing row
Saturday, March 5, 2005 Posted: 12:27 PM EST (1727 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe....ap/index.html
DUBLIN, Republic of Ireland (AP) -- Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army-linked party under fire over the IRA's killing of a Belfast man and other crimes, invited the victim's sisters into its party conference Saturday in an unprecedented bid to defuse their criticism.
With four sisters of the victim sitting in the front row, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said the killers of Robert McCartney -- among them, allegedly, seven suspended members of Sinn Fein and three expelled members of the outlawed IRA -- "should admit what they did in a court of law. That is the only decent thing for them to do."
In a typically mammoth speech to Sinn Fein's largest annual gathering, Adams offered sympathy but no new commitments to the McCartneys, whose high-profile campaign over the past month has highlighted IRA intimidation of witnesses to the January 30 attack on their brother.
Adams -- whom the Irish government identified last month as an IRA commander -- said witnesses should "come forward." But he didn't specify they should talk to the Northern Ireland detectives trying to gather evidence on the mob that fatally knifed and beat McCartney, 33, outside a Belfast pub.
So far, police say, none of 72 potential witnesses has given them a statement.
The McCartney case has highlighted a major obstacle in the peace process -- whether Catholics will cooperate with the mostly Protestant police force in Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein rejects current efforts to reform the police,
while the IRA reserves the right to kill anybody who tells police about IRA activities.
Protestants say they won't cooperate again with Sinn Fein until the IRA disarms and disbands. They cite both the McCartney killing and the Dec. 20 robbery of a Belfast bank -- when the IRA allegedly stole a world-record £26.5 million (€38 million; $50 million) -- as the worst recent examples.
Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, whose moderate Protestant party formed a power-sharing administration involving Sinn Fein that collapsed in 2002, told his own party conference Saturday in Belfast that Sinn Fein must become "a purely peaceful, democratic movement with no private army." He ruled out renewed negotiations until that happened.
In his speech, Adams qualified the IRA's right to commit crimes and said the group could not be "wished away, or ridiculed or embarrassed or demonized or repressed out of existence."
"We know that breaking the law is a crime," Adams said. "But we refuse to criminalize those who break the law in pursuit of legitimate political objectives."
Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern, speaking before Adams' speech, said Sinn Fein and the IRA were "one organization" and emphasized that any new negotiations involving Sinn Fein would focus on the need to secure the IRA's disarmament and disbandment.
But in one sign of the unusual political isolation facing Sinn Fein, no U.S. members of Congress attended the conference for the first time in more than a decade.
The main international guests instead came from South Africa's African National Congress, the Palestinian Authority and Basque separatists from Spain.
( THIS IS MY FAVORITE PART ):
The Bush administration on Thursday confirmed that Sinn Fein, as well as other Northern Ireland parties, would not be invited to the White House for St. Patrick's Day for the first time since 1995.
The McCartney sisters plan to travel to the United States on March 15, two days before St. Patrick's Day, to lobby Irish-American circles for support.
Now what was that you were saying again??
Oh yeah, this:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by CptSternn
Also realise this - this St. Patricks day, like every paddy's day since the 70's your own gw will be sitting down to dinner with Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, and Gerry Kelly. If they are terrorists, then bush is inviting terrorists to dinner.
Afterwards, there will be a $250 a plate dinner to raise money for Sinn Fein, in DC, with gw and many other righ ranking politicos attending.
I had the pleasure of being there 2 years ago. This year though, the group has already been choosen.
So feel free to call us names, throw your limited knowledge out there, and bitch here on the gothic.net forum. While your doing that, we will be meeting with the president of your country and making changes to your government.
Slán
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One more time for the boys and girls at home:
The Bush administration on Thursday confirmed that Sinn Fein, as well as other Northern Ireland parties, would not be invited to the White House for St. Patrick's Day for the first time since 1995.
Thanks for playin..
Buh-Bye..
