................................................................................ ON THE RECORD MARTIN MCGUINNESS INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 26.3.95 ................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: John Turnbull reporting. Martin McGuinness expects to meet the Northern Ireland Minister Michael Ancram this week. It will be the first meeting of its kind there's been between Sinn Fein and a government minister. And that implies that great progress is being made towards a permanent end to violence in Northern Ireland and a new political dispensation. Some say don't you believe it. Mr. McGuinness is in our studio in Londonderry. Good morning to you. Good afternoon to you. MARTIN MCGUINESS: Good afternoon. HUMPHRYS: Have you got a date yet, for that meeting? MCGUINNESS: No we haven't got a date but I expect that the beginning of next week that we should have one. HUMPHRYS: What makes you say that? Have they said that's going to happen? MCGUINNESS: Well they haven't said that at this stage but I think there is a great expectation now that a meeting between Sinn
Fein and British Government ministers will take place some time next week and I think many people will be very disappointed if that doesn't turn out to be the case. HUMPHRYS: Great expectation on your part or have you had some indication from Downing Street that it is going to happen? MCGUINNESS: Well we've had no indication from Downing Street but there is an international and national expectation that British Government ministers should be sitting down with Sinn Fein. HUMPHRYS: When that happens, and I say when not if, because clearly you're absolutely convinced it is going to happen, when that happens it is only a stage in this process isn't it? The most important stage comes later, that's to say the all party talks and you won't get to those all party talks unless and until you meet the conditions that the British Government has set out. MCGUINNESS: Well you see the position is that the British Government has to recognise that Sinn Fein has a substantial electoral mandate, that we have a right to be at the negotiating table and no one has the right to prevent us from going there. British Government are also need to understand that they shouldn't approach the business of developing the situation with Sinn Fein as if each time they're about to cross the rubicon. We haven't yet reached the rubicon, but we're moving in that direction and clearly the British Government have to understand that an essential part of moving forward to all party talks is meetings with Sinn Fein. When we get to all party talks everything will be on the table, we will discuss all the issues which are of relevance and now this particular conflict that will be the decommissioning of all weapons, the demilitarisation of the situation. Now the decommissioning of all injustices which have existed within these states since its foundations in 1920. HUMPHRYS: And crossing the rubicon in very simple terms means getting rid of the weapons and that, as it stands, it appears you're not prepared to do or the IRA is not prepared to do. Under these conditions. MCGUINNESS: Well Sinn Fein's objective is to permanently remove the gun from Irish politics, all the guns, British guns and Republican guns and clearly we have a situation now where the situation here, in this state has moved on dramatically in the course of the last seven months. The situation polictically and militarily has been transformed by the courage and the imagination of the Irish Republic and Army. What we need the British Government to do is recognise now that we are moving forward steadily and that there's a major expectation that they, along with the Dublin Gfi govern will bring all the parties to the negotiating table for all party peace talks. What we also have to remember is that this business of demilitarisation and Britain's refusal to discuss it is all rather silly, particularly in the context of the meetings which I've been involved in at Stormont, where on five occasions the issue of demilitarisation has been discussed in depth between myself and British Governments over several ... There's no reason whatsoever why Michael Ancram cannot come to the table to discuss this very important element of the peace process with me. HUMPHRYS: Well it may or may not be silly but the fact is the British Government holds the whip hand in this and if it says: we're not going to get to those all party talks unless and until you do X,Y and Z, it can do precisely that. MCGUINNESS: Well you see the British Government really isn't in a position to dictate to Sinn Fein. The reality is that we have a peace process which has been up and running for some time. The international community is looking on, they're looking to see if the British Government develop this process and the quarters of power all over the world, the British Government have been seen as delaying, stallling and negative in the process. What we need to see is imagination from the British Government, we need to see political imput and a whole hearted involvement of that government in the development of the peace process. HUMPHRYS: Yes but that is the whole point isn't it? Whatever the rest of the world may think, viewed from Westminster and indeed from Belfast, the British Government can if it chooses stall, it can delay if that's indeed what it is doing. It would say that, of course it isn't doing that but it can do it if it chooses to because it has peace and so long as peace lasts, that's all right. MCGUINNESS: Well we haven't reached a political settlement, we haven't negotiated the final settlement to this conflict and I am sure that there are many people in Britain and within the British establishment and all the political parties in England who recognise that we to move forward as speedily as possible..(interruption)..The British Government haven't got the luxury of being able to stand back on the issue of demilitarisation, I mean the reality is that the British Army have been involved in the killing of hundreds of civilians here in the North of Ireland, elements within British military intelligence have supplied weapons to a Loyalist death squad who've killed hundreds of civilians here in the North of Ireland. The British Government and its Army are very much a part of this equation and that aspect of it needs to be discussed because it's of great importance to our people. HUMPHRYS: You say the British Government doesn't have the luxury to be able to stand back and watch but it does. It has precisely that luxury because, let me repeat, there is peace so long as people aren't being killed in the streets and villages of Northern Ireland, so long as
London isn't being bombed, that's exactly what the British Government can do because there is no pressure on them at this stage. You say from outside the country, well may be, but that's pressure it can withstand. MCGUINNESS: Well I say I don't think they can withstand that pressure and the British Government needs to recognise that there is no room for complacency within this process. We clearly have a situation now where there is a major expectation that we must move forward to all party peace talks. People recognise that Sinn Fein have a substantial electoral mandate, unlike that of the small Loyalist parties which met with British minister Ancram last week. The reality is that the British Government is going to have to engage with Sinn Fein, it's going to have to move the peace process forward and it's going to have to recognise that we must approach a situation where all the parties are at the negotiating table for all party peace talks. There's no way around it. HUMPHRYS: Isn't the reality that it's you, who don't have the luxury of being able to wait? MCGUINNESS: Well I think Republicans have been very patient in the course of the last seven months. I think Republicans have been positive, we have been constructive, we have attempted at each stage of the process to overcome any obstacles which have been placed in our way and many obstacles have been placed in our way by the British Government. The British Government needs to recognise that there is a whole world out there waiting to see, as in South Africa and in Palestine, that development of the Irish peace process and I think that the British Government needs to recognise that that reality is before us all. HUMPHRYS: But what do you say you're widely seen by people you would call volunteers as a Republican leader to whom they listen, to whom the volunteers listen, what do you say to the men from Armagh who perhaps has an armorlite underneath his floorboards and he says: Martin, when am I going to have to give this up? What's happening here? MCGUINNESS: Well I think that Republicans have shown now great imagination and courage in the course of the last seven months and I think that they along with everybody else expects that the end result of all of
this will be the all the parties at the negotiating table for all party peace talks and there's no doubt whatsoever that we have created the situation in the course of recent months which is unprecedented within this country and even within the entire community, including amongst many Unionists, Protestant, Catholic, Nationalists people, there is a major expectation now that this process needs to be moved on, that the British Government have to stop it stalling, it's delaying and recognise that we cannot squander this opportunity. HUMPHRYS: But he says to you, this IRA man whom I've created here, he says to you: I don't see any political change coming as a result of this, I don't see a united Ireland on the horizon as a result of this, I don't see anything very much happening. So what do you say to him and at what stage do you say it to make him give up that armorlite? MCGUINNESS: Well what I say to everybody is that the situation within this country has moved on dramatically in the course of the last seven months. A peaceful environment has been created, this peaceful environment allows all the parties to come to the negotiating table, to negotiate the future of this island and we, as Irish Republicans, have a responsibility to go to that table on the basis of seeking the discommissioning of all the injustices which have existed within this state. HUMPHRYS: But you will not get to that table and the other parties won't join you at that table and the British Government won't accept that you should be at that table, until that man in Armagh either gives up the Armalite or you have a very clearly defined set of procedures under which he is going to give it up, that's the reality isn't it. And until that happens the British Government can wait. MCGUINNESS: Well that is not the reality. The reality is that the British Government has the largest army in the field within this state, thirty thousand armed soldiers. The reality is that I am prepared to go to the negotiating table and sit with people who have persecuted the community which I come from. Those other parties who have an objection to sitting with me at the negotiating table, cannot sit in their ivory towers and say we're not part of this conflict. The British Government and the Unionists Parties who have all given moral support to military forces have to recognise that in this conflict all the parties to the conflict eventually have to come to the negotiating table and I think when we look at other peace processes throughout the world we have clearly seen the situation where you can't resolve the conflict, you can't remove all the weapons out of the equation until you get an overall political settlement. I think that's a sensible way to move forward. HUMPHRYS: But you keep saying "they have to do this", "they have to do that", "they have to do the other" - they don't have to do anything so long as people aren't being killed. And you know as well as anybody else that the longer the ceasefire lasts, the more difficult it is going to be to end it. MCGUINNESS: Well I mean who's looking to end it, what we're looking to do is get all the parties to come to the negotiating table, what we're looking to do is get all the other parties to recognise that we have a glorious opportunity here which has to be developed and that apart from the British Government and the reluntance of the Unionists there is a whole world out there, including the entire Nationalist community on the island of Ireland, which is demanding further development of the process which is expecting all-party peace talks. HUMPHRYS: You say who - as you ask me - who is looking to end it, isn't the answer that some in the IRA may well be looking to end it unless something happens fairly quickly, one hears that Easter is some sort of deadline, that may or may not be true. MCGUINNESS: Well I mean Ken Maginnis was forecasting the end of it a week after it started, he forecast the end of it the week before Christmas, he forecast the end of it a week after Christmas. HUMPHRYS: So you're saying it's totally open ended? Are you saying it's totally open-ended then, that the IRA, the guy in Armagh to whom I refer is prepared to wait indefinitely? MCGUINNESS: Well I'm not prepared to put myself onto a position where I am a spokesperson for the IRA. What you have to recognise is that I am a spokesperson for twelve point five per cent of the people who live within this state, who have yet to see their political representatives sit down with British Government ministers and it is encumbent and there is a great responsibility on the British Government to move this peace process forward. HUMPHRYS: Are you confident that you can hold the IRA behind you, if that's the right expression, for as long as it takes, that's the question isn't it. MCGUINNESS: Well it's not my responsibility to hold the IRA, it's the IRA's responsibility to look at the process which is developing and they said in their statement of the 31st August that they wish to enhance the peace process. We definitely have a viable peace process up and running but what we need to see is a rejection from the British Government of whole hearted intent on their part to move the situation forward towards all-party peace talks. There isn't anywhere else for anybody to go but to the negotiating table. HUMPHRYS: Martin McGuinness, thank you very much.