................................................................................ ON THE RECORD JOHN BRUTON INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 16.6.96
................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Well we'll be hearing more from Mr Howard later in the programme but first more on the bombing and its effect on the peace process. On the line from Dublin is the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic, John Bruton. Now, Mr Bruton, Good Afternoon. JOHN BRUTON: Good afternoon. HUMPHRYS: Isn't it the case that that bombing has ended whatever hope there might have been of getting Sinn Fein into the talks? BRUTON: I believe that the events of the last week have done appalling damage to any credibility that Sinn Fein had in their proclaimed pursuit of peace. When you bear in mind that first of all they accepted IRA denials of involvement in the killing of a member of the Irish Police and then subsequently had to go back on that. When you consider that Sinn Fein couldn't even bring themselves to condemn either the killing of an Irish Garda Siochana member or the appalling outrage in Manchester. The credibility of Sinn Fein is open to question and I think it's very important to bear in mind that they are now betraying the people who voted for them in Northern Ireland in the recent elections. They voted - who voted for Sinn Fein - voted for a peace strategy. They were told that Sinn Fein was following a peace strategy. There is little evidence remaining that that is the case now,
when you bear in mind that they couldn't even condemn the murder of a member of the Guards and that they have been struck mute as well in their reaction to this appalling atrocity in Manchester, which was designed, because of the day that was chosen, to drive the British and the Irish peoples further apart and to make peace and a settlement more difficult. And, yet, Sinn Fein continues, unfortunately, to fail to disavow the IRA. HUMPHRYS: So, therefore, the answer to my question is Yes. It has ended hopes of getting Sinn Fein to talk about peace because there is no peace. BRUTON: There is no peace. Well, we-There hasn't been peace since the IRA reinstated their campaign of violence and murdered ....Bashir (phon) and John Jefferies (phon) in London and when units of the IRA have been involved - only in the last week - in the killing of Garda Jerry (phon) McCabe in Adare in County Limerick. There isn't peace currently. There may be people within Sinn Fein - and they ought to be encouraged - who are trying to get the IRA to change its course and trying to get Sinn Fein to have the courage either to disassociate itself from the IRA or go to the IRA and get the IRA to stop the campaign. There may well be. I believe there are people within Sinn Fein who are of that mind but it is now long past time for them to make up their minds where they stand. HUMPHRYS: And in the absence of that happening, you seem pretty pessimistic about the prospect of getting Sinn Fein involved at any stage in the future? BRUTON: How could a political party be committed to peace and not condemn the killing of Garda McCabe? How could a political Party continue to associate with the IRA after the appalling events in Manchester? That's the question they must answer for themselves. It's not for me to answer that question for them. They must answer that as people who claim to be Irish democrats. They must answer that question for themselves. The questions now need to be put by the people in Sinn Fein to themselves about the viability of their peace strategy, in the light of what has happened. It's for them to answer that question, for themselves, now. HUMPHRYS: And how long are you prepared to give them to come up with an answer to that question? BRUTON: Obviously, we're having to review very seriously and fundamentally our relationship with Sinn Fein, with the Republican movement, as a whole, in the light of what has happened. Irish Governments in the past have shown great resolution since the State was founded in 1921, in being willing to face down the men of violence in this State. We have never been lacking in that regard in the past. But in recent times we have been trying - I believe entirely justifiably, and this applies to the previous Government as well as this one - to find a way of bringing the Republican movement, which previously was attached to violence into ordinary democratic politics. That was always going to be a difficult task and there were going to be discouragements, that was clear. HUMPHRYS: But this is more than a discouragement? BRUTON: What has happened now is far more - as you are about to say - is far more than a mere discouragement. This is a slap in the face to people who've been trying against perhaps their better instincts to give Sinn Fein a chance to show that they could persuade the IRA to reinstate the ceasefire and that Sinn Fein could represent Republican people. HUMPHRYS: And, what else needs to happen? What else do they need to do to prove that, in fact, we've been conned? You've been conned, Dublin's been conned, the British Government's been conned, everybody has been conned. They never did intend there to be a true ceasefire, a true end to violence? BRUTON: Yesterday, I said that what is needed now and I repeat it here is an unconditional and irrecovable ceasefire. There can be no going back this time. No looking over the shoulder to the option of violence, if politics doesn't go their way. This time, they must come irrecovably into the political process. That, I believe, is essential. How they phrase that, how they put it is a matter for themselves because it is important to make the point that at this juncture it is for Sinn Fein to convince the rest of us of their commitment. It is not for us to tell them exactly what words they must use, for we, if you like, take the responsibility. They must take the responsibility themselves now to find the words that will convince the people of Britain, the people of Ireland that there will be no more Manchesters, no more Adares. HUMPHRYS: But, you want more than words now, don't you? BRUTON: We want visible commitment on their part. HUMPHRYS: And, what does that mean? BRUTON: Already, Sinn Fein have committed themselves on a contingent basis to the Mitchell Principles. The Mitchell Principles disavow violence for political means and say that the arms that were
used - the bomb-making equipment that was used in Manchester, the Kalashnikov that was used to kill Gerry McCabe - that those arms, those weapons have to be destroyed. That's what Sinn Fein have agreed to in the Mitchell Principles - that those weapons have to be destroyed in the interests of public safety. Public safety in Manchester, public safety here in Ireland. Now, it is for them. I believe, having accepted those principles - which they did last week, or a week or so ago - it is for them, now, in the light of what they have accepted in the Mitchell Principles to demonstrate what that means, what that commitment means in practice, so that people will be convinced of their bona fides. I think that there has been too much of an endeavour in the past - on the part, perhaps, mostly of the British Government but also of the Irish Government - of trying to choose the words for Sinn Fein, telling that if you use...you must use this word, or don't use that word, that we won't accept this. That has the perverse effect of taking the burden off their shoulders, or relieving them of responsibility. They have the responsibility now. Sinn Fein and the IRA have the responsibility now to find themselves now, in their own way, the words and the deeds that will convince people that there never will be violence of this kind in pursuit of political objectives. They have the job - not Michael Howard, not the Irish Government - they. Sinn Fein and the IRA have the job of finding the right words. HUMPHRYS: Right. BRUTON: And finding the word...the right deeds that will convince people. HUMPHRYS: And when you say the 'right deeds', what you are saying is before they can be brought into the talks, before they can be given democratic respectability, as it were, there must be destruction of IRA weapons... BRUTON: No. No, no. HUMPHRYS: Is that what you're saying? BRUTON: I think it's important in a matter of this seriousness that you shouldn't attempt to put words into my mouth. HUMPHRYS: No, I'm trying to understand the point you're making. BRUTON: Well, I appreciate that but I think you should not use the method of putting words in my mouth. It doesn't assist in the process. HUMPHRYS: No, no, I promise you I'm not trying to do that. I'm genuinely trying to understand the point you're making. BRUTON: Oh, I appreciate that. I'm glad to know that. The position is that we want them to show, in light of the principles that they have accepted - they have accepted The Mitchell Principles now. They have said that if they went into the talks, if there was an IRA ceasefire they would accept the Mitchell Principles. It is for them now to show how they intend to translate that into reality. Everytime an Irish Government official or British Government official attempts to put the words out for them that creates them - for Sinn Fein - an opportunity to go off in another direction and then say that we're being subject to the politics of precondition, or whatever.. HUMPHRYS: I understand that BRUTON: What's important now is that they recognise that they have the freedom and the responsibility themselves to choose their own words and their own actions-that will convince people. And we should not, I believe, get into the prescriptive mode, as far as that's concerned because that actually, in a perverse way, as I've said already, it relieves the Republican movement of the responsibility for finding the words and the actions themselves, of their own hearts, and in their own hearts that will convince other people in Ireland - whether they be of the Unionist or Nationalist tradition - and the people of Britain that this time the peace is for keeps. HUMPHRYS: Prime Minister, thank you very much indeed. ...oooOooo...