PROCESS IN DEEP SENSE OF CRISIS SAYS ADAMS

[mrgorth]

PROCESS IN DEEP SENSE OF CRISIS SAYS ADAMS
01/27/05 11:02 EST

The peace process is in the grips of a "very deep sense of
crisis", Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams warned today.



Speaking at Westminster ahead of a meeting deferred until
tomorrow with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr Adams
said the British and Irish governments were contributing to
the problem by suggesting they are taking a hard-line
approach to his party.


Mr Adams, who will have talks with Mr Blair at his country
residence Chequers in Buckinghamshire, told journalists: "I
think it is very fair to say that there is a very deep sense
of crisis in the peace process at this time."


"It predates the Northern Bank robbery and the accusations
that have flowed from it. Obviously the accusations flowing
from that robbery have compounded the difficulties, but the
difficulties emerged in December when Ian Paisley of the DUP
rejected what were seismic initiatives on a range of issues
by Republicans and the comprehensive agreement which would
have flowed from that."


The £26.5 million Northern Bank raid in Belfast - which
Northern Ireland chief constable Mr Hugh Orde has blamed on
the IRA - had been seized on by "anti-Republican elements"
for their own purposes, said Mr Adams.


Mr Adams told reporters: "Tomorrow's meeting, I hear it has
been characterised, I hear Tom Kelly spokesman] at his work, characterising it as a
confrontation, we are going to be told straight what is
happening and so on and so forth."


"We are approaching the meeting positively. No one should
think for one moment that we are going to be at a meeting
which will be characterised by the spin. Tony Blair knows
us well enough, knows what has been achieved, knows his own
contribution to it, knows our contribution to it, and knows
that confrontation just won't work."


Sinn Féin's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, said the
party's delegation would use the meeting to raise the case
of Mr Martin Doherty, who is in custody for being in
contempt of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry.


Mr Doherty (49) from Derry, refused to give evidence to the
tribunal and was jailed for three months.


Mr McGuinness said: "The nationalist community believe it is
an absolute disgrace that he has been sentenced to three
months' imprisonment for contempt of the Saville tribunal
simply because he was not prepared to attend that tribunal .
. . on the basis that he wasn't even at the Bloody Sunday
march on that day."
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[greatauntoftriplets]

1. That's a very diplomatic way of putting it....

Too damn many attempts at sabotage...not to mention the inequities between what is expected of the IRA and all the Protestant paramilitary groups.