Brian Campbell, editor of Sinn Fein's An Phoblacht/Republican News, looks at SF's expulsion from the peace talks.
I was in Dublin Castle when Sinn Fein were fighting to stay in the multi-party talks. Not with their delegates as they sought to defend the charge that they had "demonstrably dishonoured" the Mitchell Principles, but among the two hundred or so media people who were paid to speculate and analyse while they waited for something to happen. The wait was made more palatable by the high class food and endless cappuccinos, all free of course.
The well paid, well fed press began the week in the certain knowledge that Sinn Fein would be expelled, no doubt about it. By lunchtime they would be gone. The RUC Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan said that the IRA had killed a drug dealer and a top loyalist therefore Sinn Fein had to be thrown out of the talks. Of course Sinn Fein and most of the nationalist community look at things in a different way and nowhere were those outlooks more clearly different than in Dublin Castle.
The media pack took Ronnie Flanagan's word as gospel. On the Monday morning it had not entered their heads that he might not be the most impartial judge in all this. His force, after all, had been known to issue the occasional judgement which turned out to be a pack of lies. Last year, when Robert Hamill, a nationalist from Portadown was kicked to death by loyalists as the RUC looked on, the RUC said he had died "in a clash between rival factions." They said they had moved in "to separate the groups" but had been forced to withdraw after coming under attack themselves. All lies.
Sinn Fein were in Dublin Castle with a large dossier of similar lies going back years. The media were also less than interested in the fact that in January, following intense pressure and nationalist street protests, Ronnie Flanagan had taken three weeks to say that the UFF had killed three Catholics. Within twelve hours of the deaths of the drug dealer and the loyalist, his officers were briefing journalists that the IRA was responsible. The double standard was not lost on nationalists.
Yet another double standard emerged. Last year Flanagan said that both the UVF and the UFF had broken their ceasefires, yet no moves were made to put the PUP and UDP (who claim to speak for the UVF and UFF) out of the talks.
Besides, Sinn Fein clearly had nothing to do with the recent killings. They don't claim to speak for the IRA. Whose interests were going to be served by expelling Sinn Fein? Was it being done so that an agreement could be cobbled together between the SDLP and the UUP? Was the New Labour Government going back to the failed policy of marginalising Sinn Fein? It would be a step towards madness. No agreement is possible unless it is produced by an inclusive process.
By Monday lunchtime the media were learning that Sinn Fein were going to fight their attempted expulsion "every single step of the way". Through the courts, if necessary. They argued that it was against natural justice to be accused of something without being able to examine the evidence, or cross-examine witnesses -- they couldn't defend themselves against a vague assertion from the leader of a discredited paramilitary force. Nor was it right that the British Government should act as both prosecutor and judge.
From then, the media saw where the story was and every time a Sinn Fein spokesperson emerged they were engulfed in a scrum of microphones and cameras. But some of the best known commentators in Ireland's establishment media soon worked out a different angle. Sinn Fein was moving into "victim mode", they said.
It is a common enough charge against people who stand up for their rights; indeed against oppressed people everywhere. The subtext is: "why don't they stop whinging? Why don't they just put up with it and shut up?" It is the last defence of the well fed and well paid. The journalists in Dublin Castle knew in their hearts that the attempt to expel Sinn Fein stunk to the high heavens. At its heart was a threat from David Trimble that unless Sinn Fein were thrown out he would collapse the talks.
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