State Papers: Sinn Féin needed to attract fewer ‘headbangers’ to party, said Gerry Adams
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Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, admitted in 2001 that his party would need to stop attracting “headbangers” and move away from any association of violence.
The comments which the republican leader made as the IRA and other paramilitary groups were coming under pressure to decommission their weapons are revealed in newly released State papers from the National Archives.
However, Mr Adams “took issue” with the assertion that Sinn Féin had a greater responsibility to get the IRA to decommission its arms on the basis that it had become the largest nationalist party in Northern Ireland after winning four seats in the general election held in 2001.
At the same time, the Sinn Féin leader accepted that his party had to distance itself from links to violence.
At a meeting in Washington in June 2001 with the Irish ambassador to the US, Seán Ó hUigínn, Mr Adams was recorded as taking issue with the thesis that Sinn Féin’s electoral success created a new responsibility or opportunity to move on decommissioning.
The ambassador argued that such a view was “an inevitable reality” of becoming the largest nationalist party in Northern Ireland and that Sinn Féin would be held to more exacting standards than when it was “a relatively insignificant political force.”
Mr Ó hUigínn also pointed out that he believed that David Trimble was ready to resign as Ulster Unionist Party leader unless there was a significant move on the arms issue.
The ambassador also warned that Trimble’s resignation could lead to a failure to elect a new First Minister which would trigger fresh elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly which would probably be “angry and polarising.”
Mr Adams agreed, but also criticised Mr Trimble’s “exasperating failures to sell the [Good Friday] Agreement, to engage in any meaningful dialogue about how difficulties could be resolved, and to resort to solo runs and ultimatums.”
The Sinn Féin leader also remarked that the UUP leader’s resignation would be “daft.”
Although several deadlines set under the Good Friday Agreement for the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons had been passed, Mr Ó hUigínn said US congressional figures had taken comfort that clever minds existing in the Republic movement to find a way out of difficulties.
Mr Adams made no direct response but restated his aim of seeing the IRA into ‘peaceful retirement.”
The West Belfast MP acknowledged that his party needed to move away from any links to violence not least because they wanted to attract young people with a constructive social agenda and not “headbangers” attracted to violence.
A few weeks after the meeting on August 7, 2001, the IRA finally agreed on a method of destroying its weapons.