PUP man says his comment was not meant as threat

A northern Ireland Assembly member, Mr Billy Hutchinson, has said that his remarks of possible loyalist paramilitary attacks on the Republic should a new Anglo-Irish agreement be imposed were not intended as a threat, but rather as objective political analysis.

Mr Hutchinson of the Progressive Unionist Party, which is linked to the Ulster Volunteer Force, said he could understand how his remarks about the possibility of loyalist attacks on tourists and Irish bloodstock could be perceived as a threat, but that was not his intention.

In an interview in Thursday's Belfast Telegraph, Mr Hutchinson said he feared that if the agreement failed and was replaced by a new Anglo-Irish agreement, loyalists would embark on a "more sophisticated" campaign designed to cripple the Southern economy.

"It is very easy to attack bloodstock and it is very easy to attack tourists," he told the paper's political correspondent, Martina Purdy. "I mean, tourists can be got anywhere in any main street, in any city or rural area, in Dublin, and those things aren't hard to do," he added.

Mr Hutchinson told The Irish Times yesterday that, while he could understood people having a different interpretation, his intention in making these comments was to provoke people into working to safeguard the Belfast Agreement.

The dispute between Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionist Party over decommissioning was jeopardising the agreement, and if both sides did not design some "choreography" to get around the problem, the agreement would collapse.

He could then see the British and Irish governments imposing an Anglo-Irish agreement "Mark 2", which would not be favourable to unionists and would be resisted by loyalists, most likely with attacks on the South.

"I hope it never comes to that, because I think with the agreement we can go ahead and forge relationships for the good of all the people of Ireland, North and South.

"I want to save the agreement. My comments were intended as analysis, certainly not as a threat," Mr Hutchinson said.

UVF leadership sources, meanwhile, told BBC Radio Ulster that the minimum requirement for Sinn Fein taking two ministerial seats in the executive was an IRA declaration "that its war was over". Mr Hutchinson said he was unaware of the UVF comments.

His initial interpretation was that the UVF was seeking some movement from the IRA to help achieve a compromise. He believed the legalistic wording of the agreement was with Sinn Fein and that it should have two ministers ahead of disarmament.

A statement from the IRA that it would decommission in April or May 2000 in line with the agreement could help provide the spur to the deadlock being broken, Mr Hutchinson said.

Mr Gerry Kelly, a Sinn Fein Assembly member, described Mr Hutchinson's comments in the Belfast Telegraph as "both dangerous and disgraceful. "Threats of loyalist violence whether implicit or explicit are unhelpful," he said.

"Billy Hutchinson and the PUP, rather than threatening dire consequences if the process does not succeed, should be using whatever influence they may have on the Ulster Unionists to ensure that the Good Friday agreement is implemented in its entirety," Mr Kelly added.

On the UVF comments, Mr Kelly said he totally rejected attempts to have Sinn Fein excluded from its rightful positions on the executive.

"In the midst of a murder campaign by the Orange Volunteers and the Red Hand Defenders, we now have further threats from the UVF. It is now clear that loyalist organisations are using the threat of a return to sectarian killings in an attempt to impose preconditions on the peace process."

Mr Alex Attwood, an SDLP Assembly member, responding to the UVF briefing to the BBC, said that what was achieved by the Belfast Agreement should not be "put in jeopardy by the real or apparent hardening of party positions".

Rather than harsh words, each side should work to "enable the other side to come to a satisfactory outcome of their anxieties," Mr Attwood said.