A chara, - The venom in your editorials of June 1st and June 3rd can probably be explained by shock and intense annoyance at the showing of our party in the election. You told your readers (June 1st) that Sinn Fein "secured a much more substantial mandate than expected" but "cannot claim to have a democratic mandate". By June 3rd this had become the "pretence" of a mandate.
Even the British government has rarely condemned our voters to second class citizenship as openly as you did when you rote that "a vote for Sinn Fein represents a different purchase than a vote for anyone else". Your conclusion was to support the denial by the British government of the right of over 116,000 voters and 42 per cent of nationalists in the Six Counties to be represented at talks.
The IRA did not stand in the election. Sinn Fein is not the IRA. Sinn Fein stood in the election on the basis of our peace strategy which, since 1992, has helped to move us all towards a resolution of the conflict. Our manifesto also stressed the vital need for negotiations without pre conditions, with everything, on the table and no outcome predetermined.
The exclusion of our voters should be maintained, you contend, even at the cost of "failure of the process at this time and a return to the extensive security measures of previous years". This would be a recipe for disaster, condemning our country to prolonged conflict.
The lessons of the peace process show clearly the failure of the politics of exclusion and the ability of real dialogue to transform the political situation. If the British and Irish governments had learned these lessons back in the early 1980s when the electoral base of our party in the Six Counties was built and consolidated we would surely be much further down the road to lasting peace than we are today.
Sadly your two editorials harked back to the reaction to the electoral rise of Sinn Fein in 1982 and 1983. Our party and ourvoters have come a long way since then. We are looking forward to taking our rightful place in shaping a new future for all the people of this island. Begrudgery will not stand in the way of that. - Is Mise,
Sinn Fein General Secretary,
Cearnog Pharnell,
Baile Atha Cliath 1.