NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, August 31,1994
7A
IRA expected to announce cease-fire
The Associated Press
BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Reports that the Irish Republican Army was about to call a cease-fire after a quarter-century of bloodshed put nerves on edge yesterday in Northern Ireland's majority Protestant community.
Expectations of a breakthrough rose as the United States granted a visa to veteran IRA man Joseph Cahill. Arriving in New York, Cahill said the trip was a private visit, but the timing suggested it was part of a carefully choreographed build-up to an announcement.
"I believe we are poised for peace and in a very short time we will be able to make an entirely new beginning on this island," Irish Prime Minister Albert Reynolds said in Dublin.
That enthusiasm was not shared in Protestant districts of Belfast, where any agreement acceptable to the IRA is automatically suspect.
"Sure the English want rid of us," said Jimmy Creighton, a Protestant community worker in the pro-British Glencairn district. "They'll do a deal
with the IRA if the loyalist people let them. But we won't let them."
Speculation became intense after Gerry Adams, leader of the Sinn Fейn Party, said Monday that he had met with IRA leaders and told them the time was right to "break the political, constitutional and military stalemate and create the potential to eradicate the underlying causes of conflict."
Adams, whose party is the main political ally of the IRA, said the group's leaders promised a swift response.
In an interview with Ireland's RTE television, Adams made three demands of Britain following a ceasefire.
"There must be immediate recognition in a meaningful way of our democratic mandate," Adams said. "There must be an immediate end to censorship and issues like demilitarization, all the issues of injustice — all immediate."
Adams did not elaborate, but he appeared to be seeking an early meeting between Sinn Fein and the British government, a reduction in British troop deployments in Catholic areas
and an end to a ban on Sinn Fein-IRA supporters' voices being broadcast
Many among the Protestant majority feared the IRA would not suspend its terror campaign to reunite the province with the largely Roman Catholic Irish republic unless it had won concessions from the British government.
The Ulster Defense Association, one of the two main Protestant-based paramilitary organizations, warned of civil war if the IRA had its way.
"Do you, the Irish, seriously believe we will sit back and allow ourselves to be coerced and persuaded into an all-Ireland?" the group, which also is outlawed, said in a statement to news media.
The British and Irish governments agreed in December that there would be no change in Northern Ireland's status without the consent of a majority of its people. They also said Sinn Fein could not participate in peace talks unless the IRA permanently halted violence.
The British government denied
there had been any change in its policy on Northern Ireland.
In Dublin, Reynolds met with his Cabinet yesterday. Unconfirmed news reports said the Irish government had been informed of the terms of an IRA cease-fire announcement.
Irish rebels fought under the IRA banner against Britain between 1916 and 1921, when the Irish republic became independent and Northern Ireland remained part of Britain. But the IRA was inactive and poorly armed when ethnic violence blew up in Northern Ireland in 1969.
The IRA last called a cease-fire in 1975, but felt it had been deceived by British officials. The British concluded the IRA was interested only in a breather while it built up for further attacks.
In recent years, Protestant-based "loyalists" have killed more people than the IRA. So far this year, the IRA has killed 17, compared to 18 by the Ulster Volunteer Force and 11 by the Ulster Defense Association.
Slaying of Haitian priest may foretell violent era
The Associated Press
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The ambush slaying of a priest and supporter of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide may foretell an era of open violence against Haiti's activist clergy, a prominent priest warned.
The Rev. Jean-Marie Vincent,
gunned down late Sunday outside his
home, was the first priest ever assassinated in Hati.
"Probably it is the beginning and we have to expect that many others will follow," the Rev. Antoine Adrien said at a news conference Monday.
"This was a message to Aristide," Claudette Werleigh, a minister in Aristide's government-in-exile, said by telephone from Washington. "They're showing that nobody in Haiti is safe anymore."
The death shocked the pro-Aristide community and shattered an apparent taboo against killing priests that had protected the clergy after the military seized power in a September 1991 coup.
In a statement from Washington, Aristide called Vincent "a champion of democracy, self-determination and empowerment."
Secretary of State Warren Christopher called Vincent's death "a tragic and sad reflection of the state of brutal repression and violence that characterizes life in Haiti today."
Gunnen waiting in a car across the street from the Congregation of Montfortain Fathers headquarters shot the 49-year-old Vincent, said Jean-Yves Urfe, coordinator of the Creole-language weekly Libete.
Authorities quickly took away Vincent's body and car, Urfie said, reading a statement signed by 53 priests and nuns of the Haitian Conference of Religion.
The body had not been released as of late Monday. Adrien said.
Friends said Vincent had recently received death threats, which he feared anticipated a purge of Aristide's supporters.
Vincent saved Aristide's life on Aug. 23, 1987, by diving between him and a band of thugs with machetes during an election campaign. Vincent suffered head wounds in the attack.
Vincent continued his work with the poor. He raised money for grass-roots groups, helped peasants find better markets for their crops and channeled money from Europe, Canada and the United States to small neighborhood businesses.
Since 1991, he had been director of the National Fund for Economic and Social Development, a peasant development project.
Adrien vowed Monday that fear of violence against the clergy "is not going to derail our decision to protest and to work for change in this country."
Invasion into Haiti considered
The Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS — A U.N. mission to prepare for the peaceful departure of Haiti's military rulers has failed, and the next step could be a U.S.-led invasion, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said yesterday.
U. N. envoy Rolf Knutsson returned Monday from the Dominican Republic after Haitian military leaders refused to meet with him. Knutsson was there to prepare for formal negotiations on their departure.
"We have not been successful because the military people in Haiti refused to talk with my special representative," Boutros-Ghali told reporters after he briefed the Security Council on the mission.
Security Council president Yully Vorontsov said council members "deplore the rejection by the illegal de facto regime" of the U.N. mission.
"Once again, the regime has discarded a possibility of peacefully implementing" U.N. resolutions, said Vorontsov, the Russian ambassador.
British Ambassador Sir David Hannay said it was "deplorable and sad that they have rejected yet another opportunity to do this peacefully."
On July 31, the United Nations called on Haiti's military leaders to
peacefully step down. The resolution also authorized a possible U.S.-led invasion to restore elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to office. Aristide was ousted in a military coup nearly three years ago.
"We tried to have a peaceful implementation of Resolution 940 but we have not been successful," Boutros-Ghali said. "The Security Council will have to decide what it wants to do or the group of states that have sought the mandate (for the invasion) ... will have to make their own decision."
In Kingston, Jamaica, U.S. officials met with representatives from Caribbean nations to discuss their possible participation in a U.S.-led military force.
Alvaro de Soto, a senior political advisor to Boutros-Ghali, said Haitian military authorities refused to meet with Knutsson, and he only was offered meetings with military-installed civilian leaders.
Yesterday, the Security Council also condemned the slaying of a pro-democracy priest who championed the rights of poor, and himself saved Aristide from assassination. The Rev. Jean-Marie Vincent, gunned down late Sunday outside his home, was believed to be the first priest ever assassinated in Haiti.
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