Sinn Fein

LONDON -- As preliminary peace talks on Northern Ireland stall, an official of the political wing of the Irish Republican Army warned yesterday that the British government is threatening the peace process by not including the party in full talks."

MARTIN MEEHAN, 62 IRA commander Martin Meehan, a one-time Irish Republican Army commander who spurred IRA members toward compromise, died of a heart attack Saturday at his Belfast home, the Sinn Fein party said. Mr. Meehan spent 18 years in prison for a wide range of offenses, but ended his days as a firm advocate of peace and compromise in Northern Ireland. He was among the first IRA members arrested in August 1969, the month Britain deployed its army as would-be peacekeepers amid Protestant-Catholic rioting.

LONDON -- The search for peace in Northern Ireland will press ahead without waiting for the Irish Republican politicians of Sinn Fein to join the process, Sir Patrick Mayhew, Britain's secretary for Northern Ireland, said yesterday.But Sir Patrick said the Dec. 15 Anglo-Irish declaration has "no recommended shelf life.""I sympathize with people's feeling of confusion, of mystification and of impatience," he told a meeting of the Association of American Journalists in London. "But after all, we are dealing with a process that has been brewing and erupting over a very, very long period."

Today is another significant landmark in the process of transforming life on this island. Today is a good day for Ireland." - GERRY ADAMS, president of Sinn Fein, on the new power-sharing government in Northern Ireland; the Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, and Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness were sworn in yesterday as first minister and deputy first minister, respectively

WASHINGTON -- Critics can find fault with Gerry Adams' current trip to the United States on many grounds, but style is not one of them.Adams, the head of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army, easily could have been overwhelmed by the media attention he has gotten, by the people jostling for his attention, or by the British journalists dogging his heels with tough and provocative questions.Instead, Adams has not only been operating with the flair of a born politician, but with the elan of a born media superstar, which, these days, has become much the same thing.

LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland -- Like sparks flaring from a banked fire, death and violence sputter on in Northern Ireland even while the combatants fumble for a way to talk peace.Here in the "cockpit of Irish politics," as the normally uncommunicative Sinn Fein republican political party held its first open peace forum yesterday, Northern Ireland counted three more sectarian slayings.A fourth man struggled for life in a hospital here after a mortar round exploded prematurely. The shell apparently was being prepared for launch against British-led security forces.

LONDON -- The British government disclosed yesterday that Northern Ireland Secretary Patrick Mayhew held secret talks last week with Irish Republican leader Gerry Adams -- drawing the wrath of Protestant unionists.The meeting was held, the British government said, "to explore the way forward" in the Northern Ireland peace process.Mr. Adams -- the leader of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army -- declared yesterday that although Tuesday's talks in the Northern Ireland city of Londonderry were "businesslike," they failed to break the stalemate in the peace process.

LONDON -- The Rev. Ian Paisley's hard-line Protestant unionist party and its bitter rival, Sinn Fein, the Catholic nationalist party headed by Gerry Adams, were the big winners in the Northern Ireland assembly elections, with both parties picking up seats at the expense of more moderate rivals, according to official results announced yesterday. The outcome sets the stage for a groundbreaking power-sharing agreement that will force the two longtime antagonists to either form a government together or forfeit self-rule to London.

LONDON -- In a significant move toward achieving peace in Northern Ireland, Prime Minister John Major agreed yesterday to begin exploratory talks before the end of the year with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish republican movement.His commitment means that the struggle for peace in Northern Ireland is soon to enter a new phase -- direct talks between the British government and Sinn Fein.Although Sinn Fein leaders had never declared the Sept. 1 cease-fire to be "permanent," as the British government had demanded, Mr. Major insisted yesterday that their actions "have been more compelling than their words."

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army's political wing, held demonstrations yesterday to protest the police raids of its parliamentary offices on Friday, while Protestant hard-liners continued to use the raids to attack Sinn Fein. The raids on the Sinn Fein offices of the province's power-sharing government came as relations between Protestant unionists, who favor maintaining ties with Britain, and republicans, mostly Catholics who favor closer ties with the Irish Republic, continued to worsen.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- A militant Free Presbyterian preacher and a former leader of the Irish Republican Army were sworn in as the joint heads of a new government in Northern Ireland yesterday in a move to conclude more than 30 years of conflict between Protestants loyal to Britain and Catholics who fought for a united Ireland. The two still-suspicious new government leaders did not single out each other in the giddy handshakes shared among the new Northern Irish officials. But as the Rev. Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party and Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein took their oaths, both sides hailed the day as the final end of the Troubles that took more than 3,500 lives between 1969 and 2001.

LONDON -- With a midnight deadline looming, the British government and Ian Paisley's hard-line Protestant party seemed to be inching toward a face-saving compromise to rescue Northern Ireland's peace process. Midnight tonight is the moment of truth. British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has warned the major parties representing Northern Ireland's Protestants and Roman Catholics that they must agree to sit together in a power-sharing government by then or Britain will bring down the curtain on self-rule for the troubled province.

LONDON -- The Rev. Ian Paisley's hard-line Protestant unionist party and its bitter rival, Sinn Fein, the Catholic nationalist party headed by Gerry Adams, were the big winners in the Northern Ireland assembly elections, with both parties picking up seats at the expense of more moderate rivals, according to official results announced yesterday. The outcome sets the stage for a groundbreaking power-sharing agreement that will force the two longtime antagonists to either form a government together or forfeit self-rule to London.

NATIONAL Huckabee to seek presidency Mike Huckabee, a former conservative governor from the largely Democratic state of Arkansas, will launch his bid today for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, opening an exploratory committee to raise money. pg 3a Buildup foes deride criticism Prominent Democratic senators who are against the troop buildup in Iraq took issue yesterday with criticism from Bush administration officials who contend that opposition to the president's new strategy will embolden the enemy.

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Sinn Fein, the main Catholic republican party in Northern Ireland, voted yesterday to endorse the police force in the divided province, opening the way toward restoring local rule through a government shared by Protestants and Catholics. Sinn Fein's leaders, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, won approval to support a police force that would move over the next 15 years from being a Protestant-dominated body to one where Catholics and Protestants are represented in proportion to the makeup of the province's population.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - British plans for halving the number of its troops in Northern Ireland threaten the safety of Protestants and could delay progress in the province's stalled peace process, Protestant unionist leaders said yesterday. In response to the Irish Republican Army's pledge last week to end its armed struggle, the British army said it would reduce its strength to the lowest point since Northern Ireland's "Troubles" erupted in 1969. Hard-line Democratic Unionists said yesterday that that it could take two years for the peace process to lead to power sharing with Sinn Fein, the IRA's political ally.

THE THIRD BOMB in London since the IRA resumed its campaign of terror removes any pretext that Gerry Adams as president of Sinn Fein, the political affiliate of the IRA, belongs in peace talks. Either he is complicit, or he no longer speaks for the "military" arm of the Republican movement. In either circumstance, he could bring nothing to the table.But the 17-month cease-fire in Northern Ireland and the prospect of negotiating a decent regime in the province have convinced all others of the stake they have in peace.

DUBLIN, Ireland -- With a parade of paroled prisoners, hours of impassioned speeches, and a few lopsided votes, Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army's political wing, overwhelmingly backed the Northern Ireland peace agreement yesterday.The hard-line party that has opposed British rule in Northern Ireland for decades vowed to campaign for the peace deal before a May 22 public referendum.Sinn Fein also voted to ditch its policy of boycotting government bodies, paving the way for its leaders to serve in the proposed 108-member Northern Ireland Assembly, even though it will be under continued British jurisdiction.

PRESIDENT BUSH did the right thing yesterday in snubbing Gerry Adams, leader of Northern Ireland's Sinn Fein, by not agreeing to meet with him for St. Patrick's Day. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy did the right thing in snubbing him, too. Now, neither should do the wrong thing by trying to keep the nationalist party permanently frozen out of the negotiations over the future of Ulster. The Good Friday agreement of 1998 put Northern Ireland on the path to a resolution of its sectarian troubles, but in the seven years since then, that path has proved to be neither smooth nor straight.

PHILADELPHIA - The Irish Republican Army has turned from fighting for a political cause to barroom brawls and bank heists. And Sinn Fein, whose leaders have been "outed" as IRA leaders, can't escape responsibility for IRA crimes. IRA "hard men" are still reluctant to give up their arms in a verifiable fashion, despite the 1998 Good Friday peace accord between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. The IRA is accused of robbing a bank in the Irish Republic of $50 million in December.