PETER Hain said that on July 27, 2005, the day before the IRA declared that it was ending violence for good and agreeing to decommission, Gerry Adams had phoned him to request a private meeting.
The Sinn Fein president was unhappy with the Irish Republic’s government for being tougher than the British by demanding pictures of decommissioning (which in the past Dr Paisley had similarly demanded).
According to Mr Hain, the Sinn Fein leader told him: “My instructions are to show only Tony Blair and Jonathan Powell a copy of the IRA statement.
“I am passing it to you exclusively and I don’t want it shown to the Irish government. They can stew in it. I have to have Sean Kelly out [of prison] and both governments have to agree to welcome the statement. You must know we are acting in good faith and respect your good faith.”
Mr Hain added: “Adams was, however, practiced at squeezing every last item out of a key moment like this, and was well versed in the art of brinkmanship. ‘The problem is the statement will not issue from the IRA until Dublin agrees over this outstanding issue between us’.
“Almost as he said this he broke off as a call from the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, came through on his mobile, and Adams told him: ‘I can’t deliver photos of the decommissioning of IRA weapons ... photos are impossible’.”
Mr Hain said that the Irish government’s insistence on photographs appeared to be at the insistence of the Tainaiste, Michael McDowell, a staunch opponent of Sinn Fein and the Taoiseach was worried that his coalition government could even fall over the issue.
Mr Adams then demanded that no photographs be taken of the 1,000-word handwritten statement which Jonathan Phillips was forced to copy before sending to London, at Mr Adams’ insistence, by secure fax rather than email (something Mr Hain was baffled at as the government email system was more secure than a fax which had to be sent on an open line).
While the impasse with Dublin remained the Sinn Fein leader sat outside Hillsborough Castle in the sunshine with Gerry Kelly “munching fruit and cake”.
The deal was finalised with Dublin late that night, Mr Hain said, and the following morning he briefed Dr Paisley in person who was “pleased to be pre-informed, he was relaxed, chatty and in witty mode”.
However, several days later he said that “Paisley was in decidedly different mode”.
“On August 3 a furious delegation which he led came to see me, the two women Assembly members refusing to shake my welcoming hand.
“Peter Robinson was at his bombastic best. They had simply banked the IRA statement, typically finding fault with some of its wording, and were on the warpath. The issues were toxic: the release of Sean Kelly, the disbandment of the Royal Irish Regiment and the dismantling of the south Armagh watch towers.”
Mr Hain said that his past involvement with groups calling for the UK to leave Northern Ireland had created some initial suspicion among unionists.
“Although I had never had any truck with the IRA, my anti-colonial upbringing made me sympathetic to the political aims of Irish republicanism, though certainly not the violent methods,” the South African-born anti-Apartheid campaigner said.
Mr Hain said that he had been involved in the Time To Go Labour campaign organised by Clare Short in the 1980s and had at that point met Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness who had “told me they wanted a political settlement, even if the IRA was still active”.
He said that Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness were “the most professional and tough negotiators I had encountered in politics. Well read and meticulously prepared, they were courteous and straightforward. I was briefed that they remained members of the IRA Army Council, effectively the organisation’s Politburo. I got on with them well”.
He said that Mr Adams was “haunted by the memory of Michael Collins, the IRA leader assassinated from within his own ranks in 1922. This followed Collins’ agreement to the Anglo-Irish Treaty the year before”.
He said that in meetings Adams and McGuinness would occasionally play “hard cop, soft cop”.
“Bespectacled and tall, with greying black hair and a bad back, Adams often seemed tired.”
He said that despite “our friendly relations” Adams and McGuinness had gone behind his back to the Prime Minister and suggested that he should not have confidence in his secretary of state.
He said that on another occasion the pair had asked to see him on his own and after squeezing into a box-like room they had aggressively insisted that pressure on them risked “sabotaging the whole process” in terms which Mr Hain described as “physically threatening”.
Several days earlier Mr Adams had phoned Mr Hain to tell him that the statement would be coming. Mr Adams had told him: “It would be such a decisive, historic move that even for him to discuss it with me beforehand was potentially treasonable to the IRA.”