Gerry Adams' Fundraising Visa Denied Again by Bush Administration

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press Sunday February 26, 2006 02:11 by Irish Northern Aid

Gerry Adams' Fundraising Visa Denied Again by Bush Administration

Ambassador Mitchell The U.S Reiss, has barred The U.S. Special Envoy, Ambassador Mitchell Reiss, has barred Gerry Adams once again from attending a fundraising event unless the party endorses the PSNI [Police Service of Northern Ireland]. This time it is a Friends of Sinn Féin breakfast at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. on the morning of March 16th.

The move by the US Administration is all the more galling and mystifying at this time as policing reform remains the subject of delicate negotiations with the British government, expected to introduce legislation devolving policing and justice to elected officials in the north of Ireland. Something Sinn Fein has been lobbying for.

The IRA moves over the past months in standing down as a military force and totally decommissioning its arms seems to have stimulated the US Administration to punish Sinn Fein.

The IMC [Independent Monitoring Commission], which is neither independent nor monitors anything - it is told what to report by the PSNI , just happens to be visiting the U.S.

Meanwhile, the DUP [Democratic Unionist Party] is opening a US office. There are no plans to ban Ian Paisley from fundraising. The DUP will be rewarded for its tireless efforts to wreck the GFA [Good Friday Agreement] and return to the unacceptable, bloody past.

Full Statement:
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/i...=2718