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8 October 1998 Edition

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Back issue: Hume admits `Britain not neutral'

``Britain is not neutral about the use of force,'' John Hume has admitted to an audience in London - in stark contrast to his stance throughout the recently ended round of Sinn Fein/SDLP talks.

But the SDLP leader had already delivered a speech which contradictorily supported the British presence. One correspondent in the Irish World newspaper described Hume's contribution as ``fundamentally wrong, racist, anti-Irish and, at best, unhelpful''.

Speaking at Aras na nGael, the Brent Irish Cultural and Community Centre, on September 26th, Hume claimed that ``the long dole queues - the longest in Europe - thousands dead and injured, and three new prisons to house our young people, are the effects of our failure to resolve the conflict.'' Ireland, he continued, has to be reunited (institutionally under the Single European Market) before Britain withdraws, and claimed that if the IRA campaign ended tomorrow then British troops would be ``off the streets in a matter of months''.

An Phoblacht 6 October 1988




An Phoblacht
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