The Workers' Party Ardfheis, which was held for the first time in Belfast at the weekend, was dominated by the PSNI arrest of its president, Seán Garland, in relation to alleged international counterfeiting offences, writes Gerry Moriarty
Mr Garland (71), from Navan, was arrested on Friday at a Belfast restaurant. He was released on court bail on Saturday evening but not in time to deliver his presidential address to the ardfheis, which instead was read by ardchomhairle member Dessie O'Hagan.
He was released pending his potential extradition to the US. The US authorities claim he and others bought, moved and either passed as genuine or resold high- quality counterfeit $100 notes.
The US government is further claiming that Mr Garland "arranged with North Korean agencies for the purchase of quantities of notes and enlisted other people to disseminate" the money, known as "superdollars".
A defence lawyer for Mr Garland told Belfast County Court on Saturday that his client "strongly protested" his innocence.
Three sureties of £10,000 each were lodged to enable Mr Garland's release on bail. It is understood that the US authorities have 65 days in which to lodge papers in the North for Mr Garland's extradition.
Workers' Party members took time off from their conference to stage a protest outside Belfast City Hall on Saturday. The party's general secretary, John Lowry, said the arrest was "politically motivated".
"This has caused intense anger and happened because of our opposition to the Iraq war and because we challenge US policies. We have raised the matter with the Taoiseach's office and the Department of Foreign Affairs. We hope to meet the Taoiseach shortly about this attack on an Irish citizen," added Mr Lowry.
He said the Workers' Party would now mount a legal and political campaign to have the extradition threat against Mr Garland lifted.
In his speech, Mr Garland accused the provisional republican movement of injecting a virulent poison into Irish society which would take years to heal and cure. He denounced republican and loyalist violence and said there was now a historic opportunity to rebuild the party and unite the working class throughout the island.
Mr Garland three times described IRA decommissioning as a "surrender" of weapons. "It seems that many commentators are treating this surrender of arms as a watershed for the Provos without recognising the reality of this surrender," he told delegates.
"The Provos have made a virtue out of necessity. For over two decades now, it has been clear that the Provos were desperately seeking a way out of the morass into which many of them had blindly and stupidly entered," he added.
Mr Garland said that over 36 years Sinn Féin and the IRA were "spawned and nurtured" by church and state. "We cannot begin to measure the depths in human misery. . . that they have brought upon the people of Ireland and indeed many other places. They injected a virulent poison into an already sick society." He added, "We well recognise that the Provisional IRA were not alone in feeding the hate, despair and terror which Northern Ireland has endured over the decades from loyalist terrorists, ultra-leftist gangsters parading as socialists and republicans and indeed from our own tradition, where the Official IRA had in its ranks elements who sought to murder and inflict terror on innocent people."
Mr Garland said that the "panoramic march of capitalism can only be halted by the power and organisation of the working class" throughout Ireland.
Mr Lowry told the ardfheis that "there never was any justification whatsoever for the armed campaign of the Provisional IRA" but nonetheless welcomed the disarmament.
"The experience of the last 30 years in Northern Ireland has left many people deeply embittered and has left a deep legacy of mistrust and division which may take generations to overcome. Nonetheless, we welcome this act of disposing of weapons and call upon all paramilitary organisations to do likewise," he said.
Mr Lowry said priority issues for the Workers' Party would include the consolidation of peace and an end to all paramilitarism and an anti-sectarianism strategy.
