Protestants will not be pushed into a united Ireland, leader says

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) -- Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams told supporters Saturday that his Irish Republican Army-linked party will not force Northern Ireland's Protestants into a united Ireland, but it was demanding that they share power within the British territory.
Adams, delivering his traditional address on the central Dublin spot where rebels launched a failed Easter 1916 rebellion against British rule, said Sinn Fein members would attend the May 15 revival of Northern Ireland's legislature, which last met 31/2 years ago.
The legislature wields the critical power to elect, or block, the formation of a joint Roman Catholic-Protestant administration. Such power-sharing was a central goal of the U.S.-brokered Good Friday pact of 1998, but fell apart in 2002 over an IRA spying scandal.
Protestants say they will not cooperate with Sinn Fein, the major Catholic-backed party in Northern Ireland, until the IRA -- which last year formally ended its violent campaign and disarmed -- also disbands.
"We will be there for one reason and one reason only: the election of a government in line with the Good Friday agreement," said Adams, who challenged the dominant Protestant politician, Democratic Unionist Party leader Ian Paisley, to form a coalition alongside him.
"Ian Paisley has a decision to make. He has failed in his campaign to smash Sinn Fein. He has failed in his bid to see unionist majority rule returned," Adams said, referring to the Protestant-only government that ran Northern Ireland from its creation in 1921 to 1972, the bloodiest year of the province's modern conflict, when Britain took direct control.
He said Paisley would only be able to govern in Northern Ireland alongside Sinn Fein.