TRADITIONAL UNIONIST Voice leader Jim Allister has described Gerry Adams as “venomous” after the Sinn Féin president criticised Northern Secretary Owen Paterson for wearing a wrist band supporting the British army.
Sinn Féin sources disclosed that Mr Adams clashed with Mr Paterson during a meeting between the Northern Secretary and relatives of 11 people shot dead by the British army in the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast in August 1971.
The “Ballymurphy 11” campaigners are seeking an independent inquiry into how members of the British Parachute Regiment killed 11 unarmed civilians, including a mother of eight and a Catholic priest.
Mr Adams and West Belfast SDLP Assembly member Alex Attwood joined the Ballymurphy relatives at the meeting on Thursday.
It subsequently emerged that Mr Adams took offence at Mr Paterson wearing a wristband supporting the Royal Irish Regiment.
“It was a total disgrace. It was as if he were rubbing the families’ faces in it after what they had suffered from the British army,” said a senior Sinn Féin source.
Northern Ireland Office sources played down the incident, saying that Mr Paterson had worn the wristband over a lengthy period in support of troops based in his North Shropshire constituency, and that no offence was intended.
However, Traditional Unionist Voice party leader Jim Allister said Mr Adams’s comments were venomous and bigoted and demonstrated that he was a “hate-filled ogre”.
“Why shouldn’t the Secretary of State show his support for our brave soldiers of the RIR who today play their part in facing down the Taliban, just as in former times they faced down Adams’s Provos,” he added.
Thursday’s meeting between the families and Mr Paterson was described as “heated and emotional” with the Northern Secretary agreeing to meet the families again. He gave no commitments on their demand for an inquiry.
The campaigners said that they were determined to keep up the pressure for an inquiry into the August 1971 killings. Relatives’ spokesman John Teggart said they were disappointed at the meeting.
He said Mr Paterson told them there was no mechanism at present to deal with their request.