9 December 1997

A SISTER of Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger striker who starved himself to
death in 1981, yesterday called on republicans to oppose the Stormont talks
and urged Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein to abandon the current "peace process".

Bernadette Sands, 39, said she and other republican dissidents had formed a
pressure group called the 32-County Sovereignty Committee to resist any
settlement that stopped short of a united Ireland. Her emergence as a
public focus for republican discontent came after resignations by senior
IRA members and reports of growing discontent in the organisation over the
gains secured since the July ceasefire.

Miss Sands is married to Michael McKevitt, 48, a senior republican who is
also understood to be dissatisfied with the leadership of Mr Adams and
Martin McGuinness. Mr McKevitt was shot in both legs in 1975 by members of
the Official IRA during a republican feud. The Sands family recently issued
a statement expressing "grave reservations" over the negotiations.

It added: "We wish to state that no member of our family is claiming to
lead any 'renegade IRA faction' . . . Mindful of Bobby's sacrifice, we
remain fully committed to supporting the aims and objectives for which he
died." Bobby Sands was the first of 10 hunger strikers who died in 1981
after fasting for "political status" for IRA prisoners. He is seen as a
martyr by republicans and his death is laden with emotion and symbolism.

Interviewed by Irish radio, Miss Sands "refuted entirely" ever being a
member of the IRA's ruling Army Council. "That would be incorrect
completely. I don't know where that came from," she said.