N.Irish Unionists demand exclusion of Sinn Fein from government

By Ian Graham BELFAST (Reuters) - Northern Ireland's largest pro-British party threatened to bring down the province's power-sharing government unless nationalist Sinn Fein is thrown out, after the IRA, Sinn Fein's one-time armed wing, was linked to a murder. "We are determined that, one way or another, we will have a government in Northern Ireland consisting of people totally committed to peaceful and democratic means," Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) deputy leader Nigel Dodds told a news conference on Thursday. An end to violence by Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrillas was a central plank of the 1998 Good Friday accord. The deal largely ended three decades of conflict between mostly Catholic nationalists, who favoured unification with the Republic of Ireland, and Protestants wanting to stay in the United Kingdom. Dodds earlier on Thursday met Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Theresa Villiers, to discuss a police assessment that members of the IRA may have been involved in the killing of former IRA member Kevin McGuigan in Belfast on Aug. 12. Senior members of Sinn Fein, including politicians who were once members of the IRA, have denied the group still exists and said any former members involved with the murder must be prosecuted. But Dodds said that when the Northern Ireland Assembly returned from its summer recess on September 7, the DUP would call a vote to exclude Sinn Fein from the government. He said his party was willing to bring down the power-sharing administration unless the exclusion went ahead. For a vote to be carried, a cross-community majority is required and so far the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), the second largest nationalist group, says such an expulsion is premature. On Wednesday the small Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) decided to pull out of government because of the McGuigan case. If the DUP was to leave, the governance of Northern Ireland would revert to London and cause a political crisis. "In the end if the other parties are not prepared to support the exclusion of Sinn Fein, then we will act unilaterally," DUP member of parliament Jeffrey Donaldson told BBC radio. "And if that means we have a period in Northern Ireland when we don't have a government until we resolve and sort out these issues, then so be it." (Additional reporting by Paul Sandle in London; Editing by Padraic Halpin and Andrew Roche)