What a crazy society this - a Northern Ireland
in which murderers and bombers are released onto the streets
within a short time of being sentenced for their crimes, and
where the apparatus of the State is used to suppress lawful
traditional Orange and Black parades.
A Northern Ireland where employers are almost forced to apologise
for employing Protestants, and where day by day the struggle
for Ulster Protestants to practice their cultural allegiances
becomes more difficult.
Northern Ireland is under the Direct Rule of the British
Government - a government which doesn't hesitate to allow
the air force of this nation to form part of a Nato air armada
which has carried out the most sustained bombing campaign
since the Second World War - and yet shows such reluctance
to use the armed forces to deal with the vicious terrorists
who have waged war against the people of Northern Ireland
for so long.
Instead, this government prefers to offer tea and biscuits
at No.10 and talk to the representatives of terror and murder
- hypocrisy of the worst type.
It also finds it easy to do business with ministers of the
Irish Republic, a country which harboured and succoured the
I.R.A. killers, and indeed where many of these terrorists
still live, having evaded justice for their crimes.
If anyone suggested Tony Blair and his Cabinet should invite
ministers of the Yugoslavian government to No.10 Downing Street
for talks on the future of Kosovo they would be held to be
candidates for certification.
Yet that is happening all the time with the government of
the Irish Republic - an alien country - being given an increasing
role in the affairs of a part of the United Kingdom - an absurd
and ridiculous situation.
No doubt the Serbs have been guilty of atrocities and excesses
- as have all the warring forces in the Yugoslavian civil
war - but why should there be such determination at Westminster
and Whitehall to show decisive action in a foreign conflict
and yet show such hesitation about dealing with the enemies
of the Crown so close to home?
Appeasement is the name of the game when it comes to dealing
with the I.R.A., and of course this mood does not just exist
in the government. Closer to home the Alliance Party has displayed
the same gutless attitude in recent times, preferring to lecture
Portadown Orangemen about Drumcree, rather than point to the
real source of the trouble over parades - Sinn Fein/I.R.A.
dominated Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition.
It's so much easier to hound Protestants, to lecture Orangemen
and for television and radio interviewers to subject unionists
to intense cross-examination rather than republicans and nationalists.
These 'liberals' and 'moderates' will make any excuse to
cover up for I.R.A. murder and terror, and point the finger
of blame at Orangemen and loyalists, even if it is God-fearing
church-going Protestants.
No wonder this Province and this society is so mixed up with
law-abiding people horrified as appeasement of terrorists
becomes the norm, while the law-abiding majority are treated
with contempt.
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