Sir, - Those in the know who claim that political pressure was brought to bear on Hugh Annesley ought to reflect on our own Government's U turn with regard to Gerry Adams. The worst result of recent events has been to welcome Sinn Fein/IRA back into the fold. Indeed a wedge has been successfully driven between Dublin and London, into which Bruton and Spring have artfully stepped, only further alienating, dehumanising and demoning the unionists, who are systematically portrayed as hard hatted fanatics.
Some of the Southern rhetoric of the past week has been instructive in this respect: Des O'Malley, in a rare outburst, spoke of ethnic cleansing; Garret Fitzgerald. evokes unionist "pogroms".
Nuala O'Faolain (Irish Times, July 15th) describes President Robinson "in tears" Everywhere I look, especially Mary Holland in the Observer, I see a failure to understand that unionist behaviour is reactive" to the terrorist violence of Sinn Fein/IRA.
Canary Wharf, Osnabruck, Manchester, Enniskillen, need I go further? Against this background the unionists are systematically depicted as bully boys who insist on sectarian forays into Catholic areas or blocking with impunity what they call the "Queen's Highway.
The truth is that unionists feel betrayed on all sides: by a US sponsored Forum; by soft pedalling on the issue of arms decommissioning, and by our collective failure to hear a unionist version of events. Nobody knows, of course, but had the numbers. been the other way about, the Chief Constable might have seen fit to employ exactly the same tactics. Unless the Protestant paramilitaries continue to stay their hands, the fear must, now be of a descent into sectarian violence, likely to endure another 25 years. Yours, etc.,
Trinity College, Dublin.