A chara, - The increasingly frequent sniping by members of Sinn Fein at the Taoiseach over the current impasse on decommissioning is neither helpful nor justified.
As someone who joined Fianna Fail primarily because of its stance on the Six Counties, I have to admit to wavering at many stages in the past 18 months. In particular, commitments given on amendments to Articles 2 and 3 have led me to give serious thought to what my party stood for any more. On matters relating to the North, I pay equal attention to the views of Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein and, ironically, it was Sinn Fein's subsequent signing-up to the Good Friday Agreement which helped assuage my serious reservations about it, though had I been able to vote at the time, I would still have voted No.
However, on decommissioning, though it shocks me to say it, I'm with Trimble. In fact, I'm not just with Trimble, I'm with Hume, Mallon, Ahern, Blair, Clinton and most importantly, I'm with most of the people on this island whose views Sinn Fein claim to represent.
I have huge respect for Gerry Adams and I do appreciate the acute difficulties he has, but there is symbolism and there are practicalities. Yes, the destruction of arms, though surely not as bad as handing them over, is hugely symbolic, but on the practical side, the IRA has the funds to fully re-arm within days if it so desired.
However, if decommissioning does not take place, symbolically it's nothing but a miserable echo of the withering Paisley-ite slogan of "No Surrender" - an ironic reversal of the positions gained in recent years. Unionism would then be seen to have the moral victory while republicanism would regress to a siege mentality. What is worse, of course, is that on the practical side, we would have the almost certain collapse of the process and a return to the violence of the past quarter-century.
Mr Trimble may be a unionist, but that doesn't mean he always has to be wrong. Gerry Adams has a chance to seize a great moral victory from the jaws of defeat by doing everything in his power to persuade the IRA to destroy some arms. Then, the great hero of this process would be Mr Adams and not Mr Trimble; but more importantly, the victors would be neither the unionists nor the republicans, but all the people of this island. And what more could a patriot do for his country? - Is mise, David Carroll,
Castle Street, Dublin 2.