Sir, - Last week the IRA sent five masked and armed men to "punish" a 14-year-old boy who lives on the Ardowen Estate in Craigavon, Co Armagh. This was the most recent of many atrocities committed against children by the paramilitaries, both loyalist and republican, in Northern Ireland. Almost 4,000 children under the age of 18 have been directly affected by this form of violence since the Good Friday Agreement was signed, and 2,435 of these have been driven from their homes with their families. Another 1,613 have been forced into exile because of alleged anti-social behaviour, even as the same paramilitaries pay lip-service to peace.
Persistent claims by terrorists and their apologists that there is popular support for the barbarity encouraged a small group of human rights activists, including myself, to carry out a survey on the Ardowen Estate to discover what the residents really thought of this form of violence and of those who perpetrate it. We also tried to establish whether or not there was a high level of crime on the estate, as claimed by republican apologists.
The results are revealing. A total of 84 per cent stated that there was a fairly serious crime problem on the estate, but that this largely took the form of vandalism and joy-riding. Eighty per cent of those interviewed voiced strong revulsion for so-called "punishment beatings" and only 16 per cent agreed that they were helpful. But even a proportion of the latter also expressed strong misgivings about attacks with firearms and violence against children, bringing the total who voiced their opposition to it to 91 per cent. On the question of freedom and the right of free speech in these matters, 56 per cent felt it would be dangerous to publicly express opposition to paramilitaries, while 26 per cent stated that they would speak their mind, regardless of hostility from anyone.
This information explodes the myth of widespread support for violence of this nature in Ardowen, and I suspect that this is the case in all other contentious areas. My impression of the people of the estate is that they are as peaceable and level-headed as any other community in Ireland who find themselves in similar circumstances, it is clear that they, like many others, are victims who are exploited by paramilitaries, vandals, and even sections of the media, who have described them recently as "a staunchly republican community" because of slogans, flags and murals erected by tiny, unrepresentative minority.
Attempts by paramilitaries of all shades to "claim" entire areas by daubing them in their respective colours, then adding threatening slogans in order to intimidate the residents, should be combated by society as vigorously as the violence itself. We cannot remain on the sidelines and silently observe without protest the victimisation and intimidation of whole communities. We cannot allow the barbarous "policing" of our youth to remain in the hands of the most anti-social elements of all - the paramilitaries - who are the root cause of all violence in our society. - Yours, etc.,
Sean Kearney, Glantane Drive, Belfast 15.