Madam, - Fintan O'Toole disingenuously asserts that "the peace process is going very well" (Opinion, February 22nd). This he attempts to justify on the grounds that the contrast between Sinn Féin's Armani-suited public facade and the covert thuggery of the Provisionals has never been more dramatically exposed. This sounds to me like a columnist trying for dramatic effect. The peace process is surely now in tatters and seeking consolation in some kind of new realism about republican intentions offers only the coldest of comforts.
Certainly, with the creative ambiguity phase now well and truly expired, the parties can proceed with their eyes wide open, but clarity of vision is less important than what is actually on view and if, as Eoghan Harris warns in the Sunday Independent of February 20th, Provisional anger overwhelms Sinn Féin attempts at damage limitation, the consequences might not make comfortable viewing. There, at least, is one struggle from which most of us would wish to see Sinn Féin emerge victorious.
There is an assumption gaining ground that if only republicans would recognize that the jig is up and abjure criminality they could immediately return to the democratic path, as if it required no more effort than giving up the drink for Lent. But if Michael McDowell is correct in characterising the Provisional movement as a vast Mafia-style criminal conspiracy, who would be naïve enough to believe that aim could be so easily achieved. Many republicans have made careers and fortunes out of Provos Inc and shutting up shop now after years of laissez-faire seems entirely improbable.
Last weekend we saw the surreal charade of Gerry Adams, at a memorial service for dead IRA volunteers, struggling to explain to an audience of uniformed paramilitarists that the huge challenge for the IRA was to terminate itself. Was he for real, or was it all purely for pubic consumption? The IRA is a multi-faceted organisation, so which facet was Gerry in a hurry to terminate: the bombers, the law enforcement boys, the bank robbers, the contraband fraudsters, the money launderers, the weekend paramilitarists? Keeping the first of these inactive has been his greatest achievement but we would be fools to believe that dealing with the others represents less of a challenge. As Fionnuala O'Connor reminds us (Opinion, February 25th) criminality is what illegal organisations like the IRA do - in which case Gerry Adams's legendary powers of persuasion are likely to be tested as never before. - Yours, etc.,
BERT WRIGHT,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.
Madam, - The announcement by Paul Murphy, British secretary of state for Northern Ireland, of a reduction in Sinn Féin funding in the Northern assembly and the signalling of possible further cuts with regard to Westminster allowances represent a further move by the British government which is to me and many others totally unacceptable.
That the British government seeks to interfere with democratic rights to effective representation is a massive setback to an attempt to create stable, democratic politics in the North.
To see an unelected institution of state act in a manner which seems arbitrary and out of proportion to the alleged "crime" of a community is not only grossly unfair to that community, it also diminishes any belief that politics can work in a positive and restorative manner.
The British and Irish governments are currently seeking to establish what they would term "normal democratic politics", but this is not going to be aided by an attack on the most fundamental of such rights.
Yes, the issue of the continued existence of the IRA must be tackled. However, it must be related back to the source of power from which the entire process of establishing these democratic institutions and norms derive - the Good Friday agreement. The agreement operates in a manner which depends on an interdependency of relationships. For the British government continually to isolate and punish a majority of one section and to ignore its own responsibilities is an unacceptable position and one which must be challenged by the Irish Government.
The British government needs to look closely at what it signed up to in 1998. The non-implementation of full policing reform, the full and proper implementation of all-Ireland bodies and a greater decreasing of military surveillance are but three of its failed commitments. Seeking to punish Sinn Féin and its electorate, while not being open or responsive to such scrutiny itself, further undermines the agreement and the democratic principles which it seeks to establish.
It seems that the British government is seeking to affect the outcome of coming Westminster elections by saying in effect, "If you vote for this group, they will not be treated on the same basis as the other".
It is also obvious that all Southern parties are seeking to make political capital out of the current situation. This is shown by allegations against Sinn Féin members which go far beyond the factual and often into the realm of wishful thinking. - Is mise,
SEAMUS O'CONNOR, Bellevue Avenue, Glenageary, Co Dublin.