APPEASEMENT IS NO ANSWER
Appeasement is no answer
IN the aftermath of the Omagh bombing all but the most narrow-minded of our citizens must now realise that terrorist appeasement has not worked in the past and will not work in the future.
The various attempts at such terrorist government reconciliation - which culminated in the Good Friday Agreement - have only encouraged those who would use violence for their otherwise baseless pursuits.
The history of Ulster is strewn with examples of governmental capitulation to republican atrocities and in the wake of this latest carnage, history will almost certainly repeat itself. Bertie Ahern has been congratulated on all sides for his latest proposals to crack down on so-called dissident republicans.
One has to ask why such measures were not introduced 30 years ago.
It is all very well to talk of tough measures but quite another to allow this latest atrocity to project Sinn Fein/IRA apologists as civil libertarians and simultaneously allow them to take seats in government whilst they agitate for murderers to be released from jail. Unionist unity has to emerge to either ensure that terrorists and their apologists are excluded from the institutions, or, more effectively, that those institutions are destroyed with a pro-active security policy (including internment) emerging forthwith.
ANDREW McCANN
Halifax.
IN the aftermath of the Omagh bombing all but the most narrow-minded of our citizens must now realise that terrorist appeasement has not worked in the past and will not work in the future.
The various attempts at such terrorist government reconciliation - which culminated in the Good Friday Agreement - have only encouraged those who would use violence for their otherwise baseless pursuits.
The history of Ulster is strewn with examples of governmental capitulation to republican atrocities and in the wake of this latest carnage, history will almost certainly repeat itself. Bertie Ahern has been congratulated on all sides for his latest proposals to crack down on so-called dissident republicans.
One has to ask why such measures were not introduced 30 years ago.
It is all very well to talk of tough measures but quite another to allow this latest atrocity to project Sinn Fein/IRA apologists as civil libertarians and simultaneously allow them to take seats in government whilst they agitate for murderers to be released from jail. Unionist unity has to emerge to either ensure that terrorists and their apologists are excluded from the institutions, or, more effectively, that those institutions are destroyed with a pro-active security policy (including internment) emerging forthwith.
ANDREW McCANN
Halifax.
Further Information
Publisher: BELFAST TELEGRAPH
Ref: BT/0346
Published Date: 01-Sep-98
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