PSYCHOPATHS WILL NOT DESTROY PEACE PROCESS SAYS BLAIR
Psychopaths will not destroy peace process says defiant Blair
By Bernard Purcell London Editor
Tony Blair pledged the Omagh bombers would not be allowed to wreck the peace process.
"They are not going to succeed," he declared.
Mr Blair's defiant challenge to the republican dissidents came as Britain's three main party leaders united behind the Good Friday Agreement and in condemnation of the murders.
"They are a small group of people, a fanatical group of people. They have no political base, they have no votes, they have no support
in Northern Ireland. They have just this capacity for evil."
The British prime minister condemned the atrocity as a "blast of evil," as he interrupted his family holiday in France to fly to Belfast for crisis talks with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, UUP leader David Trimble, SF President Gerry Adams and the SDLP's Seamus Mallon
"We will not let. these people wreck the future. The future belongs to the decent .people of Northern Ireland. "It doesn't belong to the criminals and psychopaths." he told reporters in Miradoux as he headed for Belfast.
"I am obviously very full of emotion this .morning. I just kept thinking last night of those poor murdered people. "Yesterday this time, this was just another normal day for them leading normal lives with the normal balance of cares and worries and hopes, and now, by this blast of evil, their lives are gone." "But we must be strong and we must be determined and we must say that these people who have perpetrated this deed will not win," he said. "Tory leader: William Hague declared he," would stand "foursquare" behind the government's efforts to track down the killers.
Mr Hague condemned "an act of unspeakable barbarity which was designed to murder and injure innocent people."
Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ash-down warned: "It is vital for all those who have died, not just in this atrocity but over the last quarter of the century, that they don't succeed in plunging Ireland back into bloodshed."
Former Prime Minister John Major called on Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to do all within their power to rout the culprits and appealed to loyalists not to retaliate "I hope no one will defend this action and everyone republican and unionist (sic) - will work together to ensure that
the perpetrators are caught speedily and punished. I urge others not to respond."
Queen Elizabeth said she was shocked to hear of the "appalling crime" in Omagh. The Tory Northern Ireland spokesman Andrew MacKay called on North Secretary Dr Mo Mowlam to delay the prisoner releases due to begin next month.
"I would hope that the government would, see what has happened as such a massive, dreadful event that they would not begin to release prisoners in the early future - that would be deeply insensitive."
He emphasised, however, he did not believe the recent releases of convicted paramilitaries in the Republic Were in any way to blame for the Omagh bomb.
But he hoped that when the prisoner releases do begin the government will do everything possible to ensure those being released have no sympathies for the break-away groups.
"The people who are responsible are the psychopaths who did it. We must unite together to make sure they don't succeed," he said from an overseas holiday to BBC Radio.
"One questions has to be asked. Why was there this carnage? The answer is because whatever extreme breakaway group was responsible they wanted to derail the peace process (but) the people of Northern Ireland are not going to be blackmailed by this sort of violence."
Mr MacKay, who argued in the "Commons for greater direct linkage between decommissioning of paramilitary weapons and prisoner releases, said he was heartened to hear Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness say on television he would have a list of the names of dissident republicans within 24 hours.
By Bernard Purcell London Editor
Tony Blair pledged the Omagh bombers would not be allowed to wreck the peace process.
"They are not going to succeed," he declared.
Mr Blair's defiant challenge to the republican dissidents came as Britain's three main party leaders united behind the Good Friday Agreement and in condemnation of the murders.
"They are a small group of people, a fanatical group of people. They have no political base, they have no votes, they have no support
in Northern Ireland. They have just this capacity for evil."
The British prime minister condemned the atrocity as a "blast of evil," as he interrupted his family holiday in France to fly to Belfast for crisis talks with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, UUP leader David Trimble, SF President Gerry Adams and the SDLP's Seamus Mallon
"We will not let. these people wreck the future. The future belongs to the decent .people of Northern Ireland. "It doesn't belong to the criminals and psychopaths." he told reporters in Miradoux as he headed for Belfast.
"I am obviously very full of emotion this .morning. I just kept thinking last night of those poor murdered people. "Yesterday this time, this was just another normal day for them leading normal lives with the normal balance of cares and worries and hopes, and now, by this blast of evil, their lives are gone." "But we must be strong and we must be determined and we must say that these people who have perpetrated this deed will not win," he said. "Tory leader: William Hague declared he," would stand "foursquare" behind the government's efforts to track down the killers.
Mr Hague condemned "an act of unspeakable barbarity which was designed to murder and injure innocent people."
Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ash-down warned: "It is vital for all those who have died, not just in this atrocity but over the last quarter of the century, that they don't succeed in plunging Ireland back into bloodshed."
Former Prime Minister John Major called on Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to do all within their power to rout the culprits and appealed to loyalists not to retaliate "I hope no one will defend this action and everyone republican and unionist (sic) - will work together to ensure that
the perpetrators are caught speedily and punished. I urge others not to respond."
Queen Elizabeth said she was shocked to hear of the "appalling crime" in Omagh. The Tory Northern Ireland spokesman Andrew MacKay called on North Secretary Dr Mo Mowlam to delay the prisoner releases due to begin next month.
"I would hope that the government would, see what has happened as such a massive, dreadful event that they would not begin to release prisoners in the early future - that would be deeply insensitive."
He emphasised, however, he did not believe the recent releases of convicted paramilitaries in the Republic Were in any way to blame for the Omagh bomb.
But he hoped that when the prisoner releases do begin the government will do everything possible to ensure those being released have no sympathies for the break-away groups.
"The people who are responsible are the psychopaths who did it. We must unite together to make sure they don't succeed," he said from an overseas holiday to BBC Radio.
"One questions has to be asked. Why was there this carnage? The answer is because whatever extreme breakaway group was responsible they wanted to derail the peace process (but) the people of Northern Ireland are not going to be blackmailed by this sort of violence."
Mr MacKay, who argued in the "Commons for greater direct linkage between decommissioning of paramilitary weapons and prisoner releases, said he was heartened to hear Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness say on television he would have a list of the names of dissident republicans within 24 hours.
Further Information
Publisher: IRISH INDEPENDENT
Ref: II/018
Published Date: 17-Aug-98
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