TOO LATE FOR OMAGH
Too Late for Omagh
There can be no doubt that the announcement of the complete cessation of violence by the so called 'Real IRA' on Monday, advances the chances of a feasible peace. However, the announcement is not something about which the people of the Omagh area can get too excited. For Omagh, it came four weeks too late. Twenty nine of our people, mostly women and children, and two unborn children were murdered, others are maimed and scarred for life and for what? What did the people who executed this heinous atrocity, with such Nazi-like efficiency, think they were achieving?
On Saturday August 15th, they came to Omagh and played at being God; they took upon themselves the right to end lives, and they walked away having carried out an act of unspeakable cowardice and inhumanity.
Now that their absurd, half-political, half-gangster cause has collapsed and they are rejected and despised in all parts of Ireland, they will go their own ways. But the families they tore apart through their despicable deeds may never truly know peace, the heartbroken people of Omagh cannot walk away.
Despite the fact that the people of Ireland have rejected political violence, one group, the Continuity IRA, has declared its intention to carry on its campaign. That decision is seriously flawed and is monstrously out of step with most nationalist and republican thinking in the whole of Ireland.
There is no mandate for violence, and those who persist is using physical force in an attempt to advance political objectives are in contempt of national opinion.
When the CIRA vow to continue the war against Britain, they do so on the basis that partition was enforced on Ireland against the wishes of the majority of the people, and that is an historical truth. However, it is equally an historical truth, that in May of this year, the overwhelming majority of the people on this island agreed to search for a common way forward and a future without political violence. The message therefore, to those who have rejected that decision and who have defied the recently expressed wishes of the nation, is that they must abandon their selective perception and bow to the will of the majority of the people of Ireland. To reject that decision, a decision made by one of the best educated and politically well-informed electorate's in the world, is an act of indecent arrogance. Let us hope it does not take another massacre to bring the Continuity IRA to its senses.
There can be no doubt that the announcement of the complete cessation of violence by the so called 'Real IRA' on Monday, advances the chances of a feasible peace. However, the announcement is not something about which the people of the Omagh area can get too excited. For Omagh, it came four weeks too late. Twenty nine of our people, mostly women and children, and two unborn children were murdered, others are maimed and scarred for life and for what? What did the people who executed this heinous atrocity, with such Nazi-like efficiency, think they were achieving?
On Saturday August 15th, they came to Omagh and played at being God; they took upon themselves the right to end lives, and they walked away having carried out an act of unspeakable cowardice and inhumanity.
Now that their absurd, half-political, half-gangster cause has collapsed and they are rejected and despised in all parts of Ireland, they will go their own ways. But the families they tore apart through their despicable deeds may never truly know peace, the heartbroken people of Omagh cannot walk away.
Despite the fact that the people of Ireland have rejected political violence, one group, the Continuity IRA, has declared its intention to carry on its campaign. That decision is seriously flawed and is monstrously out of step with most nationalist and republican thinking in the whole of Ireland.
There is no mandate for violence, and those who persist is using physical force in an attempt to advance political objectives are in contempt of national opinion.
When the CIRA vow to continue the war against Britain, they do so on the basis that partition was enforced on Ireland against the wishes of the majority of the people, and that is an historical truth. However, it is equally an historical truth, that in May of this year, the overwhelming majority of the people on this island agreed to search for a common way forward and a future without political violence. The message therefore, to those who have rejected that decision and who have defied the recently expressed wishes of the nation, is that they must abandon their selective perception and bow to the will of the majority of the people of Ireland. To reject that decision, a decision made by one of the best educated and politically well-informed electorate's in the world, is an act of indecent arrogance. Let us hope it does not take another massacre to bring the Continuity IRA to its senses.
Further Information
Publisher: ULSTER HERALD
Ref: UH/0371
Published Date: 10-Sep-98
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