Madam, – The decision by Cardinal Seán Brady leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland to meet the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG), the political wing of the UDA, in an effort to convince loyalists to start decommissioning their weaponry is not only a courageous step by him as leader of the Catholic faith but indeed a true example of his personal leadership and commitment to achieving a lasting and permanent peace free from the threat of weaponry (“Cardinal meets group linked to UDA”, April 25th).
Cardinal Brady is to be commended for engaging the Catholic Church with the UPRG in order to play their part in convincing loyalists to decommission and to remove their weaponry in its entirety.
The fact that the UDA did not enter into a tit-for-tat exercise of murder following the horrendous murders of two innocent British soldiers and an innocent PSNI officer by dissident republicans clearly illustrates that loyalism has moved into a new mode.
Loyalism has clearly accepted that the days of murder are now beyond reproach and that their rights as British citizens are respected in the same way as the legitimate rights of those wishing to be classed as Irish citizens.
Yet while the UPRG as the political wing of the UDA is now on a path of trying to move towards decommissioning, we as a society are still living with the daily threat of a group of dissident republicans who seem intent on trying to provoke both a political and military reaction through the recent murders. It is inconceivable for the minority of dissident republicans to be living in the self belief that the recent murders which they carried out were in the true name of republicanism or to achieve 32-county Ireland.
While loyalists have now clearly accepted that there is no longer a place in our democratic society for a return to violence, due to the political institutions that have been established as a result of the Belfast Agreement, and their meeting with Cardinal Brady, dissident republicans have now entered a campaign of violence and are even resorting to internet websites to try to recruit young people into a path of criminality. Dissident republicans need to stand back and see how far the people of Ireland, Catholic, Protestant, and dissenter have moved forward since the start of the peace process.
No dissident republican has the moral right to the taking of life in the name of the Irish people. So whose name are dissident republicans carrying these murders out in? It is certainly not the vast majority of the people of Ireland who voted in favour of the Belfast Agreement.
Dissident republicans command no real public support despite their efforts at a recent Easter commemoration which on the face of it was attended largely by young adolescents. If loyalism can engage and move towards decommissioning then dissident republicans should do likewise. If they look at early Irish 20th-century history, they will see that various splinter republican groups prior to 1960 failed against the British, and failed in achieving a United Ireland through armed force.
The only way to achieving a United Ireland is through democratic means and the consent of the people of Ireland. It is obvious that dissident republicans are walking a separate road to that of main stream republicanism and also loyalism.
It is time for those dissident republicans to end their path of violence and engage in the democratic process, and take a leaf out of the loyalists book and engage in dialogue with a view to removing their weapons from society. – Yours, etc,