Sir, - Jim Cusack's analysis of current republican thinking (The Irish Times, August 24th) should reveal to all interested parties, including the two governments, what a dangerous organisation the IRA is. Far from being a high-minded, principled, patriotic movement, it is as violent and anti-social as at any time over the past 30 years. The only difference is that its vicious, anti-social activities are today directed almost exclusively against the Catholic working class.
Mr Cusack states correctly that the IRA reserves the right to murder, rob and torture. Yet, in order to perpetuate the myth of its commitment to the peace process, it does not attack loyalists or members of the security forces. Its victims are those who disagree with it, and those who are seen as a threat to it within the Catholic community. These people cannot fight back, because of their vulnerable life styles and families, and most are merely scapegoats who are used to demonstrate to the public at large that the IRA still has the ability to strike at its enemies.
Those who have the means to strike back are not being targeted and the reasons for this are clear. First, to attack loyalists would be a breach of the Good Friday Agreement, under the bizarre rules worked out by the participants. Second, the loyalists would immediately retaliate, and very soon the situation would rapidly deteriorate once again into the mayhem of tit-for-tat that prevailed in the months leading up to the cease-fires of 1994. Third, any such action would result in an end to prisoner releases, and possibly the re-arrest of those already free, which would undermine their only substantial achievement in recent years.
The majority of Provos know that their campaign had ended up in a cul-de-sac around the time of the Shankill atrocity, and were ready for a new strategy, but no one should imagine that this meant a renunciation of violence. A cessation of "military operations", and an announcement that the war is over, are two different things. That is why we cannot hope for decommissioning or any other material manifestation of a republican commitment to democracy.
So much for the devious republican policy. But a greater scandal by far is the hypocrisy of the governments which either pretend that this strategy of the republicans is no threat to peace, or admit that the violence exists, but refuse to protect the public from it. When pressed on this issue, republican spokesmen invariably use the argument that the State should be hounding Protestant killers instead of them. This is, of course, a dangerous nonsense, because the implications is that IRA killings have some legitimacy, while those committed by Protestants are simply sectarian.
The rule of law, in relation to paramilitary organisations, no longer exists in Northern Ireland, and I doubt if the situation could be defended by anyone as being healthy or peaceful. Barbarians have gained control over large sections of the population and they wield their cudgels and practice their own hideous forms of capital punishment in defiance of civilisation. When will it end? - Yours, etc., Sean Kearney,
Belfast 15.