Sir, - I thought that following the outrageous attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in the United States that I would become somewhat immune to feelings of revulsion and disgust, but in the wake of the brutal murder of the journalist Mr Martin O'Hagan the same feelings of revulsion and disgust were felt. This vile murder must be viewed as an attack on the right to free speech, press freedom and our right to conduct our affairs in a civilised and democratic manner.
Sadly, Mr O'Hagan is just the latest in a long line of murders by loyalist death squads in an attempt to intimidate the nationalist community back to where loyalism believes they belong. Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson were dispatched to their respective makers for daring to challenge some institutions of the Northern State.
One can only view with cynicism demands made by unionist and British politicians for IRA decommissioning in the midst of a murderous campaign by loyalist mobs which includes attacks on school children, pipe and petrol bomb attacks on Catholic homes and gunfire aimed at the RUC officers who were trying to prevent such attacks.
Unionist politicians must repudiate all violence from whichever quarter it comes. Even in terms of violence, loyalist paramilitary violence was somehow more acceptable to some strands of unionism than republican violence. There can be no equivocation in denouncing political violence.
What is needed is a collective repudiation of all political violence by political, church, and trade union leaders without favour, then perhaps a new climate may be created for future generations where the endemic nature of sectarianism would be challenged for the first time.
Those loyalist death squads, whose idea of democracy is defined by a sectarian head-count, must not be allowed to win. - Yours, etc.,
Tom Cooper, Knocklyon, Dublin 16.