Madam, - Sinn Féin members constantly ask others to respect their political mandate. It is time that Sinn Féin and the Provisional movement respected the mandate of democratic nationalists in Ireland.
In the 2004 European elections, 1,319,565 people in Ireland voted for democratic nationalist parties.These parties represent the overwhelming majority of the people.
It is their clear wish that all parties should make good their commitments under the Good Friday Agreement to operate only by peaceful and democratic means and oppose the use of threats or intimidation.
People in the North want an inclusive democracy and a lawful society. Sinn Féin and the Provisional movement have to realise you cannot have one without the other. It is time for them to end paramilitary and criminal activity. - Yours, etc.,
TIM ATTWOOD, Andersonstown Road, Belfast 11.
Madam, - Never have Noam Chomsky's warnings about the dangers of the illusion of a "free press" in a "democratic society" been more pertinent.
The sorry sight of The Irish Times, a paper I recall once having some slight regard for balanced reporting, sinking to the level of some Thatcherite English tabloid is most depressing.
It is rather more surprising than pleasant to see your paper supporting a Northern nationalist family in their search for justice. One wonders where you were in the darker days of the past 35 years. Might I dare suggest a hidden agenda is now at work here?
I am used to the constant distortion of the government and its tame media in the Irish "Republic", but it is journalism of the lowest order for your Editorial of March to state as fact such gems as: "the nationalist community's desire for. . .normal policing" (unless, of course, you are referring to their desire to see an end to the RUC/PSNI armed political militia., which I doubt); "the IRA. . .are being increasingly seen as thugs and bully boys" (by your journalists and the political ruling class, no doubt); and "recruitment and training for criminality" (Michael McDowell and the PDs say so, therefore. . .).
Let me challenge your absurd assertion that the alleged activities of the IRA are the "primary obstacle to the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement." The primary obstacle to the implementation of this agreement is the fact that, for a number of years, the British and, shamefully, the Irish governments have allowed a narrow-minded Unionist to call the shots and derail any political progress at will.
Emboldened, the "majority-of-the-majority" have now given their support to an even more reactionary, prehistoric fundamentalist and his Phalangist cohorts.
Here lies the real problem. The only people in the North who actually wanted change were, and remain, the republican movement. For the others, unconditional surrender and humiliation of the criminal IRA will do nicely.
No doubt Gerry Adams will indeed have much to say at the ardfheis - hopefully to stress that we have not gone down the Rabbit Hole and landed in La-La Land but are, in fact, undergoing the most concerted cross-party - Fianna Fáil to the DUP! - multi-media attack on republicanism since Thatcher's failed attempt to starve the movement of the oxygen of publicity.
Thatcher failed; and I imagine the strange bedfellows involved in the current attempt to stop the growth of the republican movement, right across my island, will fare no better. - Yours, etc.,
NICK McCALL, Glasdrumman Mor, Drumkeeran, Co Leitrim.
