Bad week all round
It has been a disappointing week all round. Loyalist attacks have increased in intensity, a depressing and worrying sign of the onset of the marching season. It starting with the disgraceful blockade of a Catholic primary school, degenerated to blast bomb attacks on nationalist homes, and reached its worst with the sectarian killing of a Coleraine man.
We also had the sickening sight of loyalist thugs in Carnmoney abusing relatives who offended Orange sensibilities by attending a Catholic cemetery to pay their respects to their loved ones.
Belfast City Hall managed to hang on to its reputation as a bastion of bigotry for another year, as the Alliance Party reverted to type and voted to exclude Sinn Féin from the mayoralty. But then Sinn Féin voters are more than familiar with the tried and tested unionist gerrymander.
The DUP ran true to type by threatening to discipline a councillor for the crime of courteously shaking the hand of a Sinn Féin colleague. Meanwhile, fellow DUP man Jim Wells, convicted of using threatening words or behaviour likely to provoke a breach of the peace in a protest against a St.Patrick's Day parade, will face no disciplinary action from his party. Such priorities!
d on the wider political front, against the backdrop of increased loyalist attacks, the SDLP, other parties and the establishment media have chosen to concentrate their fire on the silent guns of the IRA.
Then we have David Trimble's latest resignation threat, which will take effect this Sunday as the Nobel Peace Prize winner chooses again to undermine rather than underpin the peace process. The DUP of course, then jumped on the bandwagon with their own resignation proposals.
What does this all say about the struggle for equality in the Six Counties? Not a lot, by the available evidence. The key point is that the rights enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement are exactly that - rights. They are not up for barter or negotiation and must be implemented. This week has taught us that.
This week has shown the imperative of achieving equality and of making the peace process work. Rather than put pressure on Sinn Féin over commitments that have already been honoured, the governments should be living up to their commitments to implement the Agreement rather than allow them to be made conditional to a unionist veto.
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