Republican News · Thursday 9 January 2003

Time for positive approach

The latest round of crisis talks proceed this week against a background of bloody violence and potential violence.

A vicious internecine feud is raging between various factions of the Ulster Defence Association, and as usual with such feuds, the nationalist community will ultimately suffer, as each unionist gang attempts to prove its sectarian credentials. Already we have seen the murder of David Cupples. The 25-year-old kitchen porter was savagely beaten in the mistaken belief he was a Catholic and died in hospital on Christmas Day.

Then, this week, as if the little girls of Holy Cross had not been put through enough already, a UDA pipe bomb was left attached to the gates of the school.

d if the streets are dangerous, the political arena is no less divided and battle weary. The demands beyond the terms of the Agreement made by the British government and the unionists have served to grind the process to a halt. Republicans have been painted as the problem, even as unionist paramilitaries have been gunning each other down in the streets.

The fact is that the British government's unilateral decision to suspend the institutions, at the behest of rejectionist unionists, has created a dangerous absence of political movement.

Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness this week warned that there is now a very small window of opportunity of six to eight weeks in which a solution must be found, given the forthcoming May Assembly elections. It is crucial that politicians adopt a positive agenda and collective approach over the coming months to end the political impasse.

There has even been talk of postponing the May elections, a step that would effectively be a suspension of the democratic process and would be very damaging indeed.

It is incument on all political leaders with influence to recognise the value of the peace process and to act to save it. The British government in particular must fulfill its commitments, or admit that the rejectionist unionists and securocrats are calling the shots.

The IRA today reiterates that "the full implementation by the two governments of their commitments could provide a political context with the potential to remove the causes of conflict".

It has sent the clearest possible signal that, while it will not bow to "unacceptable and unrealistic ultimatums", it remains "totally committed to the search for a just and lasting peace".

Others must now play their part.