A chara, - I have been reading the various versions of media blame inflicted on the republican movement regarding the current crisis in the peace process.
I see with dismay how our Taoiseach is supposed to be furious at the IRA decision not to enter into physical decommissioning at the moment, and how Gerry Adams is being portrayed as a man who will do anything to hold the Provisional IRA together. Has anybody thought that the need to keep the republican family together has a very sound political basis? Does anyone remember their history of 1922?
This crisis is being caused by the unionist insistence on demands which are absent from both the Good Friday Agreement and the Mitchell Review. The crisis is being fed by the media insistence on indulging the unionist demands by making unhelpful remarks and unfounded claims of insight into the republican mind. It is also being fed by high-ranking politicians who join in the call for decommissioning with little or no regard for the consequences of their support for the unionist position, and no thought at all for the position of nationalists and republicans in the Six Counties.
I appeal to our politicians, and to the media, to leave General John de Chastelain to do his best with the job that has been given to him because of his ability. Let the new-born assembly carry on with its work, which has made a good start, and leave the Northern politicians to get on with the job of creating a peaceful Ireland for the children of Ireland and their children in turn.
The republican movement is not the monster. Unilateral decommissioning would serve no purpose except to feed the triumphalism of certain political elements and, given the full and proper political basis for justice, equality and peace, the gun will disappear from Irish politics by natural succession - an occurrence we all want to happen. Don't let's get hung up on where the silent guns of the IRA are lying while injustice - the true monster - is still on the streets of our island. Don't let the repetition of history come to it's complete and terrible conclusion. - Is mise,
Sile Mhic Reamoinn, (Sinn Fein, Wexford), Droichead an Chaisleain, Co Loch Garman.