Reply #304: Sigh. Not defending the killing, but... [View All]

[Maeve]

In Northern Ireland, the police have been repeatedly shown to be taking the Loyalist side and involved in both killings and cover-ups. In 1997, a Catholic man, Robert Hamill, was stomped to death by a loyalist mob in Portadown as RUC men watched idly nearby. The newer police force, implimented in 2001 still retains strong traces of the former Orange-dominated order.

In discussing the violence, we have to look at the context. In the past 30 years, tens of thousands of Catholics have been forced from their homes. Catholic school children have been harrassed for months for daring to walk thru a Protestant area to go to school. Catholics are still over twice as likely to be unemployed as Protestants.

The breaches of the peace since 1998 have been from dissident republican groups calling themselves "real IRA" or "Continuity IRA" and are actively working for the destruction of the Good Friday Agreement that over 70% of NI voted for. they muddy the waters and should be treated as the terrorists they are. But they are not the same organization as the IRA. And much more violence has come from the various loyalist paramilitaries over the same time frame.

And for anyone seeking a chronology of the Peace Process, here's the BBC link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/539391.stm

While I agree that civil war might well ensue with the withdrawl of British military might, I'm not entirely convinced that civil war isn't exactly what they have had under British watch.