It's the loyalists now

By HASAN SUROOR

IT IS a deep irony and has not gone unnoticed that at a time when Britain is crusading against international terrorism, in its own backyard terror is thriving with the situation in Northern Ireland worsening by the day.

The expectation that the worldwide campaign against terrorists in the aftermath of America's ``black Tuesday'' would have a salutary impact on Britain's home-grown extremists has been belied and things have got so bad lately that last week, the Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr. John Reid, came close to declaring that the loyalist Ulster Defence Association (UDA), which has been involved in a number of violent incidents, was in breach of the official ceasefire, and another Protestant paramilitary outfit, the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), is being investigated for the murder of a journalist on September 28.

Martin O'Hagan, 51, a senior Sunday Worldreporter, is the first journalist covering the Northern Ireland crisis to have been killed in what is seen to be a warning to the media to lay off terrorists. ``His murder has drawn a new line in what is acceptable to print and what can get you killed in Ulster,'' according to an Observercolumnist who knew O'Hagan.Journalists say it has never been easy to report Northern Ireland but, by and large, they have been able to operate fairly freely even through some of the most vicious phases in the sectarian conflict.

The O'Hagan murder, however, has suddenly changed the situation and there is concern that this could be the beginning of a campaign by terrorists to force the media to toe their line - a new and uglier phase of intimidation which began with the harassment of small Catholic schoolchildren in North Belfast last month when, for days together, residents of a predominantly Protestant neighbhourhood tried to prevent them from walking past loyalist homes to reach their school.

Tension over the issue still remains with the Catholics saying that they have a right to use a public road and Protestants alleging that IRA supporters masquerading as ``parents'' are using children as a cover to infiltrate loyalist property and stir up trouble. Last week, there was fresh violence making it the worst summer in 20 years, according to the police.

The most disturbing aspect was the participation of little children raising concerns that ``a new generation of hatred'', as the Independentput it, was beginning to come of age. ``The soldiers and the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) look on them as a nuisance rather than a danger. But give them a decade and unless things change remarkably in the meantime, many of these children will know how to fire a rifle or revolver, will have learnt to manufacture and use bombs, and know exactly how much sugar is needed in a petrol bomb,'' the newspaper said.

Significantly, it is the loyalist outfits which have been more aggressive in recent weeks, presumably emboldened by the IRA's difficulties after some of its activists were found hobnobbing with an extremist group in Colombia; and more critically after Washington openly snubbed it for dithering on the issue of giving up its weapons and thus endangering the fragile peace process.

Traditionally, Washington has been a friend of the Republicans because of a significant Irish electorate in the U.S. and, the Sinn Fein president, Mr. Gerry Adams, was feted in America even when he was persona non grata in Britain but after the September 11 attacks the equation has changed.

With Britain going out on a limb to support the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism, America cannot be seen to be soft towards an organisation that has been giving sleepless nights to Mr. Tony Blair.

So, while the IRA and its political wing, the Sinn Fein, have been under pressure, the loyalists have been playing havoc. The Sinn Fein's moderate loyalist coalition partner in the Provincial Government - the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) - has also become more aggressive and wants its expulsion from the Government if it does not get the IRA to start decommissioning.

The UUP chief, Mr. David Trimble, who plunged the peace process into a crisis after he resigned as head of the Government in July to force decommissioning, has not only ruled out a return until the IRA starts destroying its weapons, but has tabled a resolution in the Assembly against the Sinn Fein's continued participation in the coalition.

He has said that if the resolution is defeated, he would remove his Ministers from the Government - a move which would inevitably lead to the collapse of the peace process. Even if he does not carry out the threat, it would require all of Mr. Blair's fire- fighting skills to get the accord back on the rails considering that the IRA has shown no inclination to oblige.

Mr. Adams has made clear that the Republicans will not give in to ``ultimatums'', and to underline this the IRA has practically shelved its offer to destroy two of its arms dumps. Northern Ireland's political institutions have been at a standstill for three months now, and if a solution is not found over the next four weeks, the British Government would be forced, under the rules, to suspend the Assembly indefinitely or call for fresh elections. Neither of which inspires confidence in the future of the Good Friday Agreement.

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