Sir, - Surely nobody in the Republic, least of all the Garda and Army, will be in the least surprised by the latest terrorist cavorting by prominent members of Sinn FΘin/IRA in the training of other terrorist cells in Colombia. It may read like some Hollywood movie, such as Patriot Games, but this is what the IRA does best the world over.
The Garda and Army always knew the IRA would never give up their weapons, that their dealings with General de Chastelain and the International Commission were just delaying devices for as many years as they could get away with.
What gets to some of us who are both Irish republican and believers in peace and democracy is how the British and Americans fell for all the old garbage from Sinn FΘin. Now they have got the worst of the IRA killers out of jail and we have put the leaders of Sinn FΘin, themselves linked with terrorism in the past, into government. While they have had their hands on the levers of power in the North, they have also been salivating at the prospects of taking over from Fianna Fβil in the Republic.
With the third anniversary of the Omagh bombing just past, we must never make the mistake again of kidding ourselves that the IRA are democratic, or ever letting them get anywhere near the levers of power. Whether they call themselves the Real IRA or the Provisionals, the manic and territorial obsessions of a minority have caused the deaths of too many people. The people of the Republic never wanted to be involved in running the North. The government of the North is for the people of the North. If they want our new-found economic prosperity, that should be available to them. The swopping of ideas and intellects has always been done. - Yours, etc.,
Seamus O'Brien, Fulham Road, London.