The matter of most concern for all of us was the feud between
factions of the loyalist paramilitaries. Friendships, and
collaborations in their several activities and involvements,
were exchanged for animosities, disagreements and disengagements,
and the result was murders, attacks on homes and families,
and communities living in fear and trembling, for no one is
safe when gunmen and bombers are at large. The causes of the
feud have been analysed and described by journalists and politicians,
with the impression given that politics and religion play
no part in what has much to do with the illegal engagements
of paramilitaries who control some urban areas in which their
presence is felt acutely and hurtfully. There have been calls
on the police to do more to prevent the easy movement of these
men; and from the police to the people to let them have the
information they need to capture and have convicted the guilty
men and women. What to do in response to the clamant need
to restore law and order to these communities was the question
to be answered. What was needed was clear enough. how to meet
the need was the problem. The situation was worsened by the
shortage of police manpower to satisfy the demands on them.
The concentration of police because of the feud tied up men
and women to prevent them serving the wider community adequately.
Police presence is essential to the people who have to live
in an environment not of their making but in which they are
the, victims, suffering mental and physical distress, and
in despair. The feud had a surprising conclusion when the
UDA - targeted 'C' Company members defected to the other factions
and their leaders fled to Scotland. That happened on the day
of the murdered "brigadier's" funeral February,
6, with its estimated 7,000 mourners. The media described
what had happened as the end of the feud. It is to be hoped
that, that is the case but it would be foolhardy to act on
the assumption that the scene has changed, as though miraculously,
and the problems and antagonisms have been permanently resolved.
We deeply deplore the fearful circumstances in which so many
have to live as victims of a terrorism horrific and the more
so because the beligerants have loyalsim as their common philosophy.
But then philosophy is not the motivation of those who divide
on mundane matters like money and property and the means of
getting possession of them. There are sociological problems
demanding resolution in the areas where trouble and strife
persists and these must be solved by those empowered to maintain
the structures of society, to administer its affairs justly,
fairly, sensitively and honourably, to remove from it the
causes of disorder and to protect the people from their oppressors.
The loyalism of the streets which affects people painfully,
has nothing in common with Unionism or Orangeism. Their commitments
are to peaceful co-existence, people with people, and in a
society where the rule of law pertains and there is respect
person for person as citizens of equal worth, equal rights
and privileges and due responsibilities. Whatever happens
here politically in the near future there must be an end to
loyalist feuding and if that means removing from the scene
to other addresses, leaders of groups let that be done if
and where it is not done already.
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