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Sinn Fein-IRA has assured everyone that the campaign of violence
has been ended and that normality can return to Northern Ireland,
writes a Standard correspondent.
As the British Government falls over itself to demolish army
watchtowers and other installations, there is talk of the
'on the runs' being allowed to return - the IRA terrorists
who fled south of the border to escape justice.
What about the genuine 'exiles' who fled Northern Ireland
during those 30 terrible years which cost so many lives, caused
so much damage, and lost Northern Ireland so many jobs and
opportunities.
A few years ago I wrote in the Orange Standard about meeting
a former Ulster Defence Regiment soldier, his wife and family,
while I was on holiday in Scotland.
With tears in his eyes, the former soldier described how
he had been forced out of his home in Ulster, and "relocated"
by the authorities in Scotland.
That was simply because they could not guarantee him protection
in the vulnerable area of Northern Ireland where he lived.
He had been compelled to leave the town his family had lived
in for generations, and where his parents and fellow siblings
were living.
Scotland, he assured me, had been good to him and his family,
and they enjoyed the freedom to enjoy their lives without
the constant fear of being singled out for murder because
of his security force service.
That man had been living in Scotland since the late 1970s,
and although he would still have been keen to return to Ulster,
his children had settled down in their new environment and
this would mean a hard decision for the family to take - provided
of course that the IRA campaign had ended.
I also remember a young man who fled Farringdon Gardens in
the Protestant part of Ardoyne in 1971 along with his parents,
telling me of their decision to emigrate to South Africa or
Australia.
He wondered when it would be possible for ordinary law-abiding
Protestants like himself - he had no political allegiances
- to live in their own country without republican intimidation.
Everyone is entitled to ponder on that question, and never
more so than now, when there are all sorts of promises being
made and assurances voiced that the terror has been ended.
Time will tell, but won't it be great if those thousands
of people who had to leave Northern Ireland due to republican
terror will now feel safe enough to return to their native
Province. If such a climate doesn't exist to enable them to
do so, then the promise that the violence is over will simply
amount to empty words.
And, if the IRA really has ended it all, isn't it time that
they or their political front men reveal the location of the
bodies of the victims murdered and thus help bring some consolation
to the families of those victims.
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