Basic HTML Version
Northern Ireland
Catherine Leroy-Liaison
THE UNWANTEDWAR
Bloodshed and terrorism in troubled Northern Ireland show no sign ofletting up. What is the
solution to the protracted violence on the Emerald Isle?
~~
T
he ir feet run to evi l, and
thcy make baste to shed
innocent blood ... wast–
ing and destruction are in their paths.
The way of peace they know
not .
. .. "
(lsaiah 59:7-8).
Had the prophet lsa iah been
transported t hrough time to the bat–
t le-scarred st reets of modern-day
Belfast itself, he could not have ren–
dered a more accurate description of
January
1980
by
Keith W. Stump
the decades-long violence which has
wracked Northern Ireland (also
known as Ulster) . Outside of the con–
tínuing conflict in the Middle East,
no problem today appears as intract–
able and seemingly fa r ther from so–
lution than that of lreland.
lndeed, the situation has reached the
poínt where many in Ulster have come
to regard the bombings, shootings,
barbed wire, street checkpoints and mil-
itary patrols as normal!Nooneseems to
know the
wa
y
to achieve peace.
2 ,000 Killed
Last August marked the tenth anni–
versary of the dispatching of British
troops to the anguished province to
put down violence betwecn the Prot–
estan! majority and the Roman
Catholic minority- a conflict which
has claimed nearly 2,000 lives (and
7