Leader: Patience, not panic, is still the key to progress in Ulster
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Your support makes all the difference.WE'VE BEEN here so many times before - violence in Londonderry, ecumenical memorial services in another part of the troubled province, calls for Mo Mowlam to suspend the prisoner releases of convicted IRA members, counter-calls for the British Government to put pressure on the unionists to share power with the nationalists. Those with long memories can, and do, cite the histories of atrocities and the nuances of the Good Friday Agreement to prove their side is right, and the other wrong, with mind-numbing repetitiveness. Ms Mowlam must be tempted to envy Bernard Kouchner's job of bringing about reconciliation between the Albanians and Serbs of Kosovo.
But this static perspective ignores the dynamics that can be seen by taking a longer view. Take, for example, this year's "marching season". Back in July, when the most recent "last chance" to implement the Good Friday Agreement's provisions for a power-sharing executive fell, over the issue of decommissioning, pundits were unanimous in predicting a long, hot summer. Yet this has been the most peaceful marching season in memory. The only real violence was that which followed last Saturday's Apprentice Boys' march in Derry; and in the context of previous years 100 petrol bombs and a couple of dozen injuries, none serious, is a small toll for a summer's madness. The condemnation of that violence by Sinn Fein MP Martin McGuinness is also a new, and welcome, development.
This is the context in which Mo Mowlam and RUC Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan met yesterday to review the state of security in Northern Ireland. After the killing of Charles Bennett in West Belfast two weeks ago and the continued threats and beatings ascribed to the Provisional IRA, Ms Mowlam is being asked, once again, to suspend the prisoner release scheme. Yet, if she did not do this when the violations were greater, she surely will not do so now. Nor should she.
As far as can be ascertained, the people coming out of prison (republican and loyalist alike) have had a calming influence on their comrades, and have not themselves returned to active service. Prisoner releases are clearly part of the Good Friday Agreement; they are an incentive to the terrorists to behave, and their cessation would undoubtedly precipitate an end to the ceasefires.
What is needed now is patience. Another last chance to implement the Good Friday Agreement will surely follow George Mitchell's coming review. That too may, of course, fail. Comfort can be taken, however, in the gradual wind-down of the troubles that is evident in statistics and in the streets. Sometimes it is not what politicians do, but what people feel which ultimately determines the shape of things to come. And, despite all, the people in Northern Ireland feel that the tide has turned.
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