Letter: Ireland is not 'mad', but a reality Britain must understand

Sir: The past 25 years of British military intervention in the North have not been a peacekeeping mission by a benevolent ruling power but an attempt to 'stabilise' an unsuitable political entity. This has been achieved by targeting the nationalist community as troublemakers because of their refusal to accept the British dispensation under which they have suffered so much.

The strategies of stabilisation have consisted of state terrorism - giving Britain the worst human rights record in the EU - and of collusion with loyalist paramilitaries. Earlier this year, when Amnesty International called for an investigation into collusion between the RUC and loyalist forces, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland merely demanded (absurdly) that Amnesty denounce the IRA. He did not explicitly deny the existence of collusion.

It is not time for Ireland to 'get real', but for Britain to get out.

Yours,

DAVID ALDERSON,

Troops Out Movement

London, WC1

10 August