Editor:

This letter is in response to Colin Watson's letter of Feb. 15. I would first like to say that I condemn the IRA's actions and do not believe that violence is a valid option. However, I do understand their frustration. It is a good thing Mr. Watson that you are not a Catholic in Northern Ireland, because that would make you a target of the UDF, the UVA, the UFF and the UDA (all illegal paramilitary organizations). It would also make you a target of the RUC (a legal terrorist organization), as well as the British occupational military force, a.k.a., the Falkland Follies. Each of these organizations outnumbers and out-guns the IRA, and they are terrorist organizations in that they strike fear into the hearts of the general populace. The "peacetime" occupational forces are allowed to fire rubber bullets into crowds to disperse them, and are allowed to hold you for an "undetermined" length of time because you are "under suspicion." They can kill you with no consequence, as on Bloody Sunday when thirteen innocent and defenseless people were gunned down by the British Army. Yet you claim the IRA is cowardly. Consider that neither Israel nor South Africa required disarmament and, for the most part, their peace processes have worked. England, however, wants to be different and requires disarmament. Even if the IRA agreed to it, they could give you a quarter of their weapons and claim that it was their entire weapons cache. The British military would not know the difference. After all, British military intelligence is an oxymoron. Besides, I would not put dishonesty past the IRA. It is primarily made up of British subjects, not Irish citizens.

Sean Liston
optical engineering/premed junior