‘We have got our security forces to thank for ensuring Northern Ireland didn’t turn into a Balkan bloodbath’

A letter from Arnold Carton:
PA image: Some of the 30,000 predominantly-Muslim refugees from the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica wait for transportation on July 12, 1995. In less than a fortnight it is estimated that over 8,000 Muslim males were killed by Serb Christian forces in the area, as refugees scrambled to reach their own 'safe' ethnic enclaves following the collapse of YugoslaviaPA image: Some of the 30,000 predominantly-Muslim refugees from the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica wait for transportation on July 12, 1995. In less than a fortnight it is estimated that over 8,000 Muslim males were killed by Serb Christian forces in the area, as refugees scrambled to reach their own 'safe' ethnic enclaves following the collapse of Yugoslavia
PA image: Some of the 30,000 predominantly-Muslim refugees from the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica wait for transportation on July 12, 1995. In less than a fortnight it is estimated that over 8,000 Muslim males were killed by Serb Christian forces in the area, as refugees scrambled to reach their own 'safe' ethnic enclaves following the collapse of Yugoslavia

In response to the letter by Gordon Lucy (Partition ‘a symptom of division’, October 19) I don’t think modern unionists should feel obliged to support or justify all the decisions that lead to partition in order to justify our support for the current union.

Our political future should be decided by the choices we make, for our benefit, during this decade; those who died more than half a century ago should not shape our future.

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It is perfectly legitimate to support the union now, even if at the time there was a better alternative than the road to partition.

Letter to the editorLetter to the editor
Letter to the editor

If we had a time machine and could go back, how many of us would really support the setting up of the UVF and the importing of German guns to overthrow the democratic will of the British parliament?

It might well have been better for all if Ireland had remained united within the UK, with no partition and just a devolved local parliament – or Home Rule as it was called at the time (didn’t Carson express his regrets?)

Gordon’s suggestion that partition could be justified because of the dramatically different voting patterns is dangerous to unionism. If you look at a map of the recent voting patterns in N. Ireland, the same argument could be used to dramatically re-partition N. Ireland.

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Gordon does make an important point when he compares N. Ireland to the partition of Yugoslavia. Those aged over 40 will remember the tragic communal violence and ethnic cleansing that occurred, especially in Bosnia, when Yugoslavia fell apart in 1990 (just before the peace process leading to the GFA in 1998).

I have always felt that the nightly atrocities we saw on TV reports from Bosnia helped to move our paramilitaries away from the crazy idea that paramilitary violence could be a solution to our political problems.

Perhaps it might be beneficial to remind any young people tempted to support the UDA or UVF that, just a few years before it slipped into genocide, Bosnia was a popular holiday destination, more peaceful than Ulster.

We avoided their fate because our security forces tackled our paramilitaries, limiting their actions and jailing enough to prevent an escalation.

Arnold Carton, Belfast BT6

More News Letter letters and opinion at this link.

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