Thuggishness in the east of NI as well as in the west

It rightly and properly decries the appalling, thuggish attacks on residents of the Fountain area of Derry/Londonderry, which are outrageous and completely unacceptable to any well-adjusted human being. But it then decides to go off on a tangent by having a go at republicans.

This is fair enough, too; after all, the News Letter rarely runs a column without reminding its readers of the evils of republicanism/nationalism.

Where the fairness ends, though, is when there is no similar column condemning the hijacking of buses, burning of cars and threats of UVF violence in Belfast that you also reported.

This raises two issues.

First, given that the UVF (and other loyalist organisations) declared that they were forswearing “all forms of criminal activity” back in April, has the leadership of that organisation fallen victim to a catastrophic attack of amnesia?

Can they really not keep themselves from criminality for more than a matter of three months?

And second, while the News Letter rightly thunders against the idiots causing trouble in the west of Northern Ireland, can it not bring itself to do the same in the east?

The automatic assumption that the Fountain attacks are being coordinated by shadowy republican organisations is conspicuously unmatched by any comment on the UVF violence in Belfast.

Funny that.

Don Kavanagh, Auckland, New Zealand