NOT in the worst of rioting between Hindus and Muslims in India has the government thought of setting up walls to separate the two. Belfast in Northern Ireland, that disputed part of Britain, has 20 of them.
The longest wall, that separates the Protestants on Shankhill Road from the Catholics on Falls Road, is about three-quarters of a mile long. It is also called the Orange-Green Line. Orange is the colour of the Protestants who want the union of Northern Ireland with Britain to remain. Green is the colour of the Catholics who want to secede from Britain and join the Republic of Ireland.
The walls are high and grey, and over the years, they have grown higher and greyer. The 'peace wall'—the official name—on Shankhill Road was built by the British Army in 1969 but this didn't end the fighting between Protestants and Catholics. They attacked one another over the walls. In 1982, the height of the wall was raised to 30 feet. Other walls came up one by one.
If anything breaks the colour monotony, a visit to Belfast showed, it was the political graffiti. The future does not hold great promise. The Protestant and Catholic children of Northern Ireland go to different schools along different sides of the dividing walls. Children on the other side, they know, are different.
If some walls are even higher, they are at the police stations. Concrete towers overlook these walls. Machine-gun barrels stick out through holes built into the towers. Policemen from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) keep a grim watch through bullet-proof glass.
It takes the police half an-hour sometimes to respond to a call. "We never know whether it is a genuine call or a trap for the police," says a senior RUC officer. The police usually travel in convoys of armoured jeeps with bullet-proof glass. Two policemen wearing bullet-proof helmets peer through the roof with machine-guns pointing in opposite directions.
Northern Ireland remains under British rule and is administered from London. Elections to its assembly have not been held since 1972. British leaders who have for years been talking about the need for elections in Kashmir are nowhere near beginning that process within Northern Ireland.
More than 3,000 people have been killed in violence in Northern Ireland since then, though killings have come down under the recent cease-fire. Allegations of human rights violations abound in the region. Terrorism in Northern Ireland is usually associated with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) which is fighting for the merger of Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic. But in recent years, Protestant groups, called the Paramilitaries, have killed more people than the IRA.
The uneasy ceasefire that blessed Northern Ireland since 1994 has been cracked recently by sporadic bomb attacks apparently launched by the IRA. The breakdown in political discussion last month has prompted fears that violence could grow.
바카라 웹사이트Several indications have surfaced of a growing tension. Recently, a gang of about 500 Protestants gathered to attack Catholics on their way to attend Mass at a church in Ballymena in Northern Ireland, about 25 miles north of Belfast. The police, called in to protect the Catholics, were attacked and a petrol bomb hurled at them. And a bus was set on fire.
Through the years of violence, more than 100,000 people have left Belfast to seek shelter in some of the smaller, safer towns. The political stalemate has led to reports of tension also in the other major town in Northern Ireland—Londonderry to Protestants, simply Derry to Catholics. But not all towns are safe as the people are gradually beginning to realise. The area around Armagh city to the west of Belfast has come to be known as the 'murder' triangle.
All this, a commentator wrote in The Guardian, is among White European Christians. If they need walls to keep them from killing one another, what hope for the rest of the world where divisions seem to run deeper? In Kashmir, the situation is now better than anyone could have hoped for two years ago. But Northern Ireland is sliding back into violence and political stalemate with little light at the end of the tunnel.
On December 10, Secretary for Northern Ireland Sir Patrick Mayhew announced an extra £120 million for security in Northern Ireland because of resumed violence. "The IRA's abominable ending of its ceasefire, witnessed in the bombings earlier last year and recent terrorist atrocities, means that more resources need to be allocated to security and compensation," he said.
MARTIN McGuinness, chief negotiator for Sinn Fein, the Catholic political arm of the IRA, said the same evening that chances of another IRA ceasefire were "virtually non-existent".
At the heart of the problem is the question of including the Sinn Fein in talks. British Prime Minister John Major, who needs the support of the Protestant Ulster Unionist Party to patch together some sort of majority, ruled out talks with Sinn Fein. In the face of that condition, the IRA has refused to offer another ceasefire.
The problem of Northern Ireland may be simple to understand, but it has not been simple to solve. Of its population of about 1.5 million, 58 per cent is Protestant. Political Protestant groups, called the Unionists, want union with Britain. The Catholic groups, the Republicans, want merger with the Republic of Ireland.
Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Ireland claim that Northern Ireland is very much a part of that country. To the Protestants, this is Northern Ireland. To Catholics, it is only the north of AFP Ireland. Both sides have enough guns to back their claims. There is little talk here of any third option of independence.
Negotiations are bogged down on the issue of surrender of weapons. Major has not said that the sky is the limit. But he did say that if renunciation of violence becomes permanent, "then many options are open." But first, Sinn Fein and the IRA must give up arms, Major insists. On the other hand, the Sinn Fein first wants progress towards a solution before talking about giving up arms.
British Labour MP Gerald Kaufman, who headed a strong campaign in support of self-determination in Kashmir, has often repeated what he calls a fundamental difference between the Indian approach to Kashmir and the British approach on Northern Ireland. The British, Kaufman says, are ready for any democratic solution that has majority support, even if that means secession from Britain. He did not, however, say what the British is doing to make those brave words possible. Chances of바카라 웹사이트 brokering a peace look remote if both sides astutely stick to their ends.
Northern Ireland is the Ulster region of Ireland. When the British vacated Ireland in 1921, they kept Ulster province with its large Protestant majority, which had been demanding a union with Britain. And so Ireland was partitioned. "This is the problem," said a senior Sinn Fein leader. "First, the British ensured a Protestant majority in Ulster and now they say let the majority decide because we are democratic." The British approach has been demographic before it could be democratic.
Violence after the partition left hundreds dead. Seventy-five years later, the violence that never died down, has been resumed yet again. A political convention brings serial visits from British MPs asking questions about Kashmir, with Indian officials in a scramble to offer explanations. Indian leaders who visit Britain never talk about Northern Ireland. The problems in the British backyard are now growing.
