From the NY Times:

Re "Report Says British Officers Helped Kill Ulster Catholics" (news article, April 18):

Sir John Stevens's report that the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary colluded with Protestant paramilitaries to kill Catholics in Northern Ireland in the late 1980's confirms what many observers have suspected for some time.

Can there be any wonder that the Irish Republican Army is reluctant to give up all its arms?

Well, yes. What the British did in the north of Ireland in the twentieth century was pretty terrible, even indefensible if you believe some of the claims (i.e. that the British troops planned Bloody Sunday in order to piss Catholics off and damage the process for peaceful civil rights in Ireland). But I'm not sure what the relevance is to today. The British seem to be making a good faith effort for a peaceful solution to the Troubles, but some of the other groups (and not just the pIRA here, they're just the most visible) need to be willing to meet them halfway for the Good Friday Agreement to have any chance of working. The British attitude to Protestant paramilitaries has changed since the 1980s and what happened then should not be an obstacle to peace now.

The I.R.A. has sustained its cease-fire since 1996, but clearly, it feels that it and the Catholic community would be vulnerable to more attacks if the I.R.A. disarmed unilaterally.

And it probably would be. But I think this agreement is the best chance for peace and that should outweigh a lot of other things. I feel pretty scwicky about a parliament at Stormont too, not because of what the British did, but because of what the original parliament of Stormont did to Catholics. The British army entered the north of Ireland to protect Catholics from Protestants, not vice versa. But this parliament was representative and would probably be able to protect the Catholic community from attacks as effectively as the pIRA, if it's just given a chance to work.

The Good Friday Agreement calls for the general demilitarization of Northern Ireland, so the onus of disarmament should not fall on the I.R.A. alone.

I don't dispute that. But the pIRA is the most visible (and most powerful) paramilitary group in the north of Ireland. If they aren't willing to disarm, none of the other groups will either. Some sort of timetable, something, indicating their efforts towards disarmament would be a good start.

All paramilitary groups in the province should disarm simultaneously,

In an ideal world this would happen. But in this world, the pIRA should take some leadership to support the peace process, particularly since they undermined it so visibly in October.

the British Army should withdraw,

Not yet. At least not to my mind. I believe the British really want this agreement to work, and as such are committed to maintaining order in the north. They might very well be able to keep the balance of power until the parliament at Stormont (if it is able to function again) is strong enough to keep order itself.

This argument is pretty much moot until Home Rule is restored anyway, which won't happen until the pIRA agrees to make some signifcant steps towards disarmament. As long as the north of Ireland is ruled from London, the British army will be there.

and the Northern Ireland police must be reformed so that the Catholic minority can trust them.

I won't argue here. The RUC is pretty terrible, which is part of the reason the British army should stay in the north of Ireland for the time being.

T. W. HEYCK
Evanston, Ill., April 18, 2003
The writer is a professor of history at Northwestern University.