A great deal more to do

national | miscellaneous | news report Sunday June 16, 2002 02:08 by LARRY

This week's loyalist barbarity in East Belfast, however, serves as a sobering reminder of all that has yet to be done.

Sinn Féin's attainment of Belfast's mayoralty on Wednesday and the party's strengthened presence today as Leinster House reopens, are signs that the republican strategy is having a real effect.

Stoning a funeral at St Matthew's Church in the Short Strand was the latest UVF inspired attack on the area to transgress the bounds of common decency. Hemmed in by some of the most zealously loyalist areas in the Six Counties, the small nationalist enclave has seen little dividend from the Peace Process.

Jockeying for position, UDA and UVF factions are now set to up the ante with the onset of the Marching Season, comfortable in the knowledge that the British government will let them act with impunity. Lost lives or serious injury will inevitably ensue.

Despite significant institutional change on this island in the last five years, sectarianism has festered, and even grown. The UDA has polluted the areas it holds with drugs and encourages attacks on nationalist areas for its own cynical ends.

In a worrying development, UVF members are now competing in East Belfast to be seen to be as volatile as their UDA rivals in the North of the city. As the mayhem continues unabated, short-term and long-term measures to combat sectarianism must emerge to pull Belfast back from the abyss.

Alex Maskey's election and Sinn Féin's advances in the Dáil will give the party extra leverage in focusing attention on this and other related issues.

A combination of the successes achieved to date and the many frustrating outstanding issues that still remain to be resolved will give republicans plenty of impetus to keep building political strength.