
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, September 13, 1994                   TAG: 9409130067
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MOMENTUM

THE RECENT, stepped-up campaign of violence by unionist paramilitary forces in Northern Ireland was, unfortunately, a predictable response to the Irish Republican Army's declaration of a unilateral cease-fire. The IRA is not nearly so threatening to the Protestant radicals as is the possibility of peace.

The question now is: Can progress in negotiations with Dublin and London go far enough, quickly enough to prevent militant IRA leaders from deciding they can no longer stand idle in the face of unionist provocation? If the progress goes far enough, this question won't matter; the IRA will have been marginalized to the point of irrelevance.

Indeed, as long as the seduction to violence can be resisted - and if people of good will determine to make the momentum for peace unstoppable - hope stands a good chance of defeating bitterness. This is so because, as if peace itself weren't prize enough, there is a substantial economic dividend for the combatants to consider.

Scarred by a quarter century of sectarian violence, Northern Ireland would attract far more investment and industry if peace prevails. Tourism, too, would get a boost: It accounts for 1.5 percent of economic activity in Northern Ireland today, compared with 7 percent in the Irish Republic.

This is all part of an edifying world trend. As they fall behind in global economic competition, countries and regions caught up in old sectarian and ethnic conflicts, or distracted from commerce by military complexes and entanglements, are gradually catching on to the cost.

Because investment follows stability, the Irish Protestants and Catholics - like the Bosnians and Serbs, the Israelis and Arabs, and many others - must eventually awaken to the choice they face: Remain stuck in their violent, intractable, unwinnable disputes, and watch the rest of the world pass them by; or put childish things behind, and act on the understanding that peace and prosperity are intertwined.

by CNB