*Ø* Blogmanac | Trimble withdraws UUP from review

Stalemate continues in Northern Ireland
Gerry Moriarty, Irish Times

"The future of current attempts to re-establish devolution in Northern Ireland was cast into serious doubt after Ulster Unionist leader Mr David Trimble yesterday withdrew his party from the review of the Belfast [Good Friday] Agreement.

"Mr Trimble, who is meeting the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, in Downing Street today [Wednesday], insisted he would not engage further in the review until the British and Irish governments agreed to sanctions against Sinn Féin over the alleged IRA attack on Mr Bobby Tohill."

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However, Vincent Browne had this to say in the Irish Times on February 25, about the same alleged attack:

A scam to sabotage NI peace?

"The primary issue to arise from the alleged attempted abduction of Bobby Tohill in Belfast on Friday evening is not whether this represents the IRA's continued paramilitarism but whether it is another scam by some security personnel to sabotage the resumption of power-sharing in Northern Ireland.

"Let me deal with the IRA paramilitarism issue first. Of course the IRA has not gone away ...

"[But] The IRA never previously, in its 30-year history, attempted to abduct a person in such a public place. No guns were involved. The attempted abduction took place in close proximity to a police station in the centre of Belfast. The person at the centre of the affair, Bobby Tohill, has given starkly divergent accounts of what happened.

"His background would seem to offer a variety of possible explanations for his involvement in a fracas. But most peculiarly, the people charged with his abduction have not been charged with membership of the IRA. If there was clear evidence for the allegation that they were members of the IRA, how come there is not evidence for charges of membership?"

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