25 YEARS OF KILLING. Trelford Withers, 46, was working last week in his butcher shop in Crossgar, County Down, when a gunman walked in and shot him to death. Three days later, Martin L'Estrange, 36, a printer, was sweeping the floor of his pressroom in Lurgan, County Armagh, when he, too, was slain by a walk-in gunman. Withers was a Protestant, L'Estrange a Roman Catholic. Now, they are statistics -- Withers the 3,165th and L'Estrange the 3,167th victims of Northern Ireland's sectarian strife, an endless conflict that began 25 years ago this week.
That's when British troops were first deployed in Londonderry in the wake of Catholic-led civil rights riots. A generation later, 17,600 British troops are still stationed in Ulster. In between, nearly 650 have been killed on duty and 5,700 injured. Londonderry is now run by a Catholic-dominated council, and tension in the town is much reduced. But a lasting settlement seems as distant as ever.
Hopes that a joint declaration of "fundamental principles" signed by the British and Irish governments last December would persuade Ulster's main terrorist groups to renounce violence and back constitutional talks have proved illusory. Instead, sectarian killings, now mostly by Protestant terrorists, have escalated. The province's mainstream political parties are as deadlocked as ever over how power should be shared. And London and Dublin disagree over what to do next. The grass-roots yearning for peace is now overwhelming. But exploiting this mood to craft a political breakthrough remains hostage to events on the ground. And there the gunmen retain the initiative.
