Terrorism must be rejected

THE appeal for no retaliation issued by the mother of a 19-year-old Catholic shot dead by Loyalists has set a glowing example for the North's divided community.

As Northern Secretary Dr John Reid has warned, no community grievance or political cause could ever justify such action.

Amid a campaign of orchestrated violence, Gerard Lawlor was killed because he was a Catholic.

Sectarian strife and mayhem are deliberately being whipped up ahead of British prime minister Tony Blair’s statement on the state of paramilitary ceasefires this week. The aim is to undermine the peace process and bring down the Assembly.

There is an urgent need for community leaders to exert their influence in an effort to defuse the violence and bring the killings to an end.

If sanity and peace are to prevail on the troubled streets of the North, ordinary decent people on both sides of the divide must reject terrorism.