DUP leaders have questions to answer
In echoing the words of US President George Bush, aimed at Taoiseach Bertie Ahern - “those who harbour terrorists are terrorists” - Mr Robinson leaves both himself and the DUP open to accusations of such behaviour.
In 1989, three Ulster loyalists were arrested in Paris when caught handing over ground-to-air missile launchers to a South African diplomat. One of those arrested was an arms instructor in the British Territorial Army and, along with DUP leader Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson, was a founding member of Ulster Resistance - a force recruited to combat the rise of Irish nationalism.
South Africa was a primary source of arms shipments to loyalists in both Scotland and Northern Ireland in exchange for missile parts which were secured at Shorts factory in east Belfast, and members of Ulster Resistance were pivotal to these exchanges.
Apart from lodging a formal complaint with the South African ambassador to Britain, which was ignored, the matter was allowed to die. If, on the basis of the evidence produced in court in Bogota, the Colombia Three were “intricately involved in the global terrorist network”, as Mr Robinson states, then surely he and Dr Paisley have questions to answer regarding their connections with the attempted illegal importation of arms by Ulster Resistance.
Tom Cooper
23 Delaford Lawn
Knocklyon
Dublin 16
