AFTER dissident republicans shot two soldiers dead, it created political difficulties for Sinn Fein. However, after the murder of a policeman, the party weighed in against the dissidents. Its hesitation to comment over the soldiers’ murders was drowned out by its strong condemnation of dissidents in the wake of the PSNI officer’s shooting. So I wonder what SF thinks of this recent blog by its youth wing. Admittedly, it’s pretty routine for Ogra Shinn Fein to call for British Army recruitment stalls to be banned from Queen’s University, but the tone of the language used raises questions. Is it just empty rhetoric? Was there a protest? How can OSF possibly stop this happening? Does protest change these things in the new dispensation anyway? Or are they just full of hot air?
In the current climate, if someone decided to follow the statement through to OSF’s logical conclusion “to reject the presence of this war force on our campus”, on which side of the fence would these mainstream republicans be on – with Sinn Fein or with the dissidents?
I imagine QUB’s ceasefire soldiers hope they’ll never be confronted with such a decision.
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