The violence in Northern Ireland

Violence will continue in Northern Ireland, at least for now, but so will the peace process.

Some are psychopaths, some fascists and others simply terrorists. These sick people perpetrated the most cruel and brutal massacre in the 30-year history of the Northern Ireland conflict.

That this massacre took place in times of peace obeys a certain logic. The people who took a bomb into the center of Omagh and gave a misleading warning do not want peace. The fact that an overwhelming majority of Northern Ireland's population wants peace or at least a political process concerns them little.

Well over 90 percent of the Republican movement gave their vote to the Good Friday peace agreement.

But terrorists need sympathizers to survive. These terrorists are only supported by a small percentage of the Republican movement.

And this is too little to win the "long war". Sooner or later, these last terrorists are going to end up where they belong: in prison.

-- Basler Zeitung, Basel, Switzerland