ULSTER is plunged into an ominous political vacuum today as the Unionist refusal to share power with Sinn Fein puts the peace process into limbo and risks the return of paramilitary violence.

It is a sad departure for those who have worked so hard to draw together both sides of the Northern Ireland divide - not least the deeply disappointed Prime Ministers of Britain and Ireland.

But as this breakdown emerges - with only the prospect of a review of the situation some months hence offering any hope of a resumption of the power-sharing negotiations - there will be many who will resignedly sigh that, ultimately, it was the inevitable outcome simply because inherent in the supremacist mentality of Ulster's Protestants is the belief that the province's Catholic minority is a lesser breed whom they will never treat as equals.

And translated into political expression, is not this outlook the one which - having been coupled for generations with manifest oppression and discrimination - lit the touch-paper 30 years ago for the Troubles when legitimate Catholic demands for civil rights were met by the imbued "No surrender" stance that remains latent across the whole spectrum of the Unionist parties?

There is, of course, reason in the Unionists' refusal to share power with Sinn Fein in the proposed Northern Ireland executive when the IRA's commitment to giving up its weapons remained far from cast-iron and when they could not be satisfied with the government's "fail-safe" guarantees if decommissioning did not occur.

But many observers will believe that, whatever reasons they cite and however valid they may be, the real, basic reason that efforts to introduce power-sharing in Northern Ireland have again failed is that still too many of the Protestant community simply do not want it because they hate the Catholics - and that because their politicians are prepared to risk peace in order to prevent it.

This is shameful. But the IRA are also far exempt from blame.

They have perverted what commenced as an honest civil rights cause by bloodshed, gangsterism and their own naked sectarian hatred and, by their outrages, have only added to Protestant bitterness and mistrust.

But, this time, they have thrown away an opportunity to break through that barrier by hanging on to their weapons so determinedly - when at least some decommissioning before now would have been a tangible sign of their sincerity.

Yet they gave none and left the Unionists with their excuse to back away from the peace process.

What, however, is most shameful is that it is the politicians of both sides who have betrayed the people.

For, unlike them, the vast majority do not have the prejudices which have led to this dangerous juncture.

They wanted peace and want it still - and have been let down by the bigotry they have voted against, but which their representatives have perpetuated, and some more than others.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.