ONCE more the bigots and the warmongers seem to winning the battle in Britain's Bosnia - Ulster.

A thousand more British troops are being sent into the province, to add to the 17,500 already there, as the peace process stutters to a halt before the burning barricades of Drumcree.

As in Bosnia, it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad.

After Manchester we all know that the band of villains, extortionists and murderers who glory in the title of the Irish Republican Army have no intention of participating in a peaceful solution. Nor do their two-faced apologists in Sinn Fein, who have long since lost their grip on that evil movement.

But the Protestant Orangemen and their bile-spitting, pig-headed leader the Reverend Ian Paisley are equally to blame for the bloody stalemate that is Northern Ireland.

For the want of marching in a way calculated to provoke the Catholic community, they have done almost as much to ruin the peace process as the Manchester and Docklands bombs.

Only the fact that neither the IRA nor the Protestant paramilitaries want to make the first move to resume a killing spree on their doorstep has so far prevented a full-scale return to the Troubles.

That day is surely coming and most of us will be left wondering why young British men should still have to pay the ultimate price for keeping the peace.

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