Pasting Paisley

In writing about the Anglo-Irish Agreement and its effect on Northern Ireland ((LETTERS, May 11)), Ian Paisley Jr. says the agreement "endangers the civil rights of citizens . . . of the United Kingdom ((in)) Northern Ireland." He maintains that democracy there "has ceased to exist." Paisley is wrong on both points. The agreement declares that Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic will never be reunified without Protestant consent. As for democracy, the Anglo-Irish Agreement was specifically designed to foster democracy by granting rights to the large Roman Catholic minority, which until then was powerless and had consistently been denied its rights.

J. Elizabeth Murray

Severna Park, Md.

Paisley discusses only one side of the Northern Ireland situation. He contends that "democracy has ceased to exist since the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985." The sad truth is that democracy has never existed in the province of Ulster. The Stormont government, prorogued in 1972, was the embodiment of a majority dictatorship, and as such officially tolerated and promoted various forms of discrimination, social and institutional, against the minority population. Gerrymandering, housing and job discrimination, police brutality and an incredibly repressive state-security apparatus were all consistent manifestations of the "democracy" whose passing Paisley laments. Perhaps he should follow the advice he offers Margaret Thatcher and look to affairs in his own backyard.

Hugh J. Singerline

Montclair, N.J.