LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: A Commitment to Peace and Prosperity
The Post editorial on the International Fund for Ireland [March 29| raised some serious concerns with those of us who deeply appreciate the usefulness of the fund in attacking the widespread economic deprivation and unemployment in Northern Ireland.</br></br>A cessation of U.S. support would not only seriously hamper the fund's practical work, it would raise questions about U.S. support for the Anglo-Irish process. Such a development would, as the editorial implied, be used by enemies of peaceful change in Northern Ireland, whose diatribes against the International Fund mask the objective of damaging the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the Anglo-Irish process itself.</br></br>The European Community, Canada and New Zealand have followed the lead of the United States in contributing to the fund. In addition to its direct contribution to the fund, the European Community, in its policy toward the single European market, has identified Ireland, North and South, as two of five priority regions in Europe for special aid. This need is reflected in substantial financial support for development programs in Ireland, North and South, during the next five years.</br></br>With the demands that are now emergingÛÓand they should be supportedÛÓfor assistance for Eastern Europe, a fear has arisen that the European Community's assistance to Eastern Europe will be at the expense of the poorer regions of Western Europe. To allay that concern, the European Commission, along with Chancellor Helmut Kohl, has stressed that aid to Eastern Europe will mean no reduction in aid given to the poorer regions of the European Community. We would hope that our friends in the United States would take the same view.</br></br>The region In which I live, the Northwest of Ireland, has the highest unemployment in Western Europe. In some districts, more than 50 percent of our young people are unemployed, a fact not unrelated to the political