I must write to register my profound disgust at the way Omagh District Council organised the commemoration event for the innocent victims of republican terrorism on August 15, 2008.

This was a difficult time for the innocent victims of terrorism in the entire area, and the needless controversy that surrounded the event was an utter disgrace. When will the appeasement of PIRA/SF terrorists (in government) cease? When will civic leaders come to their senses and support the good, and seek to punish the evil?

It will be difficult to calculate or even estimate the damage and hurt caused by having a PIRA/SF councillor officially open the garden – this was council's doing. The sheer hypocrisy of it was nauseating in the extreme. This politically orchestrated demonstration of the sanitation of the evil deeds carried out by republican terrorists was profoundly damaging, and beyond computation. To have invited PIRA/SF politicians, a terrorist (composit) organisation, to an event to mark the 10th anniversary of a massacre of the innocents, was beyond belief, and the council chief executive's role in bringing this about was clearly pivotal. Then to have a PIRA/SF council chairman to officially open the garden, was to add insult to injury.

Watching the TV coverage of this event was painful, and I found anger rising within me. Seeing Martin McGuinness and Jeffrey Donaldson sitting shoulder by shoulder was nauseating in the extreme, but as Mr Donaldson now sees it, "he served with the UDR and Mr McGuinness served with the PIRA". They were both serving 'soldiers' who were prosecuting legitimate aims. How sickening! And their government department has responsibility for victims! If the situation was not so serious, it would be laughable.

It is abundantly clear that terrorism has polluted democracy to a serious degree, both at local and regional/national levels; it has undermined and perverted democracy to a far greater extent than we realise, and we are living with the devastating fruits of such compromise between democracy and terrorism.

I hope that those who cherish true democracy will be able to bring about radical change with a view to restoring democracy to Northern Ireland. We were promised that majoritarianism was dead and buried; nothing could be further from the truth, because the artificially created 'majority' that we now have, comprising terrorists and 'democrats,' sees it as its role to impose its will on the still-suffering minority in our country.

Speaking to Omagh victims, they would have been content with a simple memorial stone with an inscription that accurately reflected the atrocity that was visited on the town and district on that unforgettable day, and by whom. Yet it was decided instead on a high-tech carbuncle-type 'thing' that does not reflect accurately what happened on that day, and certainly does not provide the bereaved and injured with a place for quiet and private reflection and thought. It is simply incongruous.

I believe that this has cost the district a massive £250,000. This money was not spent for the benefit of the innocent victims of republican terrorism, but for the self-aggrandisement of the chief executive and terrorist-supporting politicians.

This attempt to re-write history is endemic within our society, and the people who are attempting this are republicans and their supporters. How sad it is that they are being supported in their attempt by civic and political leaders.

I fear that what has been done will have reverberations for a long time to come. Mind you, victims are not strangers to suffering, and we will be made to suffer in the future so long as we are governed by terrorists. Those who support the 'current arrangements' cannot, at the same time, speak of their support for victims while spending time 'under the duvet' with those who made them victims. Such hypocrisy is unacceptable, and results in many victims being now unable to give any credence to those double-speaking civic and political leaders.

J. E. Hazlett Lynch (Dr)