WITHIN days of hope for lasting settlement in Ulster being rekindled by the London-Dublin "something for everyone" blueprint put to the Stormont multi-party talks, the craving of the province's ordinary people for peace is shattered as bloodshed threatens once more to replace the already-fragile dialogue.

For as the outbreak of tit-for-tat sectarian murders intensifies, Northern Ireland is staring at a future as futile and bloody as all the years of violence it has already suffered.

But just what do the gunmen hope to achieve beyond the wicked fulfilment of revenge?

The depravity of the killings is appalling. And the depth of the sectarian hatred that instigates them is sickening.

Yet is something far more evilly sinister than Ulster's mindless tribal hatred motivating this outburst of murder?

Is there an actual desire for the delicate peace process to collapse, for the ceasefire to end and a new era of forlorn conflict and killing to commence with no end in sight?

The achievement of that goal, if it does underpin these shootings, is one that must be resisted by the ordinary people on both sides of the sectarian and political divide in Ulster.

They must stress to their political representatives at the multi-party talks, who are ultimately the community's link to the major armed factions in the province, that they want no return to wholesale warfare.

The vast majority of ordinary Ulster folk only want dialogue - no matter how difficult and frustrating the process is.

For these murderers are, even more than members of the main paramilitary groups, a minuscule minority whose agenda is madness.

If they are to be allowed to sway and sink the peace process, it will be a triumph for evil.

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