Roy Magee - 1930-2009

I've read on BBC news that Roy Magee has died. He was a Presbyterian minister in Belfast who helped to broker the 1994 ceasefire of Northern Ireland's loyalist paramilitaries. Magee said that he first made "loose" friendships and contacts in the early 1970s with people who became key figures in the Combined Loyalist Military Command. Money goes into war-making or short-term efforts at peacekeeping. Instead, we need to invest more in long-term peace building. If we want (domestically) stronger communities and less gangs, or if we want (externally) defused tensions in the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan, and Kashmir, it's not an overnight process.