terrorists, at least until the terrorists lay down their arms and agree to act like civilised people.

Thus, from Palestine to Northern Ireland to Lebanon, you have situations where agreements and settlements can be reached, but only when preconditions have been met to ensure that neither side is not taken advantage of.

A similar situation exists with regard to the current peace talks being mediated by the Police between neighbourhood gangs in Bermuda.

This process has been fraught with risk from the beginning. With more meetings due to be held last night, it is possible that some kind of agreement by the members of these groups will be reached.

But there are signs that the process is starting to unravel, precisely because the cardinal rule that you cannot negotiate with terrorists is not being upheld.

Thus you have situations where the parties involved in these talks begin to question who is leading whom and where they are going.

The media has come under pressure from the Police not to call these groups of young men gangs because this gives offence in some way.

When these "gang-like'' organisations feel offended by statements in the newspapers or on television, as happened when singer Ras Mykkal noted that some of the people involved in the talks are unsavoury, these groups decide they do not want to talk any more and apparently threaten a person who is doing nothing more than exercising his right to free speech.

What is going on here? At the heart of these negotiations, if they can be called that, are a group of teenagers who want to fight each other and seem to have no hesitation about using weapons to do so.

There are also older men from the neighbourhoods who say they want to keep the peace and claim to have some control over their younger members.

Yet there is no question that some of the people involved are criminals and that threats against innocent bystanders should be unacceptable.

The point of getting gangs to stop fighting each other is to set them on a path where they become normal and contributing members of society who do not react to problems with violence.

If, instead, they choose to use the threat of violence as a bargaining tool then the process cannot work.

If the peace talks are a carrot, then the Police must also remind these gang leaders that there is a stick too; that people who break the law, or who threaten others, will be caught and will be punished.