ARDOYNE FACES FRESH TRAUMA AFTER PARADE APPEAL FAILS

Date: 11th Aug '02

Name: RM Irish news article

ARDOYNE FACES FRESH TRAUMA AFTER PARADE APPEAL FAILS


After weeks of loyalist paramilitary attacks, the besieged
nationalist community of Ardoyne in north Belfast will tomorrow
face the humilitation of a sectarian loyalist march being forced
their neighbourhood.

Throughout the community's annual Ardoyne Fleadh festival this
week, loyalists have steadily increased the number and severity
of bomb and gun attacks in advance of Saturday's parade by the
Protestant Apprentice Boys organisation.

Ardoyne residents have always strongly objected to loyalist
marches being forced through what is arguably the most
combustible interface area in the North. Efforts to get the
loyalist marching orders to take part in cross-community talks to
resolve the parades issues have been routinely rejected.

A parade earlier this year by the Orange Order organisation saw
members deliberately taunting Ardoyne residents, actions which
the Parades Commission said had "appaled" them. However, the
Parades Commission last night turned down an appeal from Sinn
Fein to have Saturday's 'feeder' march diverted away from the
contentious section of the route.

The main march by the Apprentice Boys takes place in Derry on the
same day.

Last night Sinn Fein councillor Eoin O Broin said the Parades
Commission had rewarded the Apprentice Boys for their refusal to
engage in dialogue and have made a resolution to this issue less
likely in the immediate future.

"It is another slap in the face after a week of very serious
loyalist-inspired violence," he said.

"The Ardoyne community is very tense and this decision has done
nothing to help ease those tensions. Only last night we received
a warning that loyalists were preparing to attack the Ardoyne
Fleadh this weekend."

Fresh attacks have been mounted by the UDA every night this week
including last night, when a number of Catholic homes in Alliance
Avenue were damaged by petrol bombs and missiles thrown across
from the loyalist Glenbryn area.

ADAMS VISITS ARDOYNE

As the attacks escalated this week, Sinn Fein President Gerry
Adams visited the area on Wednesday to talk with the residents
who have been affected. He was accompanied by local Assembly
member Gerry Kelly and Dublin TD Aengus O Snodaigh.

Mr Kelly described the enormous number of attacks on the
nationalist residents in Alliance Avenue over the preceding two
weeks, largely unreported in the media.

"Last night, one house was hit by at least five petrol bombs, and
an old age pensioner had to be taken to hospital," he said. "Two
pipe bombs, one a very large one, were thrown over the peace line
into these back gardens."

He pointed out that the intensity of the attacks over the weekend
was in all probability an attack on the festival currently taking
place in the area. "The purpose of the festival has always been
to give people some sort of respite from the interface violence
that was going on. Obviously that festival is now being
attacked."


'COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY'

Gerry Adams said that the Sinn Fein message was very
straightforward: "These sectarian attacks have to stop.

"I think there is a collective responsibility here; we are trying
to fulfill our responsibilities - and I think civic society has
responded positively, generally speaking. I think it is fair to
say that the community, places like the Short Strand and other
beleaguered communities have responded in a very disciplined and
calm way."

He acknowledged that within the broader unionist and Protestant
communities, people wanted the attacks on nationalists to stop,
but he added, there was a failure of political leadership.

"There is also," he continued, "within the British agencies, the
police service and the other military and intelligence agencies,
a view which ranges from tolerance of loyalist violence right
through to an involvement of British agents in some of the
organisations. For example, it is publicly known that the UDA is
heavily infiltrated by Special Branch and other agents.

"So it cannot be left to the community or civic society. The
British state has a responsibility to sort this out. And those on
the Executive, particularly the First Minister and the Ulster
Unionist Party, also have a responsibility to sort this out."

Dismissing unionist assembly member Nelson McCausland's
accusation that Sinn Fein was promoting a "vision for a
unionist-free North Belfast," Adams said: "If Nelson McCausland
is trying to justify these attacks or provide excuses for them,
he could have picked a more credible argument. There's no such
thing as a unionist-free North Belfast, or a unionist-free
Ireland. No one in Sinn Fein wants that. What we want is this
city, in particular, to be a shared city. We want all sections of
the community to be able to live in peace and equality."

"Nelson McCausland and his party will not talk to members of Sinn
Fein. They will sit in an Assembly with us, in councils and in a
range of other institutions. But when it comes to facing up to
the real problems, the DUP hide. They don't have the moral
courage to come forward to talk to Gerry Kelly and other
representatives about these matters.

"How can you blame a 17-year-old who has been wound up by some
drug pusher in the UDA when he throws petrol bombs or blast
bombs, when his political leadership won't even talk to the
people who are on the receiving end of all this."

Adams said that leaders of the nationalist community in north
Belfast and elsewhere in the city were totally committed to
ending sectarianism. He pointed out that members of the Short
Strand community were hosting a debate on sectarianism on
Saturday evening to try and talk through the issues.

"There may have been failures at times," he acknowledged.
"Protestant people may have been on the receiving end of violence
from others, and we have repudiated that very strongly." But, he
continued, on the part of Sinn Fein, "there is no failure of
leadership, no failure of a willingness to confront this and sort
it out".

He said that, confronted with the the ongoing and concerted UDA
campaign, nationalists had been angered by the "almost daily
stories about the IRA while the loyalist campaign was being
presented as a tit-for-tat campaign and people within the
RUC/PSNI were feeding stories to the media. Have no doubt, there
are elements who don't want this peace process to work."

c. RM Distribution and others. Articles may be reprinted with credit.

RM Distribution
Irish Republican News and Information
http://irlnet.com/rmlist/

PO Box 160, Galway, Ireland Phone/Fax: (353)1-6335113
PO Box 8630, Austin TX 78713, USA mailto:rmlist-reply@irlnet.com

Back to discussion page                    RA home page