Aug. 16, 2002
Catholic School Attacked in Antrim

A Catholic primary school in Co Antrim suffered serious  damage to two classrooms in a gasoline bomb attack last  night.  The Lourdes school in Whitehead, near Larne was raided by three people yesterday evening, a PSNI spokesman said.

Two temporary classrooms and computer equipment stored in them were badly damaged. No arrests were made. Police are also investigating an incident in which a number
of shots were fired at a house in Ballyduff, Newtownabbey, last night. There were no injuries in the attack which took place before 2300 GMT last night.

Meanwhile, a series of paint-bomb attacks on the homes of three Catholic families in Antrim on Wednesday were condemned by SDLP member Donovan McClelland.

McClelland said there was a "worrying pattern" of  orchestrated sectarian violence and intimidation emerging  in Antrim. He urged those with information to come forward.

The South Antrim MLA said: "I am especially concerned about the wall of silence emanating from the unionist community in the area. I would urge unionist community leaders to use their influence to bring this campaign of intimidation to an end."

Sinn Féin councillor Mr. Martin Meehan blamed loyalists for the paint-bomb attacks and confirmed his party had compiled a dossier of incidents in Antrim. The report revealed that over 35 Catholic families were forced from their homes in Co. Antrim this year.

And in East Belfast, Short Strand residents have accused the PSNI of assisting loyalists during this week's riots on the estate's interfaces.  Locals claim they watched cops deliberately slicing open hoses in the Clandeboye Gardens area before reversing over and squashing their nozzles.

Hoses were fitted to water hydrants in the estate at the beginning of May to protect homes from loyalist gasoline bomb attack.  Clandeboye Drive great grandmother Rita Fitzsimons believes the PSNI want to see Catholic homes burned.

"Why else would they destroy the hoses we have fixed in the streets," asked the 71-year-old.  "I am disgusted by their behavior." However, the PSNI have denied the allegations branding them as "unfounded."

In response to another week of rioting and violence, Short  Strand residents held a Wednesday night protest on the Mountpottinger Road while an Orange parade marched past the area.   Last weekend, nationalists had blamed Apprentice Boys marchers on instigating a weekend of violence in East  Belfast. And following Wednesday's Orange march there was yet again more rioting.

Short Strand councillor Joe O'Donnell admitted that tension in the Short Strand was now at breaking point. The Sinn Féin man was speaking after up to 1,000 loyalists gathered on the Albertbridge Road this week following an impromptu mass meeting in the loyalist Cluan Place.

O'Donnell claims the East Belfast UDA organized the show of strength in an attempt to strike fear into the  Short Strand residents.   "Known loyalists, led by the UDA's East Belfast Brigadier,  were seen leaving a pub on Castlereagh Street and congregating on the Albertbridge Road," he explained.

"Loyalists were trying to force their way into Cluan Place but they just ended up fighting with the cops. I believe they were planning to launch an all out assault on the Short Strand." O'Donnell says every resident in the Short Strand has been directly affected by the last four months of violence.

"Pipe bombs, fireworks, bottles, ball bearings and bricks have rained down on this community like confetti," he explained. "And what have the PSNI done - assaulted Short Strand residents, raided homes and fired plastic bullets. What we are seeing here is not a tit-for-tat sectarian battleground, it's a loyalist pogrom being allowed to happen because of an inadequate police service."

However, a PSNI spokesman dismissed Donnell's claims as "nonsense."

"We have remained fair and even throughout what has been a very trying situation," he added.

In North Belfast, Catholic residents and Sinn Féin claimed that lives will be lost unless the UDA ends its campaign of violence. The warning comes after three weeks of escalated trouble in the area, including 15 bomb attacks, nine shooting incidents and attacks on people and property.
 

Residents said they lived in constant fear for their lives and that they believed the UDA would not stop until they had killed someone. One woman, who did not wish to be named, said she was afraid to go to bed at night in case of an attack on her home. She said: "I have a 13-month-old baby in the house who's been put out 12 times in the last three weeks."

The woman said a pipe-bomb type device was thrown into the  alleyway at the back of her house yesterday. "It's not just night time it's happening now, it's during the day as well.  It's going to happen. Someone is going to die unless it stops."

Another resident said the attacks were constant. "It just never stops. This is not living. There's no life in this."

Calling on the UDA to end the violence, Sinn Féin councillor Margaret McClenaghan said: "There is a clear pattern to these attacks.  However in the last two weeks, much of the focus of UDA activity has been concentrated in the Alliance Avenue and Ardoyne Road areas.  We are very lucky that no-one has been killed or seriously injured."

McClenaghan also criticized the police and the British government's handling of the situation.

"Given the desperate need for security by those attacked there is a failing on behalf of statutory agencies and the NIO, who have been slow to act to provide protection for those who need it.  In particular the refusal of the Housing Executive to demolish derelict buildings at the back of Alliance Avenue has left homes open to attack.  Likewise the unwillingness of the NIO to improve security at the same location provides nationalist residents with no protection whatsoever."

Aug. 19, 2002
Pipe Bomb Attack On Antrim Home

A Catholic couple and their two teenage sons narrowly  avoided injury today in what police believe was a sectarian  attack in Co. Antrim.

A pipe bomb was thrown into their Pearse Park home in  Carrickfergus at about 1:00 GMT on Sunday while the family  was sleeping.

They were awoken by the sound of breaking glass, quickly  followed by an explosion in the kitchen. All the family  members were treated for shock.  The couple had only recently moved into the estate.

Alliance Party assembly member Sean Neeson called for a policy of "zero tolerance" towards paramilitaries in the town. "I think it's absolutely disgraceful that a young family
should be attacked in such a way," he said.

"This is the second major sectarian attack in the  Carrickfergus area within a matter of days.  I feel that it is incumbent upon the whole community to rally round and give support to the family and also to give the police whatever information they can."

Last week, two mobile classrooms were destroyed in an arson attack on a Catholic Primary School in nearby Whitehead.

Aug. 29, 2002
No Signs Of Short Strand Violence Abating

A senior police officer has blamed loyalist and republican  paramilitaries for orchestrating recent violence in east Belfast.  Today, Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan said
members of the Ulster Volunteer Force and the IRA were  involved in disturbances on Wednesday in which 16 soldiers  were injured.

Security forces responded to clashes between rival  communities in the Short Strand/Cluan Place area by firing  plastic bullets. Trouble flared between loyalists in Cluan Place and their  nationalist neighbors in Short Strand.

"We have two factions, two paramilitary groups one on each  side who are orchestrating this within their respective  communities and are attacking the other community for their
own purposes," said Mr. McQuillan.

"We have paramilitary organizations basically pursuing a  war by other means and that other means is street violence.  On the loyalist side it is quite clear to us that the  Ulster Volunteer Force are organizing this violence and on  the nationalist side it is quite clear to us that the IRA  are organizing this violence.  We have seen senior members  of the IRA in the area last night organizing some of the violence."

McQuillan added there would be a change in police tactics on Thursday night which would involve a bigger security presence in the area. He said officers would provide a buffer between the  communities.

 
Short Strand residents displayed part of a pipe bomb, one of four they say were thrown into their area during Wednesday's clashes.

Fireworks were also used to attack nationalist homes, with  one device punching a hole in a roof of a house.

Sinn Féin councillor Jonathan O Brien said that the  residents in Short Strand's Clandeboye area had suffered "one of the most concerted onslaughts on their  homes and and lives from loyalist attackers and units of  the PSNI."

Two of the families made homeless in the attack had previously met Cllr O'Brien in Cork as earlier in August, he said, and a woman with four young children was taken away by ambulance after her home was attacked by acid bombs, which were also thrown at other
homes. 

He said there were attacks with blast bombs and rockets  and, despite there being 30 PSNI armored vehicles and a  police helicopter immediately overhead, nothing had been
done to prevent the attacks. 

The police were "contributing to the atmosphere of siege  and fear in the area" he added, and plastic bullets had  been fired at residents.

Cllr O Brien said he had video evidence which, he  claims, "clearly and irrefutably shows the RUC standing by  in previous attacks as masked men hurl devices at the residents."

Meanwhile, Security Minister Jane Kennedy has said a  political settlement is the only solution to the continuing  violence in the east of the city.

Speaking today, Kennedy said security measures such as CCTV cameras only provided a short-term solution.  "In terms of a security response to the problems, cameras,  walls, barriers peace lines are short term measures," she  said.

"We need to see a political solution and that is what we are working to achieve.  That is what Des Browne has been engaged in over the summer talking to the political representatives of these communities urging them to show commitment, the compromise that is necessary and indeed the leadership that will be able to bring these communities who are war with each other to a state of peace."

In the early hours of Thursday, British soldiers fired 17 baton rounds during a fresh outbreak of disturbances.

The wife of a unionist councillor, Sonia Copeland, was treated by soldiers after she was hit on the head with a caustic substance which burned her.

The trouble came hours after Ulster Unionist leader and Northern Ireland First Minister David Trimble visited the loyalist side of the area.

Constable Colin Cramphorn on Wednesday about continuing sectarian violence in east Belfast and in the north of the city. He said the police needed to be given more resources to stop the trouble.

There has been continuing sectarian violence at interface areas for several months.  The British government has been urged to step in and put an end to the violence.
 
 

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