FRFI 178 April / May 2004
In the north of Ireland there is stalemate over the restoration of political power to the Stormont Assembly. The review of the Good Friday Agreement will continue. Further concessions will be demanded from the Republican Movement against a backdrop of continued state discrimination and loyalist violence and intimidation against Catholics. The concessions already made by the Republican movement are causing open friction within the nationalist community. Whatever the pace of ‘progress’ it will take more than a flying visit from British Prime Minister Tony Blair to resolve the inherent contradictions within the sectarian state.
The Stormont Assembly was suspended on 14 October 2002. This followed a widely-publicised police raid on the Sinn Fein offices at Stormont amidst allegations of an IRA ‘spy ring’ at the heart of the Assembly. Since then, there has been a 17-month wrangle and political manoeuvrings to re-establish Stormont rule. The fact that all charges of spying against the arrested Sinn Fein officials have now been dropped through lack of evidence has received little press attention.
The dirty sectarian war being waged by the reactionary loyalist terror groups continues. Figures recently released by the Northern Ireland Office reveal the extent of the widespread terror campaign. In the twelve months to January this year loyalists were responsible for at least seven killings, 135 shootings and 41 bombings. In recent weeks the loyalists have continued their low-level terror campaign, inflicting misery on the Catholic community. On 11 March, a Catholic family in the staunchly loyalist town of Larne in County Antrim were forced from their home following a pipe-bomb attack in the middle of the night. Fortunately the bomb failed to explode. It is believed that the UVF carried out the attack.
The previous day a 13-year-old Catholic schoolboy was treated for cuts and bruises at Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry following an attack in the loyalist Waterside area of the city. The attack was carried out by a group of loyalist thugs who made a series of anti-Catholic remarks, including ‘You look like a fenian’, before the brutal assault took place; it has since emerged that there have been a number of similar attacks in this areas of the city.
The activities of loyalist terror squads in the greater Lisburn, Lagan Valley area over the last four years have been exposed recently by a local Sinn Fein councillor in a detailed dossier. The list details over 70 serious incidents including gun, petrol and pipe-bomb attacks, arson and murder. Nine Catholic churches have been repeatedly targeted, as have Catholic businesses, many of which have been forced to close following repeated intimidation. In November 2003, a series of sectarian attacks against Catholics socialising in Lisburn City culminated in the murder of James McMahon. No one has ever been charged with the crime. Lisburn City is now effectively a no-go area for Catholics.
The leadership of the Unionist community has been silent about these attacks, and there has been little activity from the re-branded RUC, the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The Lisburn and Larne examples are far from isolated incidents. In Newtownabbey the situation has been even worse. Since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement there have been six killings carried out by loyalist death squads. A campaign against Catholics in the South Antrim area peaked during the summer of 2002 when over 60 families were forced to flee their homes following loyalist attacks – but these are not deemed news worthy.
Northern Ireland is a sectarian statelet which cannot be reformed. Discrimination and sectarian violence are inextricably linked. In a damning indictment of the widespread institutionalised sectarian nature of the Six Counties a statistical breakdown of the Newtownabbey council workforce revealed that 88.5% is Protestant while 11.5% are Catholic. The promise of the Good Friday Agreement to provide equality and peace for the nationalist people is being exposed as a sham.
There is now growing friction within the nationalist community over the concessions that are being made to support the Good Friday Agreement. Two councillors, Martin Cunningham and John Kelly, recently resigned from Sinn Fein in protest at the lack of democracy and debate over party policy. These resignations came at a time of increased pressure on Sinn Fein. In February the media was filled with coverage of an alleged IRA attack on leading dissident Republican Bobby Tohill in Belfast on 20 February. Whatever the truth of these reports it is inevitable that the Republican movement will come under pressures from within its constituency over the lack of political progress.
Paul Mallon
