In their bid to be seen as the true defenders of unionism and to re-assert their control over the Shankill Road, Adair and his gang turned their sights onto the nationalist community of Belfast. At the beginning of August the West Belfast Brigade of the UDA/UFF held a press conference where it declared that 30 loyalist homes had been attacked in the area, and then threatened to kill anyone attacking Protestant homes. Their claim was a lie, as even the Housing Executive announced that they hadn’t recorded any attacks on loyalist homes. But they had recorded 21 attacks on Catholic homes in the period leading up to Drumcree. The UDA/UFF statement was in fact just a cover for their sectarian campaign:
- On Sunday 13 August at 7.30 in the morning a mini-bus full of masked and armed loyalists spewed out its contents into a nationalist enclave off the Limestone Road in the north of Belfast. Using sledgehammers they attempted to batter down the front doors of Catholic homes, attacking residents, paint-bombing the outside of houses and smashing up parked cars. The RUC arrived when it was all over, predictably ignoring the masked loyalists as they marched away.
- The following morning, petrol was poured through the letter box of a Catholic home in Bawnmore, north Belfast and set alight, whilst a day later, a house in the nationalist Cliftonville district of Belfast was sprayed with bullets, smashing the front windows but luckily missing the occupants.
- On Thursday 17 August, shortly before midnight, three homes in the nationalist district of the Lower Falls, Belfast, were attacked by a loyalist mob. Paint-bombs were thrown and windows smashed.
- Three days later, loyalist gangs stoned a rally in the Clonard area of Belfast, marking the opening of a memorial garden to commemorate those who had lost their lives in the struggle against British occupation.
- The attempt by Adair and his UDA/UFF gang to gain control of the Shankill has led to bitter conflict with the UVF and their political wing the Popular Unionist Party (PUP), who support the `peace agreement’. The struggle also involves control of protection rackets and the drug trade.
Anti-agreement forces within the UUP, alongside the DUP, are rallying around opposition to the Patten Report and any reform of the RUC. They are using the present situation to attempt to force even more concessions from the Labour government. The position of Trimble as leader of the UUP is again under threat. A `steering group’ in the UUP has now resurrected the issue of IRA decommissioning, calling for a new three month time limit on the IRA to destroy some of its weapons.
Labour’s policing bill is already a much watered-down implementation of the Patten Report. But Sinn Fein is so tied to the peace process that it can do nothing about it, and has retreated from calling for the disbandment of the RUC to a demand for the implementation of the Patten Report. Differences in the republican movement over the `peace agreement’ came into the open once more with the missile attack on MI6 headquarters in London at the end of September. Labour’s imperialist `peace agreement’ is in danger of unravelling.
