Nationalists pay the price
Laura Friel reports on a New Year when nationalists
once again paid the price of a Unionist refusal to
countenance change
North Belfast grieves again
|
The refusal of Unionists to engage in the peace
process is creating a vacuum which is being filled by
loyalist killings of Catholics.
Gerry Adams
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Overwhelmed with grief, Mary Treanor collapsed during
the funeral of her youngest son, Edmund. The elderly
widow was supported by relatives and friends as the
funeral cortege left St Therese's Church, North Belfast
on the two-mile journey to Carnmoney Cemetery. The
31-year-old Catholic died shortly before midnight on
New Year's Eve, shot by loyalist gunmen during a
sectarian attack on a North Belfast bar.
The fatally wounded man was rushed to the Royal
Victoria Hospital were he died within hours of the
shooting. Edmund Treanor was the ninth Catholic
murdered in a sectarian attack by loyalists in the last
eighteen months. The deaths occurred against the
backdrop of escalating loyalist violence, from mob
intimidation and petrol bombings to gun attacks against
nationalist communities throughout the North.
The Clifton Tavern was packed with New Year revellers
when loyalist gunmen launched their murderous attack
shortly after 9pm. As with the attack on Glengannon
Hotel in Tyrone, just four days earlier, loyalists
planned mass sectarian slaughter in the style of
Greysteel and Loughinisland.
In Tyrone the gunmen were thwarted by the brave action
of Seamus Dillon and his companions who barred the
killers' entrance to the club. In Belfast, the gunmen
entered the hallway of the Tavern, spraying the
premises with automatic gunfire. Six people were
seriously injured, one fatally. One of the injured
remains in a critical condition with a bullet lodged
close to his heart.
The Vauxhall Senator car used by the killers was
hijacked less than half a mile from the scene of the
shooting in the Lower Shankill. After the attack the
vehicle was abandoned in Beechnut Street, off the
Oldpark Road. To and from the Tavern, the gunmen's
stolen car must have passed through some of the North's
most closely monitored streets. Crown force
surveillance equipment festoons a sixty foot watchtower
at the corner of the Oldpark Road, surveillance cameras
remain on the Crumlin Road Jail Sangar along the
Cliftonville Road, while Cliftonpark Avenue is
dominated by the largest British army barracks in
Belfast, Girdwood. Despite mass surveillance and
intense Crown force activity around the Cliftonville
Road just half an hour before the attack, no attempt
was made to intercept the getaway car.
North Belfast Sinn Fein Councillor Mick Conlon was
walking nearby when he heard gunfire. ``As I turned the
corner I heard people screaming and shouting outside
the Tavern.'' The scene was one of blood, broken glass
and bullet holes ripping through interior walls.
Frantic inquires by neighbours and relatives of people
in the bar were met with aggression by the RUC. ``People
were being physically thrown aside,'' says Mick, ``and
told to `fuck off' by the RUC as they pleaded for
information about the injured.''
Brave action prevented massacre
Shortly before 11pm on the night of 27 December, two
masked loyalist gunmen in a red Vauxhall Nova drove
into the car park of the Glengannon Hotel on the
Ballygawley Road, Dungannon. In the hotel a teenage
disco, attended by several hundred young Catholics was
in full swing. 45-year-old Seamus Dillon, employed as a
doorman at the hotel was fatally wounded as he and two
colleagues confronted the gunmen. Eighteen shots were
fired, injuring four, including a 14-year-old boy shot
when a bullet smashed through a window of the function
room where he was collecting glasses. Seamus Dillon
died shortly after arriving at South Tyrone Hospital. A
second victim remains seriously ill.
Sinn Fein's Mid Ulster MP Martin McGuinness has called
on the RUC to explain what information they had in
their possession which prompted them to telephone taxi
firms and pubs in Tyrone warning of a possible attack
just four hours before the attack on the Glengannon
Hotel. Despite it being the location of a previous
loyalist attack, the management of the hotel were not
warned. A 61-year-old Catholic taxi driver was abducted
outside the Glengannon and murdered by loyalists in
1990.
Meanwhile in a statement Roger Dillon, brother of
Seamus Dillon who was murdered by the LVF on 27
December stated that Ken Maginnis made false claims
about Seamus saying he was, ``still active within the
Republican Movement at the time of his death''.
Mr Dillon's statement said that Maginnis should, ``given
the influence that his utterances have, desist from
making such spurious statements as they only served to
attempt to justify the murderous activities of the LVF.
``Seamus, who with his colleagues on the night of the
attack by their courageous actions saved the lives of
many young people within the Glengannon, had severed
all links with the Republican Movement since coming out
of prison in 1992 and he had dedicated his life to
caring for his wife and family.''.
LVF claim both attacks
In statements to the media, the Loyalist Volunteer
Force claimed responsibilty for both the Tyrone and
North Belfast attacks, linking them to the death of LVF
leader Billy Wright.
A notorious loyalist killer, Billy Wright was shot dead
in the H Blocks of Long Kesh two weeks ago. The
shooting was carried out by INLA prisoners, housed in a
separate wing of the same block as LVF inmates. Wright,
nicknamed by the media King Rat, has been directly
linked to over 40 sectarian killings in the North. An
open advocate of random sectarian attacks on the
Catholic community his victims included teenage girls,
Eileen Duffy and Katrina Rennie, a pregnant woman,
Kathleen O Hagan and pensioners, Charlie and Teresa
Fox.
In 1996 Wright and the entire membership of the UVF in
Mid Ulster were expelled from the UVF after breaching
the loyalist ceasefire during the Drumcree stand off of
1996. Wright responded by forming his own paramilitary
grouping the LVF. At the time of his death Wright was
serving an eight year sentence for threatening a
Protestant woman, Gwen Reed.
Despite Wright's imprisonment he continued to direct
sectarian attacks, remaining a key player in the
loyalist campaign of terror against the nationalist
population of the North. Just weeks before his death,
the UVF leadership sent a representative into the jail
to ask Wright to consider rejoining the UVF, bringing
the LVF with him. Wright refused, prefering to court
fellow loyalist killer Johnny Adair, the Shankill's
notorious UDA leader currently serving a 16 year
sentence in the Kesh.
Adair is thought to have instructed the UDA in Belfast
to assist the LVF in the attack on the Clifton Tavern.
Witnesses claim a well-known member of the UDA was in
the car used by the killers. It is also belived that
the LVF received assistance from the UDA in Rathcoole
when it murdered GAA offical Gerry Devlin in early
December. As the controversay continues, Sinn Fein's
Martin McGuinness has called on the RUC to release all
forensic evidence on the weapons used in the attacks on
the Glengannon Hotel and Clifton Tavern.
``It is now ten days since the Glengannon attack and the
RUC have yet to release any information even as to the
calibre of weapon used. The RUC must divulge
immediately any information both about the type of
weapon used and its history so that the general public
can be made aware of exactly what loyalist factions
were responsible. Although the LVF have claimed
responsiblity for the attack and that on the Clifton
Tavern, it is widely believed in the nationalist
community that the larger loyalist factions were also
invloved in both murders.''
Victims of recent loyalist sectarian attacks
- Michael McGoldrick, Catholic taxi driver, July 1996
- John Slane (44), West Belfast Catholic, shot dead
March 1997
- Robert Hamill, Portadown Catholic kicked to death,
died May 1997.
- Sean Brown, GAA offical, abducted, tortured and
murdered May 1997.
- Bernadette Martin (18) Catholic murdered in Co
Antrim home of Protestant boyfriend July 1997.
- James Morgan (16) abducted, mutilated body dumped in
lime pit July 1997.
- Gerry Devlin, GAA official, shot dead St Enda's GAA
club December 1997.
- Seamus Dillon, Catholic doorman Glengannon Hotel,
Co. Tyrone, shot dead December 1997. Three injured.
- Edmund Treanor, North Belfast Catholic, shot dead
Cliftonville Tavern, December 1997. Six injured.
Nationalists warned to be vigilant
North Belfast Sinn Féin Councillor Danny Lavery has
warned nationalists to be ``cautious and vigilant'' after
the RUC informed a man working for a North Belfast taxi
firm that his number plates were found on a stolen car
that had been stopped in the Loyalist Donegal Pass area
of Belfast. Lavery called this a ``sinister development
as [the] method of removing number plates has
previously been used by loyalists before attacks on
nationalists.''
Late last year the number plates of Sinn Féin
councillor Sue Ramsey were found on car dumped in the
Shankill Road.
Meanwhile nationalists from Greymount on the outskirts
of North Belfast are being forced from their homes.
Following a New Year's Eve gun attack, a warning was
phoned into the Boundary Bar naming six families and
telling them to leave the area within 14 days. The
area, a UDA stronghold, which is less than 200 metres
from an RUC barracks, has been the scene of continual
intimidation by loyalists since June last year.
Meanwhile the death of Derry man Nigel Birnie in a car
crash at Lisfannon, County Donegal on Friday 2 January
has raised the spectre of loyalist attacks in Donegal.
Following the man's death a sympathy notice was
published in the Belfast Telegraph from his friends in
`C.Coy', UVF in Derry. Sinn Fein Councillor Cathal
Crumley has called on the Gardai in Donegal to release
details of their investigation into the death.
Said Crumley, ``events of the past week have shown that
loyalists are intent on carrying out mass murder. The
Gardai must not feed into genuine nationalist fears by
witholding information about the activities of known
loyalists in the 26-counties.''
In May 1991 the UDA killed Sinn Féin councillor Eddie
Fullerton in Buncrana, not far from where last week's
crash occurred. Two other men injured in the crash are
at present in hospital.