Loyalists threaten Catholics
A leaflet issued by the previously unheard of Glenarm Loyalist
Committee has called on Protestants in the small Antrim village
to boycott Catholic owned businesses.
The leaflet came to light last week and links the boycott call to
the Six County wide nationalist boycott of businesses run by
Orangemen after the Drumcree crisis last year.
Catholics in the area regard the leaflet as a sinister twist to
an already tense situation. In the run up to the Twelfth a 25
strong gang of Loyalists attacked Catholic homes in a small
estate in the area as the RUC looked on.
``Over the summer loyalists have been gathering around the estate
and shouting sectarian abuse, then one night they attacked a
local man. Everybody, including the RUC, know who the attackers
were, yet nothing has been done,'' a local man told An Phoblacht.
The leaflet identifies Catholics as part of a Pan Republican
Front and says that the boycott is a ``Sinn Fein/IRA'' campaign.
``We believe that they should be boycotted immediately and that we
should take another firm stand against this Pan Republican
campaign which is a very real threat to all the Protestant people
of Protestant Ulster. It is now the time for Protestant people to
stand united, one with another, in these days when Ulster and the
union is under such an attack'', says the leaflet.
The leaflet campaign comes just weeks after An Phoblacht reported
on the history of sectarian attacks against Catholics in the
neighbouring town of Larne which is predominantly Loyalist. Over
the Twelfth period loyalist flags and buntings were put up in
Glenarm. One flag was put on a lamp outside the Catholic church
and the kerbstones painted red, white and blue.
d An Phoblacht has learned that the Larne night club at the
centre of a row over a poster displayed on the premises which
warned `No dogs or Fenians' has closed down.
According to local people the nightclub was targeted by UVF
members who demanded protection money and free drink from a
Catholic barman. The loyalists also demanded that their men carry
out security on the club.
``There is no ceasefire for Catholics up here'', the local man told
An Phoblacht. ``Right through the Twelfth period and in the build
up to Drumcree the tension in Craigyhill in particular was bad.
It spread out to Glenarm and I'm not surprised that the loyalists
a are now organising this boycott. It's just another
anti-Catholic exercise''.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)