Phoney ceasefire exposed
By Mick Naughton.
Loyalist spokesperson Billy Hutchinson claimed that a car bombing
that almost killed two nationalists in Belfast on Saturday was
probably the work of loyalists operating under the Combined
Loyalist Military Command. Hutchinson maintained that the bombing
had all the hallmarks of a ``measured response'' to the killings of
two RUC men in Lurgan last week.
The under-car bomb went off in the city's university area less
than 48 hours after a loyalist bomb left under the car of Sinn
Féin Councillor James McCarry of North Antrim was defused by the
British Army.
``There is no doubt that Saturday's car bomb attack is the work of
loyalists,'' said South Belfast Sinn Féin Councillor Sean Hayes.
``The British government must now accept that the loyalist
ceasefire is well and truly over. In recent weeks loyalists have
planted five major bombs outside Sinn Féin offices, two car
bombs, one of which exploded last Saturday afternoon, fire bombed
the homes of prison guards and shot a number of people in their
own areas.''
The car bomb which detonated on Saturday afternoon exploded
underneath the Ford Escort as a former POW and a friend drove
down Claremont Street to the Lisburn Road. Both managed to run
from the car before the petrol tank went on fire. A passer-by was
also taken to the nearby City Hospital suffering from burns and
shock.
On Thursday Councillor James McCarry found a 1.4lb bomb
containing commercial explosives underneath his car parked
outside his home near Ballycastle. The area around the outskirts
of the coastal town was evacuated as British army technical
officers disarmed the device.
It was the second bomb attack in the area within two weeks. In
the first attack two incendiary devices were discovered outside
neighbouring homes of a Catholic family in Ballycastle. It was
the second time the family had been targeted.
McCarry has called for increased vigilance among nationalists
living in the area, ``neighbours should look out for each other in
this dangerous period as we move into what is set to mirror last
years Orange Order antics.''
This latest attack follows several others on McCarry, including
one when the UVF threw a concrete block with a death threat
attached through a window of his home. In 1992 his election
agent, Malachy Carey, a former republican POW, was shot dead.
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