Increase in loyalist attacks
By Laura Friel
Gerry Kelly, Sinn Fein Assembly member for North Belfast has urged
Catholics and nationalists to be ``mindful of their security'' as
sectarian attacks by loyalists continue in the North.
Kelly accused Loyalist and Unionist leaders of encouraging sectarian
attacks. ``Comments by leading Unionists and implicit threats by
loyalists are encouraging attacks such as we have seen in Larne last
weekend and in other places in the North in recent weeks.''
PUP leader Billy Hutchinson has said that loyalist gunmen may attack
targets in the 26 Counties if the Good Friday Agreement failed.
Hutchinson said ``irrespective of whether there is republican violence
or not, loyalists will be dragged back into it,'' if they felt they
were being asked to accept ``an Anglo-Irish Agreement Mark Two''.
Meanwhile Catholics in vulnerable areas continue to bear the brunt of
the political vacuum created by Unionist stalling tactics. Two
Catholic families escaped injury when blast bombs were thrown at
their homes in Larne at the weekend. Both families escaped injury.
The double attack followed an attempt earlier in the week in the same
area to burn out a Catholic family. A young couple escaped injury
only after they were alerted to the blaze at their home.
In North Belfast on Saturday night, a bomb under the car of a
Catholic family was defused after two telephone warnings. The RUC
failed to respond to the first telephone warning. A second pipe bomb
left under the car of a family in Greenisland was discovered after a
telephone warning to the Samaritans.
First Minister designate David Trimble criticised those ``posing as
defenders of loyalism'' for ``giving republicans an excuse to hang on
to their weapons.''
Meanwhile eleven Catholic families have been forced out of their
homes in the Garvaghy Road area of Portadown after months of loyalist
protests over Drumcree. Ten of the eleven families were living in
Craigwell Avenue, a link road between the main Garvaghy Road and the
loyalist Corcrain area. The latest family forced to flee is now
living in a caravan in Armagh city while they wait for a new home.
The young family, with 18 month old twins and a three year old
daughter, had endured sectarian abuse night after night as hundreds,
sometimes thousands of loyalists protested outside their home.
Despite RUC attempts to disavow sectarian intimidation in the area,
most of the houses abandoned in Craigwell have been bought under an
emergency purchase scheme in place for victims of intimidation.
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