UDA members behind North Belfast attacks
Le Padraig MacDabhaid
Sinn Fein Assembly member for North Belfast Gerry Kelly has said that
attacks on Catholic homes in the area, ``is part of an organised
campaign to drive Catholics out the area''.
The attacks have been taking place throughout the North of the city
but have been particularly focused on the Graymount area, an area
which once had a 40% Catholic population but is set to reach zero.
Originally there was almost 90 Catholic families on the estate, today
that number is down to 25 families, most of whom are awaiting
transfer out of the area.
This last week saw a spate of attacks in the area, the first of which
occurred on Friday 5 March when petrol was poured through the letter
boxes of two houses and set alight causing fires in both houses. The
houses were occupied by Catholic women and have been attacked on
previous occasions, one of them four times before.
The night before these attacks the home of a 33 year old woman was
attacked by a loyalist pipe bomb. The woman who lives on Torrens
Crescent off the Cliftonville Road in North Belfast, near the
peaceline, is now pleading to be rehoused.
Then on Monday 8 March as a Catholic family were moving furniture at
their home after to renovations Loyalists phoned in a bomb warning
forcing the Catholic family to evacuate the area.
A number of Catholic taxi drivers, those who usually bear the brunt
of loyalist death squad activity in North Belfast, have also received
death threats, as have two fast food outlets
Both Gerry Kelly and Sinn Fein councillor Danny Lavery have repeated
their call to loyalist politicians to use their influence to halt
such attacks. Danny Lavery told AP/RN, ``local loyalist figures are
widely known to be organising and carrying out these attacks''.
Kelly also attacked the idea that these groups are merely dissidents
saying, ``referring to these groups as dissidents is designed to
minimise the threat they pose. It is common knowledge in the area
that the UDA is orchestrating this campaign of intimidation''.
Unionist and community leaders in these areas must realise that they
have a responsibility to their Catholic neighbours.
Kelly concluded by saying, ``it appears that the fellow travellers of
the `No' camp of unionism within the loyalist terror groups are
determined to fill the political vacuum created by David Trimble's
failure to implement the agreement with a sectarian campaign aimed at
Catholics living in vulnerable areas''.
Meanwhile, community workers are hoping for a large turnout at a
peaceful white line picket which has been organised for Saturday 13
March at 3pm on the Lower Whitewell Road to highlight the sectarian
attacks and threats on nationalists in the Whitewell and Greencastle
area.
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