It takes more than a bigot with a brick
BY LAURA FRIEL
In a scene reminiscent of the attack on Portadown Catholic Robert Hamill, terrified and screaming for help, Carmel Grant pleaded with armed RUC officers sitting in a jeep outside her Newington Avenue home to intervene as loyalists laid siege to the back of her house.
``They refused,'' says Carmel. ``They said they weren't allowed to leave the jeep.''
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``At one end of the unionist spectrum we have the institutions being pulled down, at the other end loyalists are attacking Catholics.'' - Gerry Kelly
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Standing on a wall to the rear of the house, a gang of loyalist men pelted the Catholic family's home with bricks and bottles and bolts. Carmel's husband John, who was in the backyard attempting to board up a back window, ran for cover into a neighbour's home.
The couple's eleven-year-old son, John, cried out as he watched loyalists bombard his father with missiles, ``Daddy, daddy,'' he screamed. As the windows came in around her, eight-year-old Shauna sought refuge in a front room while her mother ran for help. It was 3.30pm on a Sunday afternoon.
A few hours later and in another part of North Belfast, loyalists struck again. A Catholic couple had been spending the afternoon watching football at their local pub. ``We decided to go for a quiet drink and watch the match,'' says Frank.
Earlier that day, shortly after noon, loyalists had thrown two pipe bombs into the Brookfield complex where the pub is situated. One device, packed with nails, exploded scattering shrapnel across the yard. The second had been defused.
It was 7.30pm when someone shouted a warning. Loyalists had broken through security gates that divide the complex from the Crumlin Road. ``Someone shouted to get out,'' says Frank. ``They're outside, someone said. Everyone was a bit panicky.''
Two RUC jeeps were already at the scene and beside them stood RUC officers in full riot gear. As a local security man struggled to secure the gates, Frank went over to help. ``Once the gates were locked we thought we'd be safe,'' says Frank.
At the gates there were between 40 and 50 loyalists shouting and spitting the usual sectarian venom. ``A loyalist with a Scottish accent shouted `Fenian bastard' at me and spat in my face,'' says Frank.
The loyalist was poking a wooden stick through the rails, it looked innocuous but it must have been doctored with nails. ``I was hit in the leg, there was blood everywhere,'' says Frank. ``I thought I'd been shot.''
The RUC made no attempt to intervene. They made no attempt to arrest any of the loyalists laying siege. They did not challenge the loyalist who, in front of their eyes, had just carried out a serious assault. Angry and injured, Frank remonstrated with the RUC officers standing around him. Their response was swift and decisive.
``I was batoned to the ground and beaten by three RUC officers,'' says Frank. ``I was hit across the back of my head and on my arms and legs.'' As Frank struggled to his feet one RUC officer lifted his shield and slammed it down hard on his leg, splitting the flesh open and breaking the bone.
Compliance makes a sectarian state
It takes more than a bigot with a brick. It takes more than a gang of sectarian thugs. It takes more than a concerted campaign of intimidation by the UDA. It even takes more than an RUC patrol that refuses to intervene or engages in sectarian violence. What makes the Six Counties a sectarian state is the compliance of everyone else.
It takes an RUC hierarchy refusing to discipline officers clearly in breach of their duties and unionist politicians obscuring loyalist violence with platitudes or encouraging it by indulging in the politics of exclusion. It involves a British Secretary of State refusing to acknowledge the UDA ceasefire is over, a British government failing to defend the Good Friday Agreement and a compliant media.
Standing at the back of Carmel Grant's home, local Assembly member Gerry Kelly holds the recovered debris and shrapnel from a number of pipe bomb attacks and tells the media of the weekend loyalist ``onslaught'' against Catholics in North Belfast.
The bricks and bottles of Sunday afternoon had been followed by pipe bomb and gun attacks on Monday night. There had been repeated attacks in Ardoyne as well as Newington.
Along the row of houses behind Kelly, almost all of the windows have been smashed. Some have been blocked with temporary boarding hammered into place on the inside frames. A few remain open to the elements, bedroom curtains flap in the breeze, allowing an occasional glimpse of their domestic interiors.
The ground underneath is littered with stones, bricks and broken glass and is treacherous underfoot. If this was a row of empty houses it would be a dismal scene of dereliction but behind the shuttered windows parents are rearing children and families are living in fear.
The local and British media has turned out in force. There are plenty of camera crews vying for the best shot and journalists to field questions, but their interest lies beyond the shattered glass and lives of people here.
At the height of the weekend's disturbances, gunshots had rung out on a number of occasions in different parts of North Belfast. In most instances, the gunfire emanated from within loyalist areas and in a statement issued by the Red Hand Defenders, a cover name used by the UDA and LVF, loyalists have admitted as much.
But there is an allegation that republicans may have been responsible for one burst of fire. Eager to play its part in the wider unionist agenda, the media is here to question Sinn Féin about the status of the IRA ceasefire.
Accusing the media of double standards, Kelly points out that there have been over 250 loyalist gun and bomb attacks on Catholic families this year. ``And let's get one thing straight,'' says Kelly. ``The RUC and British Army are not protecting Catholics here.''
Comments by the British security minister Jane Kennedy, who claimed the overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland recognised the RUC as dedicated police officers, had angered nationalists, said Kelly.
Referring to the recent suspension of the Assembly, he said: ``At one end of the unionist spectrum we have the institutions being pulled down, at the other end loyalists are attacking Catholics.''
On Monday, Ulster Unionist leader and former First Minister David Trimble had tabled a motion at Stormont to exclude Sinn Féin and announced plans to banish Sinn Féin ministers, Martin McGuinness and Bairbre de Brún from the executive if the IRA refuse to decommission.
``David Trimble has constantly set out to delay and frustrate the process of change and progress that the agreement represented,'' said Sinn Féin Chief Whip Alex Maskey. In a further attempt to scupper the Good Friday Agreement, Trimble has threatened to pull out his ministers from the power sharing Assembly if the motion to exclude Sinn Féin fails.
``His illegal exclusion of Sinn Féin from the cross border institutions and now his attempt to destroy the Executive is an attack on the principles of inclusion, equality and justice,'' Maskey said. Far from acting as guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement, the British government has collapsed into bowing to unionist ultimatums.
``John Reid's singular focus on the issue of silent IRA weapons without reference to the UDA pogrom against Catholics suggests a British government policy which now appears to be little different from that being pursued by David Trimble and the UUP,'' said Sinn Féin's Mitchel McLaughlin.
Standing in the back living room of her Newington Avenue home, Carmel Grant politely answers the media's questions. Despite her ordeal, she speaks calmly with a gentle modesty. At night, the children are staying with relatives. Carmel and her husband haven't been able to sleep for fear of further attack. Loyalists have threatened to ``barbecue'' them next time round. The family have lived here for five years. They have nowhere else to go.
The windows are boarded and the room is dark. Even after the glass has been replaced, Carmel says her family will be too afraid to remove the inner boards. There will be no autumn sunshine here. No daylight to chase away the shadows of ongoing sectarian intimidation. No dawn to dispel the gloom of an uncertain future.
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