Republican News · Thursday 22 August 2002

PSNI told not to arrest loyalists

Alliance Avenue residents in North Belfast have asked the Police Ombudsman to investigate the comments of an RUC/PNSI member after he told residents he has been told not to arrest loyalist bombers from Glenbryn.

The officer told nationalists that his bosses in Oldpark RUC/PNSI station have ordered him not arrest loyalists from Glenbryn, despite cameras having caught hundreds of hours of loyalist gun and pipe bomb attacks on nationalist homes in Alliance Avenue.

Kathleen Rafferty, who is lodging the complaint, said "the RUC/PSNI sit in this area day and daily and no one is ever brought to court for these attacks on our homes and then we are told this news; I want this fully investigated."

Sinn Féin councillor for North Belfast, Margaret McClenaghan, said there was nothing surprising in the revelations, given the loyalist pogroms that have been going on in North Belfast for the past 18 months.

"In the past ten days alone loyalists have launched 13 gun and bomb attacks on houses in this area," she said. "We have stood here and watched as day after day loyalists have attacked these houses. Three weeks ago, a TV news team filmed loyalists from Glenbryn attacking houses in broad daylight and despite the mountain of evidence, not one person has been charged."

Car carrying sick child stoned

A car in which a Catholic child suffering from spina bifida and epilepsy was travelling was struck by a stone thrown by a group of loyalists standing on the Ballymena Road in Ahoghill, County Antrim on Wednesday night 14 August.

Sinn Féin Assembly member John Kelly said that it was a deplorable attack on an innocent family and was a very traumatising experience for everyone in the vehicle. "The intention of these loyalist was to injure anyone in this car, it is sickening that these people would want to hurt women and children."

UDA threat in post

A Twinbrook man fears for his life after he received a bullet through the post on Friday morning, 16 August. The man, who does not want to be named, told An Phoblacht that the bullet arrived at his home with a note saying 'See you soon scum bag, UFF'.

Sinn Féin Councillor for Twinbrook, Sue Ramsey, said this is just the latest incident in the area. "UDA flags were erected outside homes in Cherryhill a few weeks ago and last week a group of children were stoned by loyalists as they walked along the back of Summerhill," she said. "These are very worrying developments and I would call on anyone noticing anything suspicious to come forward. I would urge local people to be vigilant."

Gerard O'Neill, Sinn Féin councillor for Lenadoon, has warned people to be on their guard after well known loyalists from Blacks Road were seen watching homes in the Lenadoon area.

Family escapes bomb attack

A Catholic family of four escaped injury after a loyalist pipe bomb was thrown through their kitchen window in the early hours of Monday 19 August.

The couple and their two teenage sons were asleep upstairs in their Piers Park home in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, when they were woken by a large explosion downstairs.

The kitchen was filled with smoke and debris and a water pipe also burst, flooding the room and hallway. The family had only been in this home for a month.

This is the latest sectarian attack the family has endured. They were previously targeted in July 1998, when a pipe bomb hit the outside of a window frame and landed in the garden. Loyalist intimidation has forced the family to move from two other houses in the predominately loyalist town.

This was the second sectarian attack in the area in recent days; two mobile classrooms were destroyed in a loyalist arson attack on a Catholic primary school in Whitehead.

Councillor receives death threat

On Wednesday night, 14 August, Clogher Valley Sinn Féin Councillor Sean McGuigan was given a written message from the PSNI in Dungannon which read:

"Intelligence indicates that loyalist paramilitaries may be in possession of your details, believing you to be a republican activist. It is assessed that these details may be used to mount an attack against you at some stage in the future."

The PSNI refused to disclose the nature or the source of these threats. Similarly when McGuigan queried whether his position on the Council highlighting the collusion between the police and loyalists had anything to do with the threat, it was met with silence.

"Shortly afterwards, I was contacted by seven other people who had received similar threats," said McGuigan. "I wonder which section of military intelligence has leaked this information. No doubt now that some nationalists are in direct contact with these same forces through the newly formed District Policing Partnerships, they will be able to provide us with answers, not only to the eight people threatened but also to the countless others who have already been placed in this position."

Unparalleled military presence in Mid-Tyrone

Heavy British military activity throughout areas of Mid-Tyrone has been highlighted by Mid-Tyrone Sinn Féin Councillors Seán Clarke and Damien Curran.

In a joint statement, the representatives of the affected areas said that the levels of British military activity witnessed in the last fortnight are the worst experienced since well before the cessations. "Local people are demanding that the intrusive, disruptive and abusive presence of this alien military force ends immediately," they said.

"British soldiers have been patrolling and mounting road blocks throughout the Greencastle, Carrickmore and Creggan areas. Local people are being constantly stopped, questioned and verbally abused. Helicopter activity has been incessant throughout this period, with low flying aircraft frightening livestock on farms. A large force, numbering more than 50 British soldiers, 'dug-in' at an area near Creggan Community Centre on Tuesday 13 August, and only vacated the area on Sunday morning, 19 August.

"Since Sunday, the massive British military presence has continuing unabated and the anger of local people is increasing by the day."

The councillors have questioned whether this activity is designed to provoke the local population or if the British Army is now using this area of Tyrone as some kind of training ground and the local population as guineapigs.

"It is ironic," they observed, "that this area, which has been completely peaceful since the cessations, is now being subjected to such an oppressive British military presence, at a time when loyalist paramilitaries are continuing to target isolated nationalist communities throughout the Six Counties with impunity. Whose agenda is being played out here?"