Republican News · Thursday 6 June 2002

Short Strand in flames

UVF engineers fresh attacks

BY LAURA FRIEL

A man appears through a cloud of acrid black smoke and erupts. "Did you see that?" he demands. "Did you get that down?" He is clearly upset and the sight of my notebook momentarily becomes the focus of his frustration and despair. "Yes," I reply. "I was here, I saw what happened."

Moments before, the front door and small courtyard entrance of his house had been engulfed in flames. First there was a loud thud and then a rumble as a bottle filled with inflammable liquid hit the house and rolled off the roof.

other bottle of liquid had smashed close to my feet in the doorway of a neighbouring house. In quick succession, three or four petrol bombs were thrown over the wall, igniting the pathway, doorway and front of one house.

For a few minutes, the flames and heat had been intense and the smoke dense. A colleague standing just a couple of feet away sought refuge beside a wall, while our photographer pushed through the undergrowth in an attempt to catch the assailants on camera.

"But will you write what you saw?" insists the man. "This is not retaliation, these are pensioners' bungalows and we're under siege.

"I'm beginning to think journalists are just liars," he adds. His tone is despondent rather than confrontational.

d who could blame him. The nationalist community in this small, isolated district has been under constant attack now for almost three days and the media coverage has been nothing short of scandalous.

The path along Strand Walk is narrow and overhung with lines of bushes and trees, encased on either side by walls and railings. This narrow buffer zone runs between one edge of the Short Strand, a nationalist enclave in predominantly loyalist east Belfast, and the main Newtownards Road.

Several times in recent weeks, An Phoblacht has travelled to the Strand to photograph homes damaged in loyalist attacks on this secluded row of houses designed for the elderly and disabled.

It was mid morning on the Monday of the British monarchy's jubilee and at the time of the attack the three of us were on the street alone. Constant loyalist attack has rendered the housing in Strand Walk almost derelict. Smashed roofing tiles, gaping holes, boarded up and grilled windows extend along the entire row.

In broad daylight and in full view of a British Army vehicle parked along the dual carriageway, a sudden attack by a gang of masked loyalists had taken the three of us by surprise. But the shock wasn't as great as the realisation that there are families still living amongst this devastation.

Homes that moments before had appeared abandoned and empty suddenly burst into life as neighbours rushed out of their front doors with bowls of water and a fire extinguisher to quench the flames.

The door of the house that had taken the brunt of this attack opened and a man, probably in his sixties, emerged to survey the damage and rile against his family's fate. Fear, anger and despair fill his voice with emotion. "We're going to be killed here," said Pat Boyd.

Gerry Johnson, the 73-year-old pensioner who lives in another house, said he had been sitting in the living room when a petrol bomb hit the window grill. "I thought it was stone and then I saw the flames," he said.

"Every house in this row has window grilles fitted and now people are hanging garden hoses over their roofs so we can put out petrol bombs when we're attacked," said Gerry. "Some neighbours have already moved out but others have nowhere else to go. We're all pensioners and just want a quiet life."

A few moments later and a wider cross section of the Short Strand community was mobilised. In the street behind Strand Walk, neighbours gathered, fearing the attack might be a prelude to a larger loyalist incursion.

The crowd appeared amazingly ill prepared to defend itself. The media's portrayal of the problem as 'rival sectarian gangs' bore no resemblance to the people gathered here. No one was carrying so much as a hurl, baseball bat or even an umbrella.

Some people were still wearing their pyjamas and slippers. Parents were standing with their children. Everyone watched and waited. In less than an hour everyone dispersed but with the certain knowledge that it was only a matter of time before the loyalists would return.

Earlier that morning, in the Clandeboye area of the Short Strand, a resident had described the sustained loyalist brick and petrol bomb attack on her home and the homes of her neighbours.

It began on Friday night. While Stand Walk is on the northern edge of the estate, Clandeboye stands to the east. The houses in Clandeboye back onto a high brick 'peace' wall topped with steel railings. Here nationalist Short Strand meets a private and newly built housing development, Langdon Court.

The developers had advertised the properties as luxury apartments and the mainly young and middle-income first time buyers appear to have been unaware they were moving into an interface area.

There is no history of trouble between the residents of Langdon Court and families living in the adjacent Clandeboye. Indeed, the people of Clandeboye regard Langdon Court as 'mixed' rather than loyalist and the residents as young working professionals with no political axe to grind.

But on Friday night, loyalist paramilitaries moved in. "We know the people living there by sight and would occasionally speak to some of them," said a Clandeboye resident, "but on Friday night the faces looking down from the windows at us weren't the people we know as living there."

other Clandeboye resident described "loyalists driving into Langdon Court". Media reports said the residents of Langdon Court had been 'evacuated' to a local church hall.

Maggie McDowell was standing at the back of her house when loyalists from Cluan Place began to pelt her home and garden with bricks and bottles.

As Maggie took cover by standing with her back to the peace wall, a petrol bomb crashed onto the roof of her home, smashing tiles and threatening to set her loft on fire. As more petrol bombs rained down, Maggie ran to safety through an alleyway at the side of her house.

"They started attacking our homes on Friday night with pipe bombs, stones and petrol bombs and they didn't stop the whole weekend," said Maggie. Broken roof tiles, fire scorched walls and a back garden covered with debris stand as testimony to Maggie's description of the sustained attack on her home and family.

"This is like Bombay Street all over again. They are trying to burn us out of our own homes just like they did in 1969," she said.

Sean McVeigh wasn't at home but his wife and ten-year-old daughter were, when his home first came under attack on Friday evening. The windows of his home are now boarded up, as are all the windows along this row of houses.

The street is littered with the debris of hours of loyalist bombardment. Stones, broken bricks and smashed bottles carpet the ground. A small girl shows us a doctored firework strapped with nails and with a fuse attached at the top that had been thrown by loyalists. This one failed to ignite but dozens more exploded, scattering shrapnel.

"No one here wants any trouble," said Sean. "Most of us own our homes. Any broken windows and damage to our homes, we pay for the repairs. Why would anyone here instigate trouble?"

In the last three days, Sean has been unable to sleep except for a few hours. His wife and children were forced to stay with relatives over the weekend.

"We can't send our children to school in their uniforms because they would be too easily identified as Catholics," said Sean. "And we can't let them sleep here at night because we're afraid of what might happen."

Sean described his neighbours as supporting the peace process. "We bought our homes following the Good Friday Agreement," he says. "We were so optimistic about the future here."

But Sean's optimism faded with the arrival of hundreds of loyalists at the weekend. "There were crowds of up to 300 loyalists coming from outside the area into Cluan Place to stone our houses," he said.

"This isn't coming from the ordinary residents of Cluan Place. They are mostly pensioners. This is an orchestrated and sustained loyalist attack." Sean rejects media claims that nationalists provoked loyalist 'retaliation'.

"There are only 3,000 nationalists in the Short Strand, the majority of whom are pensioners or under 25," said Sean. "We're surrounded on all sides; who in their right mind would think of starting trouble?"

On Sunday afternoon the focus of the loyalist onslaught switched to the Albertbridge Road and the southern edge of the nationalist estate. Around 50 loyalist paramilitaries, dressed in what local people have described as semi-uniforms, marched down and lined up along Albertbridge Road.

Sinn Féin Councillor Joe O'Donnell says he is has no doubt that the attacks are being orchestrated by the UVF. "Loyalists are moving their attacks from one part of the estate to the next so that no one knows where the next attack is going to come from," says Joe.

O'Donnell says rivalry between the UDA and UVF underpins the loyalist offensive. "The UVF are opening up a new interface to counteract the growth of the UDA in North Belfast," says Joe. "As in the past, rivalry between loyalists is being played out through sectarian attacks on Catholics. The lives and property of the people of the Short Strand are expendable pawns in a loyalist game."

Lift

The nationalist community in this small, isolated district has been under constant attack now for almost three days and the media coverage has been nothing short of scandalous