In the aftermath of Saturday night's loyalist bomb attacks on nationalist homes in the Short Strand area of East Belfast and the brutal PSNI attack in which a local man was seriously injured, the PSNI and British Army launched yet another offensive on Tuesday.
Flooding the small nationalist enclave with heavily armed members of the PSNI and British military personnel at around 4.30pm on Tuesday afternoon, the PSNI began raiding a number of homes, including one of those targeted by loyalist blast bombers on Saturday night.
The raids followed Monday's release of amateur video footage by local residents of the loyalist bomb attack and the subsequent PSNI operation during which a senior member of Belfast Sinn Féin, Paud Devenny, (pictured) was brutally beaten and seriously injured. Video footage of the incident is to be forwarded to the Police Ombudsman as part of a formal complaint by the injured man's family.
Local residents suspect that the raids, carried out on the pretext of a search for arms and explosives, were really a desperate attempt by a force fearing further discredit to find film footage of Saturday night's incident.
On Tuesday afternoon, as Crown forces occupied and attempted to impose a virtual curfew on the Short Strand area, local people attempted to hold a peaceful protest. The PSNI and British Army responded with baton charges and plastic bullets.
A photographer from the Irish News was hit with a plastic bullet and described the attack. "I was standing well back when the British Army loaded up the plastic bullets and started firing straight into the crowd," said Bill Smyth. "I could actually see the soldier aiming and shooting the plastic bullet. I was in shock and felt a shooting pain in my leg."
Among ten people who were rushed to hospital with plastic bullet injuries were 19-year-old Paula McCrory, who suffered a leg injury, and 16-year-old Anthony Farrelly. The schoolboy was returning home when he was hit in the chest with a plastic bullet and began to cough blood.
Similar to the injury that proved to be fatal for Sean Downes in 1984, Anthony was told by medics at the hospital that if the impact had been fractionally lower he would have died.
Father of two, Peter Montgomery received two fractures above his right elbow and a plastic bullet also broke the arm of 27-year-old Teresa Quinn.
Earlier in the day, loyalists, their faces covered with Rangers' scarves, had blockaded the local chemist's, doctor's surgery and post office, denying access and hurling sectarian abuse at nationalist women and children. In a scenario remarkably similar to Saturday night, what loyalists began the PSNI continued.
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Sinn Féin's Alex Maskey described the "deep anger in this community that the response of the PSNI to the orchestrated UVF attack this weekend was to raid the homes of nationalists.
"This community is under siege," said Maskey. "This community has been under attack since Saturday. The UVF or the PSNI are going to kill members of this community if they continue," he warned.
"Sinn Féin's Belfast chairperson, Paud Devenny, a respected member of this community, is in a critical condition in hospital after he was attacked by the PSNI. Houses have been bombed by loyalists, and then raided by the PSNI. Homes have been wrecked and several young people have been victims of plastic bullets."
Sinn Féin has raised the incident with both the British and Irish governments and has reiterated their call for plastic bullets to be banned, said Maskey
Addressing the conference, local Sinn Féin councillor Joe O'Donnell asked why the PSNI had failed to raid houses in the loyalist estate, "from where these bombings emanated".
"I think something has to be pointed out very clearly here. What happened here on Saturday night wasn't a clash between two communities, it wasn't an inter-community conflict, this area was quiet. This was a premeditated attack by loyalist paramilitaries. Don't get caught up in this tit for tat nonsense. It's a lie," said Joe.
Meanwhile the United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets say they are outraged by the indiscriminate use of plastic bullets in the Short Strand.
"In the deployment of the British Army to the streets, the PSNI operate under the policy of police primacy," they pointed out. "It is their decision to deploy the British Army and the British Army operates under the direction of the Chief Constable. However the Ombudsman has no role in investigating the use of plastic bullets or injuries sustained as they were fired by the British Army." In other words plastic bullets are being fired," they said, "with no method of accountability or redress."
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