Republican News · Thursday 5 September 2002

A triangle of light

BY LAURA FRIEL

For the families living here it has been one endless nightmare of tense days and fearful nights. During the day, children can't play in their back gardens. At night they can't sleep in their beds

Foolishly, as it turned out, I had hoped for better. But in the event, British Secretary of State John Reid stood amid a gaggle of journalists in Clandeboye Drive and mouthed the same old platitudes. An intelligent man might have said he was here to listen and here to learn. But that was not to be.

Instead, Dr Reid adopted the age-old attitude of colonial master and told the natives he knew best. Imagination, humanity and an open mind were all that was required. But Dr Reid knew what he was going to say before he came and the rest was window dressing. "It's just a publicity stunt," said one exasperated resident as he left.

"The British Secretary of State is clearly abdicating his responsibility," said local Sinn Féin Councillor Joe O'Donnell. "Since May, this area has come under nightly attack from loyalists. Last week, the Clandeboye area was saturated with hundreds of British soldiers backed by the RIR and PSNI personnel who, dressed in full riot gear, have intimidated, threatened and verbally abused residents."

A few days earlier, David Trimble had declined to visit Catholic residents in Clandeboye, restricting his concern and his photocall to Protestant Cluan Place. In front of the cameras, an outraged Trimble had held high a golf ball and claimed that it was a missile and it had been thrown from the nationalist Clandeboye area during his visit.

It was a lie. A PSNI officer deployed in Clandeboye admitted as much. I don't know if Trimble knew it was a lie but it provided just the image the First Minster was seeking and opportunism has been the hallmark of Trimble's political career since his meteoric rise through the ranks on the back of Drumcree.

Clearly, with Anti-Agreement unionism snapping at his heels again, the Ulster Unionist leader was less concerned with establishing the truth than enhancing his profile as the defender of unionism and unionists

"There is no doubt whatsoever about the orchestration of the violence that is taking place, some of it by loyalists, most of it by mainstream republicans," said adamant David Trimble.

"The onus of responsibility rests with republicans," said the Loyalist Commission, reiterating the First Minister's words a few days later. Loyalist communities were "suffering from relentless attacks as a direct consequence of republican politically orchestrated tensions", claimed the commission.

In the kitchen of Sinead's Short Strand home, sunlight poured through an open door. Against the pervading darkness of the rest of the house, boarded up after sustained loyalist attack, this small patch of light was a source of delight and comment.

"For four months now we've been living in the dark," says Sinead. "I can't describe the misery of living without natural light."

But this morning, for a few hours at least, Sinead felt safe enough to remove, not completely but just enough, one of three large wooden boards covering her front and patio doors.

The board still stood at right angles against the opening, allowing a triangle of light onto the kitchen floor. The rest of the room remained in shadow but Sinead was cheerfully enjoying the sunlight as she sat with a cup of coffee.

It was the first day of the new school term and the youngest four of Sinead's five daughters were at school. The eldest daughter, 21-year-old Orla and her new baby, moved out of the area last week. With her family safely away, Sinead was making the most of an anxiety-free moment.

Since the loyalist onslaught against this isolated nationalist enclave in East Belfast began last May, normal daily life within the Short Strand has been suspended. "Day and night runs into one another, and one day seems just like the rest," says Sinead, "I lost all sense of time over the summer."

The media's focus on 'interface violence' and its preoccupation with the notion that everything can be explained in terms of 'two rival gangs', 'paramilitaries on both sides' and 'tit-for-tat' has obscured the daily trial of Catholic families living in this isolated enclave in East Belfast.

Most of the facilities on which the community relies, doctors, dentists, clinics, a chemist, a post office and local shops, are located just outside the area. After weeks of loyalist intimidation, the people of Short Strand are too afraid to use these local facilities.

The campaign began earlier in the year when mothers collecting their child benefit from the local post office or taking their children to the nearby clinic were confronted by loyalist mobs and pelted with flour and eggs. 'Taigs' should 'stay off the road', the mob decreed.

Soon, local shopkeepers, threatened by loyalist paramilitaries, were too afraid to serve Catholics. Despite the fact that people from the Strand had been their customers for many years and they know many by name, the shopkeepers said they were afraid they would lose their businesses if they defied the mob's ban.

In Belfast, Catholics are routinely required to pass themselves off as non-Catholics if they are to avail of the city's facilities. It's a pragmatic if degrading practice by a community living under constant sectarian threat. But even this subterfuge was unavailable to the people of Short Strand.

"We're such a small community," says Sinead, "everyone knows us; we're easily identified." Graffiti daubed on walls reiterated the loyalist message of hate; "Short Strand Taigs keep out" or "At your own risk".

Loyalist tactics soon escalated into violence and death threats. In one incident, a loyalist mob forced their way into a nearby college and interrogated terrified pupils as they tried to identify Catholics.

The mob made 'suspects' recite their Alphabet in the belief that they could spot a 'Taig' by their pronunciation of the letters 'A' and 'H'. Following the incident, Catholic pupils never returned and those due to sit exams were relocated.

For the last four months, Catholic homes in the Strand have been coming under repeated and concerted attack by loyalist mobs that had 'evacuated' residents from the Protestant Cluan Place. From the onset, the Catholics of Clandeboye knew it wasn't their Protestant neighbours who were attacking them, but loyalists who had occupied their homes.

"We knew our neighbours," said one resident, "and their faces weren't the ones at the windows."

The continuing ferocity of loyalist attacks has left Catholic homes without proper repair. Housing Executive workers attempting to secure roofing tiles, smashed in the endless bombardment, were often attacked by loyalists throwing stones, bricks, fireworks, blast, pipe and petrol bombs.

For the families living here it has been one endless nightmare of tense days and fearful nights. During the day, children can't play in their back gardens. At night they can't sleep in their beds.

"I've ran my children out of their home wearing helmets and carrying umbrellas to protect them from the bombardment," says Sinead. "It's shameful children running the gauntlet in their pyjamas, forced to sleep elsewhere."

Last Wednesday, Sinead's home came under pipe and petrol bomb attack. "The children were afraid and one of my daughters became hysterical," says Sinead.

"I told them they were safe in the house and there was nothing to worry about but I was lying. Lying to my own children made me feel humiliated, knowing I couldn't protect them and fearing if the house went up we'd all be trapped."

The Catholic community in the Short Strand have always been treated like second-class citizens but this summer they became non-citizens. They have been systematically striped of all the trappings of citizenship, not only by the loyalist mobs who have attacked every aspect of their daily life but also by the institutions of the state that have failed to protect them.

Unlike North Belfast, nationalist homes in the Short Strand do not stand in close proximity to Protestant neighbourhoods. The town planners and developers have already successfully pursued a strategy of isolating this small nationalist community.

The single exception is Cluan, where a few Protestant residents have lived in relative harmony with their Catholic neighbours throughout many years of open conflict. Are we now to believe, as loyalists claim, that within the last four months they have inexplicably become the focus of aggression in the midst of a peace process?

Such a notion has even less credibility in the face of one small fact. A quarter of the families living in Clandeboye are mixed marriages of Catholic and Protestant couples. Clearly, they have no sectarian axe to grind. No one is suggesting there is any hostility between Catholics and Protestants living within the Short Strand.

A decision by the PSNI or British Army to throw a couple of jeeps across the entrance to Cluan would have been sufficient to thwart the invasion of hundreds of loyalists from the outlying districts, who have utilised the proximity of Cluan to the Strand to launch their sectarian attacks while peddling the myth that their actions were in defence of a Protestant area.

A decision by the media to expose the loyalist lie and to report the full extent of loyalist violence and intimidation would have been sufficient to force the British government to take appropriate action.

A decision by unionist politicians to stand up to Anti-Agreement unionism and uphold the Good Friday Agreement and the right of everyone to live free from sectarian harassment would have sufficient to deny violent loyalism the tacit political support which 'justifies' their continuing sectarian campaign. But none of these decisions have been taken.

"I've never felt so alone," says Sinead, "so vulnerable and demoralised. I feel deserted by everyone. The PSNI won't protect us and the media won't report the fact that they aren't protecting us. The British Army swamp the area dressed in full riot gear, putting us under virtual curfew and imposing martial law.

"The people of the Strand desperately need to feel they have the support of other nationalist communities throughout the city. We're at a low ebb, emotionally and physically exhausted, even small gestures of help would be welcome. We need to know there will be some light at the end of the tunnel."