‘We want money for riots’

Nationalists and republicans are being urged to avoid involvement with attempts by both loyalists and the PSNI to generate conflict for their own selfish agenda.

After days of performative policing while loyalists launched racial attacks last week, the PSNI this week sought to ignite violence in Derry’s Bogside by invading the area with huge numbers of armoured vehicles and riot police.

Trouble was inevitable after a medieval-style phalanx of PSNI charged past the city walls into the Bogside in the early evening on Tuesday night (pictured).

For several hours, they attempted to engage youths and children who had gathered there, before ultimately flooding and blocking the roads below with dozens of armoured vehicles in an incendiary ‘show of strength’.

Republicans also condemned efforts by the Crown forces and loyalists at the nearby Fountain estate to incite interface disorder in what was a second night of trouble in the area,

Confrontations were further inflamed by fears of local children that the PSNI planned to seize material gathered for a traditional midsummer bonfire.

Despite local efforts to maintain calm, a few youths were lured into throwing missiles and the PSNI fired at least one plastic bullet.

“Our activists engaged with the youth of the area and advised them not to engage with any planned sectarian violence,” said the Irish Republican Socialist Party.

“Meanwhile we have the so called peace makers paid by our tax payers trying to lure our youth into disorder with plans to criminalise them and blame the Bogside for starting the violence.”

Nationalist politicians condemned the local youths, with Sinn Féin’s Pádraig Delargy appealing for calm “and for those involved to stop causing havoc in our community and distress to local residents”

But Saoradh said the presence of Crown Forces in republican areas was “provocative and oppressive” and “nothing new”. It urged people not to be “distracted by tactics meant to divide and criminalise us”.

“We urge our youth not to engage, react, or be drawn into confrontations with these forces or individuals,” they said.

”While we understand the anger that many feel in the face of continued occupation and harassment, random or emotional responses only serve the interests of the state.

“The PSNI, MI5, and British government are eager to provoke a response they can use to justify their presence and their agenda of repression.”

There were sharp contradictions between the PSNI’s openly ‘softly-softly’ approach to racial-style violence in loyalist areas such as in Ballymena, Coleraine and Portadown last week. They faced strong criticism of scenes of heavily armed police standing back while wheelie bins were added to a fire on the train line in Coleraine, and homes being burned without intervention in Ballymena.

And it was seen as no coincidence that the PSNI’s desperate provocations on the Bogside took place on the eve of its demands for extra funding at a meeting of MPs at Westminster - with threats of a further reduction in resources for inquests and day-to-day policing activities.

Loyalists have also been accused of deliberately exploiting racial tensions in order to extract additional “peace” funding from government agencies.

Even John Alderdice, the former Alliance Party leader who was chair of the MI5-linked ‘Independent Monitoring Commission’, has now admitted that loyalist paramilitaries are just attempting to extort cash.

Talking about “transition and transformation” have been accompanied by invoices in an effort to secure a “pay off”, he warned.

Saoradh condemned the “blatant two-tier policing approach” exposed by the events of the past two weeks.

“While masked loyalist gangs freely torched homes and blocked vital railway lines with burning barricades, Crown Force personnel stood idly by — in some cases with their hands in their pockets — and watched it unfold.

“Yet in stark contrast, in Republican communities like the Bogside, Creggan, or Ardoyne, these same Crown Force members aggressively intervene in the most trivial of incidents, often with batons, riot gear, and armoured vehicles.”

They said efforts by heavily armed Crown Force units to “provoke and goad” nationalist youths came on the back of “daily stop and search operations against Republicans, including children and pensioners”.

“When it came to responding to actual life-threatening violence and racist attacks on families, the unreformable PSNI decided to hide in an Asda car park while loyalist mobs took control of the streets.”

Saoradh also pointed to what they described as “staggering” revelations that PSNI members had been ordered not to intervene during last week’s loyalist riots, unless there was a threat to life.

“It confirms what we in Saoradh and wider Republican communities have known for years. The PSNI exists not to protect working-class communities, but to uphold British rule and appease loyalist violence.

“The idea that trained riot squads would stand down during coordinated racial attacks while continuing to persecute Republicans is further evidence of this fact.

“This cowardly and calculated inaction proves the Crown Forces have no legitimacy in our communities. Their so-called “neutral” policing strategy is in reality a continuation of political repression and sectarian appeasement.

“Their message is clear; loyalist violence is tolerated and excused, while Republican dissent is criminalised and crushed.”

Urgent Appeal