Irish Republican News and Information, 29-30 October 2002, http://irlnet.com/rmlist/ 

No acceptable level of loyalist violence - Adams

Loyalist gangs carried out a day of sustained attacks on nationalists homes in the Short Strand of east Belfast on Tuesday.

During a day of violence, a constant rain of missiles was directed at nationalist homes but the violence intensified as darkness fell and at least two blast or pipe bomb devices were hurled into the nationalist enclave.

Local councillor Joe O'Donnell displayed a device, a huge firework taped to a bottle of highly flammable cellulose thinners, which had also been tossed into the Short Strand on Tuesday.

O'Donnell explained that in the course of Tuesday loyalists were attacking homes in the Clandeboye area with stones, nuts, bolts and ball bearings but as the day wore on the loylaists began throwing fireworks.

"As darkness fell the loylaists then began throwing bottles full of flammable liquid, petrol and cellulose thinners, before throwing lighted petrol bombs and fireworks with the intention of igniting those homes that were doused with the flammable liquid.

"It was arond this time that the pipe bombs were thrown", concluded O'Donnell, "luckily no one was injured".

ADAMS RAISES ISSUE

Visiting the area on Wednesday, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and party chairperson Mitchel McLaughlin called on the British government to ensure the safety of Short Strand residents.

Street violence in sectarian flashpoints of Belfast must not be treated as if it has reached an "acceptable level," Mr Adams said.

The issue is being raised this Thursday morning address in Mr Adams's first formal meeting tomorrow with the new British Secretary of State, Paul Murphy.

The West Belfast MP, who met residents and surveyed damage to their homes, said many were "living on the edge of despair".

"These attacks have been continuing day in, day out, night in, night out and can come at any time - 7am, 1pm, 4pm or midnight.

"People are very angry at the projection of the problem in the broad media that this is somehow tit-for-tat, that victims here are also perpetrators.

"Four blast bombs were thrown into this area last night. Residents have shown me devices - petrol bombs, inflammable concoctions attached to fireworks, balloons full of petrol to set roofs alight.

"The danger in all of this is in the face of sustained attacks on a number of communities in north and east Belfast, there is almost a tolerance of what is happening.

"It is unacceptable people are having to live like this. There can be no acceptable level of violence and the British Government must really address the problem of loyalist paramilitary attacks on these areas."

Mr Adams said nationalist Short Strand residents had shown remarkable restraint in the face of almost nightly violence since May.

Calling on all parties to address the problem of street violence together, the Sinn Fein president said: "Earlier in the summer when there were talks at Hillsborough, we said the issue of the interface violence was the most pressing issue for the British and Irish Governments and the parties during the summer.

"Here we are well into the autumn and we are making exactly the same case, that it is still the most pressing issue.

"Sinn Fein has been active in trying to collectively resolve this and the Mayor of Belfast Alex Maskey in particular has been trying to facilitate dialogue.

"Dialogue at a local level involving unionists and ourselves to resolve this issue should take place rather than having people swap soundbites."

PROMINENT REPUBLICAN TARGETED

The Red Hand Defenders -- a cover name used by the UDA and LVF -- have claimed responsibility in a telephone call to a Belfast newsroom for an attempt to kill Brendan Bik McFarlane the OC of IRA prisoners in the H Blocks during the Hunger Strikes in 1981.

A device was left close to McFarlanes Ardoyne home in North Belfast on Friday night, and in a phone claim the Red Hand Defenders named him as the intended target of the attack. However, neither McFarlane or his wife were home at the time.

McFarlane said members of the PSNI visited his home on Saturday and informed him that a pipe bomb had been discovered close to his home "the device could have killed my three year old son or 20 month old daughter and a baby-sitter if it had exploded.

"The RUC/PSNI only informed us of the incident on Saturday evening" added McFarlane.

The prominent republican went on to say that the RUC and PSNI have visited him on four separate occasions to warn him that his life was in danger and that he has lost count of how many times he has been threatened by loyalists.

McFarlane blamed unionism, "for refusing to work within the Good Friday Agreement. They have created a political vacuum in which all nationalists living in North Belfast are seen by unionist paramilitaries as legitimate targets.

"I am no different from any other nationalist in North Belfast who have been told they are being targeted by loyalists" said McFarlane.

UNIONIST REACTIONS CRITICISED

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein Assembly member Gerry Kelly has described the response to unionist paramilitary violence by all shades of unionist politicians as "hypocritical and dangerous".

Kelly was speaking last Friday after he visited the home of a Catholic family in Alliance Avenue in north Belfast. which had been targeted in the latest sectarian pipe bomb attack on a Catholic family, the fifth such sectarian attack in the area in the past week.

In recent weeks loyalist politicians including a former Mayor of Belfast Jim Rodgers said that a pipe bomb which injured a fourteen year old boy in Bryson Street in the Short Strand area of East Belfast was "green propaganda".

Also Frankie Gallagher of the Ulster Political Research Group, which has links with the UDA, said loyalists were not involved in the Bryson Street attack and that it was an own goal.

Rodgers also claimed that a PSNI member told him that republicans, in the Short Strand, were staging attacks on their own community for propaganda reasons, a claim dismissed by a senior PSNI member who oversees operations at interfaces.

Responding Kelly accused unionists of burying their heads in the sand and of trying to blame everyone but themselves, "we only have to remember David Trimble attempting to link the killing by the UDA of young Ciaran Cummings in Antrim to a drugs dispute".

Kelly added, "people are justifiably angry at being under constant attack from unionist paramilitaries while unionist political leaders are actively trying to redirect the blame for loyalist attacks on the Catholic communities or attempting to cover up these attacks.

"At a time when unionist leaders are sitting in talks with loyalist paramilitaries in South Africa nationalists are accusing unionist politicians of having an acceptable level of loyalist violence directed at Catholics. This position is both hypocritical and dangerous and only gives assistance and excuses to those who carry out these nightly attacks" said Kelly.