+++ Pro-British Loyalists attack Romanian families and Irish locals in South Belfast +++
The police doesn’t intervene +++ Locals takt to the streets in solidarity against racist
attacks +++ Loyalist paramilitaries are supposedly in talks about decommissioning of their
weapons +++
„We’ll keep watch over their homes“
Locals stand against racist attacks
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Uschi Grandel, June 22, 2009
Racist attacks against Romanian families in Belfast made headlines also in the German
media last week. More than 100 immigrants were forced to take shelter in a church near
Queen's University last week after four days of racist attacks by loyalist thugs from
the Village area of south Belfast. Houses inhabited by Romanian families were targeted.
A gang smashed windows and threatened to stab pregnant women and children. Other families
had been threatened by a man armed with a handgun.
These attacks provoke a feeling of „déjà vu“. The attackers don’t appear out of nowhere.
They are part of the same loyalist gangs who were used and abused for decades by the
British government in London and their pro-British Unionist proconsuls in Belfast against
Irish communities in the North of Ireland. Incited to hatred against non protestant
communities and against those, who didn’t held the opinion that the North was the most
British province under the crown, there was almost no decade without pogroms against
Irish communities. Sectarianism, which can be described as anti-Irish racism, has always
hit Ethnic minorities as well, Italian families, the Chinese community or recently the
Romanian immigrants.
Police doesn’t stop racist attacks
The police didn’t intervene to stop the attacks on the Romanian families. The PSNI had
taken up to two hours to respond to calls. Some calls went unanswered.
In March a Catholic father-of-four Kevin McDaid was beaten to death in Coleraine. His
family said the PSNI stood by and did nothing during the attack. The PSNI neither
intervened in 2005 in Aghohill, where they handed out fireprotection blankets to the
victims of pipe bomb attacks. A loyalist gang attacked this small Irish community for
weeks without the police doing anything about it.
In addition to the attacks on the Romanians an Irish family was targeted as well and
had to leave their home. „Kill all taigs“ was sprayed onto one of the walls of their house.
The attitude of the police and the good relations of policemen with loyalist gangs is one
of the huge problems of the process of conflict resolution. The recent news that loyalists
are in talks about decommissioning and may have started this process would be good news,
but with the attacks going on it’s difficult to believe in the seriousness.
Locals show their solidarity with the Romanian families
A very positive signal is coming from locals of the area. They took the street to show
solidarity with the Romanian families and to stand against further racist attacks. At
their first local rally on June 15 a hundert local people attended. They were attacked
by loyalists. Youths hurled bottles and made Nazi salutes at those taking part in the
anti-racism rally. While the bigots scrawled slogans supporting the neo-nazi group
Combat 18 and the fascist British National Party (BNP), links to either group appear
superficial.
Paddy Meehan, a neighbor of the threatened Romanian families started right after the first
attack on June 12 to raise awareness within the neighborhood and get people on the street
against the racist attacks.
„Long standing problem“
Locals criticize that the police did nothing to prevent or to stop the attacks.
Quite to the contrary, the police advised the Romanian people to move out of the area.
The attackers later exulted in their success, with some travelling to west Belfast
where they desecrated republican graves. Racist and sectarian slogans, along with
Combat 18 graffiti was daubed on the Republican Plot in Milltown cemetery. A considerable
amount of damage was done to the graves.
Sinn Fein Assembly member for West Belfast, Paul Maskey, condemned the unionist
response to the latest incidents:
"We do not see any flow of information from within that community to the PSNI either
on the attack on the Republican graves or indeed more worryingly on the disgraceful
attempts to drive the Romanian community from the city. Racist attacks coming from
with the unionist community in Belfast are not new and did not just start this week
with attacks on the Romanians. This has been a long standing problem and one which
clearly has not yet been properly addressed either by political representatives of
that community or indeed by the PSNI. Otherwise these attacks would have stopped years ago."
On Sunday 500 people took to the street in a second rally of solidarity in which also the
Deputy First Minister Martin Mc Guinness (Sinn Fein) took part.
(See also reports from Irish Republican News and South Belfast News from Juni 12-20, 2009.
Fotos 1 and 2 from South Belfast News , June 20, 2009, Foto 3 showa a part of the memorial
of the Easter Rising, Belfast Telegraph, June 19, 2009.)
