Low Intensity Terror Campaign In North Belfast

The campaign of low intensity terror being waged against the Protestant community in North Belfast shows no signs of abatement. This campaign began in earnest at the time of the Holy Cross dispute and was seen by many within the Protestant-Unionist community as the Catholic-Nationalist community “paying them back” for not allowing their procession, the ranks of which had such notable school girls as the Shankill bomber Sean Kelly and other less notable coat trailers, to pass by a small embattled Protestant-Unionist enclave. Rather than take the alternative route to the school that caused no sectarian offence and would have allowed dialogue in a calm atmosphere, the Holy Cross protestors stoked the flames of sectarianism. Since then there has been a low intensity terror campaign against vulnerable sections of the Protestant-Unionist community in North Belfast.

At the height of the sectarianism surrounding the Holy Cross protest many Protestant families sent young children to live with relatives in other, more peaceful parts of Belfast. This was because of the low intensity terror campaign that has been ongoing and that involves armed gangs of Irish-Nationalists/Roman-Catholics patrolling parts of North Belfast and attacking the most vulnerable within the community, children and the elderly. These gangs are not just groups of young school children acting “hard men” but grown men and they have no moral scruples about attacking women and children. The attacks against Protestant children have, however, not stopped but have intensified as Irish-Nationalist/Roman-Catholic gangs are still on the rampage throughout North Belfast. Last year local Protestant children from the Model school had to flee for their lives as their school bus was stoned and the windows smashed in showering them with broken glass. One young boy, aged 8, almost lost an eye as he came under attack from a gang of 12 men throwing bricks and roof slates. The young boy had been playing with his cousin on a swing when the attack happened. Another mother with two young children had to run for her life as yet again a gang of men attacked her and her two young children. She had to lift her two children and run for her life as missiles rained down around her.

At the height of this low intensity terror campaign a young boy, Thomas McDonald, was killed as he cycled his bike along the pavement. The woman who was driving the car, a mother herself, was leaving her children to school. It appears that once this woman knew his religious identity the young boys fate was sealed and the car mounted the footpath, pursued him and ran him over injuring him fatally. For a time this particular tactic of terror became very popular and the gangs of Irish-Nationalists/Roman-Catholics would steal a car with the sole purpose of using it as an instrument of death to be used to maim and kill. The beauty about this particular method of sectarian killing was that the death of the Protestant, or serious injury caused to them, could be played down as nothing more than a hit and run accident caused by ‘joy riders’. The truth was, however, this was a new tactic that been utilised in the low intensity terror campaign, the aim of which was to drive out Protestants from their homes. This aim appears to have been very successful and house after house in flash point areas in North Belfast has been boarded up and left by its Protestant inhabitants.

In more recent times this low intensity campaign of terror against the Protestant community has sparked outrage. We have had the hoax bomb attack on the Wheatfield Primary School made by the ‘Catholic Reaction Force’ a label of convenience that re-surfaced at the time of the Holy Cross protest.  Another attempt to kill, or maim, has also been made against a member of the McDonald family. Natalie McDonald, the younger sister of Thomas McDonald was attacked in an unprovoked incident as she walked down the street. Natalie McDonald is 11 years old; she had just finished primary school and was walking down the Serpetine Road when she was surrounded by a group of young men, all members of the Irish-Nationalist/Roman-Catholic community. She was verbally abused and taunted about her brothers death, they asked her how “Tom was”. The verbal abuse then made way for stone throwing, and the young girl was hit with a brick in the stomach. As a result of the injuries sustained from having been hit the young girl had to be rushed to hospital for treatment. Unfortunately with these attacks against Protestant children continuing it is only a matter of time before the sectarianism that has been stoked by the Holy Cross protestors and by the agitation of thugs from the Irish-Nationalist community leads to yet another young life being lost. The question has to be asked what kind of sick twisted ‘men’ - I use the word grudgingly as such people are not men but cowards – attack young children?

Unfortunately the violence against the Protestant community in parts of North Belfast will probably only cease when the last Protestant is forced from the area they live in by these cowardly thugs. It is not, however, these thugs who are directing the violence, they are merely the foot soldiers used by those who pull the strings behind this campaign of low intensity terror. The aim of the campaign is clear, to remove Protestants from the area as they see such areas as “their territory”. The campaign of low intensity terror has been successful; let us not fool ourselves that it has not. It has been announced recently that approximately 160 homes in the Glenbryn Park and Glenbryn drive area are to be razed to the ground. Those houses that were privately owned have been bought over by the Housing Executive. Many of the people who live in the area have moved to other areas, older people have gone into old peoples homes. Whilst there have been promises of re-development it is hard to see many Protestant families wishing to return to this area, especially after the apparent murder of a young child and the continuing campaign of low intensity terror.

The campaign of low intensity terror must cease, and those within the Irish-Nationalist/Roman Catholic community with the influence to curb these gangs of marauding thugs must use such influence before more life is lost. Those who are directing this campaign, and we all know the organisations involved, must ask themselves if they are truly serious about peace. They must ask themselves the question does this ethnic cleansing of embattled Protestant communities in Belfast further the peace process? Or does it merely further their own perceived sectarian interests? Also, how much of this violence against the Protestant community is as a result of the simmering feud between rival Irish-Nationalist organisations: the PIRA and the INLA? In North Belfast the two organisations are at loggerheads over issues such as who receives the biggest cut from the narcotics market and other Mafia style activities. When we analyse Irish-Nationalist violence the axiom: “the family that preys together stays together” appears to be what is happening as attention is diverted away from tension in Irish-Nationalist areas and towards the perceived enemy: the Protestant working-class community.

Which one of the two, peace or sectarian interests that act as a smoke screen for Mafia style activities do they wish to pursue? Many within the Irish-Nationalist/Roman-Catholic community make mealy-mouthed statements about peace yet behind the scenes they put in place the very conditions that are leading to violence.