SAOIRSE32

RTE

10 September 2005 22:08

Several police officers and at least two civilians have been injured, during violent disturbances in north and west Belfast this evening.

One civilian is understood to have received serious injuries when a blast bomb exploded, while the other received a gunshot wound when rioters fired on police.

Plastic bullets and water canon were deployed by the security forces.

The violence erupted after the Orange Order’s controversial Whiterock parade passed through the contested route.

The Parades Commission had banned Orangemen from using Workman Avenue which is close to a nationalist area of the Springfield road.

Hundreds of loyalists began rioting after the march followed a new route through a former factory site.

Traffic around the city was disrupted during the afternoon as protesters supporting the marchers blocked the roadway for a time.

Earlier, the Sinn Féin leader, Gerry Adams, appealed for calm. The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, also called for a peaceful demonstration.

While Sir Reg Empey of the Ulster Unionists described the decision to allow the re-routing as unsatisfactory.

BreakingNews.ie: Explosions and shots at West Belfast parade

10/09/2005 - 18:08:00

Violence has escalated at the Orange Order march in West Belfast after loyalists opened fire on police with automated weapons.

Blast and petrol bombs have also been thrown, and at least three police officers have been injured.

There are reports that plastic bullets have also been fired during the rioting in the West Circular Road area.

Elsewhere, vehicles have been set on fire on the Ardoyne Road and North Queen’s Street.

Trouble flared as marchers passed the Springfield Road area, where today’s parade was re-routed.

BBC NEWS

BBC

Riot police kept residents and marchers apart

Shots have been fired at police and blast bombs thrown during loyalist rioting surrounding a controversial Orange Order parade in Belfast.

Water canon and plastic bullets have been used against petrol bombers who attacked police and soldiers. Four officers were reported injured.

The security forces came under sustained attack by several hundred rioters on West Circular Road.

Cars were hijacked and set on fire on Ardoyne Road and North Queen Street.

Protests linked to the Orange Order’s re-routed Whiterock parade caused severe traffic disruption in the city.

In North Queen Street, police came under attack.

Earlier, a number of children were left badly shocked after a bus driving along the street was hit with bottles and stones.

A window was smashed and one passenger said some people on board panicked and were screaming in terror.

“It’s hard to tell for sure whether anyone’s hurt because so many people panicked and got off the bus. They were screaming and yelling,” he said.

“It was obvious to me that a number of the children were in shock.”

Several roads were blocked in what a DUP councillor said was “disgust” over a ban on the parade.

The march was barred from going through security gates on the Springfield Road, and had to use a former factory site.

There was a major police and Army presence in the area. Screens were erected in front of houses.

Almost 100 people blocked off three lanes of traffic behind Belfast City Hall.

Some of the protesters had their face covered with scarves, others were wearing hoods. The police closed the road for a time, before the crowd moved to Shaftesbury Square.

Another group of protesters tried to block the Albert Bridge in east Belfast. They were attacked by residents in the Short Strand.

The tension was defused by police who are currently in riot gear keeping both sides apart.

Orangeman Raymond Speers explained the reason for the protest.

“In the grand scale of things, just to disrupt traffic is not a heinous crime when you look back over the years of history in Northern Ireland,” he said.

“It’s frustration of Protestant people as to what they can do to have their ordinary voice heard. We just feel so frustrated that there is a cultural veto through the Parades Commission for the republican/nationalist community.”

Sinn Fein councillor Fra McCann said the trouble could have been avoided if the Orangemen had talked to Springfield Road residents.

‘Loyalist paramilitaries’

Following earlier protests, the Grosvenor Road and Westlink are now open. However, part of the Albertbridge Road and Shaftesbury Square remain closed.

Meanwhile, a van has also been hijacked at Ohio Street, but recovered a short time later. No-one was injured.

On Friday night, a senior police officer said he feared loyalist paramilitaries could cause trouble at the march.

Assistant Chief Constable Duncan McCausland appealed to community representatives to prevent tensions rising at the parade.

After a request by unionists on Friday, the Parades Commission reviewed its ruling on the Whiterock Parade, but did not change it.

It was re-routed by the Parades Commission through the former Mackies site instead of Workman Avenue, off the mainly nationalist Springfield Road.

There was a heavy security presence for the parade

A feeder march on “a non-contentious part” of the road was allowed by the commission.

In a statement, the Belfast County Grand Orange Lodge said “in spite of all the risks taken,” the Orangemen were “faced with a further attempt to humiliate and suppress their culture”.

It said nationalist and republicans would come to understand that “exercising a cultural veto” through their “Parades Commission puppets” would not be allowed to continue “without consequences”.

DUP leader Ian Paisley and the UUP’s Sir Reg Empey met Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde about the parade route.

They submitted what they said was new evidence to the Parades Commission, asking the body to review its decision, but their request was refused.

The Orange Order first shelved the re-routed parade in June, which had been opposed by nationalist Springfield Road residents. It was re-scheduled for Saturday, but again restricted.

In its determination on the march, the Parades Commission cited “a possible adverse effect on community relations” if the march was allowed on the Order’s preferred route.

The Parades Commission was set up in 1997 to make decisions on whether or not restrictions should be imposed on controversial parades during Northern Ireland’s marching season.

BBC

A man is in a critical condition in hospital after being attacked by a gang of up to 10 men in east Belfast.

The 29-year-old, believed to be a Catholic, was discovered lying on a river walkway at the junction of the Albertbridge Road and Short Strand.

He had sustained a head injury and was given emergency treatment at the scene.

The gang, wearing peach, pink, or yellow tops, were all seen running up the Ravenhill Road. A sectarian motive has not been ruled out for the attack.

The police said they did not know at this stage why the man was singled out.

Witnesses are being urged to contact the police.

Sinn Fein assembly member Alex Maskey said he believed the victim was attacked because he was Catholic.

“There is no doubt that these incidents do rise in the number, and very often the intensity, depending on what the current political situation is,” he said.

“Belfast this week has been caught up in a whole series of protests and there has been a lot of political controversy over these parades.

“I have no doubt that that in some way goes on to inflame others at grass-roots level and to carry out such attacks.”

Ulster Unionist councillor Jim Rodgers condemned the attack which he described as “savage and horrendous”.

“I hope and pray that the man will make a full recovery. There have been several similar incidents in this area over many years and I call on the police to step up patrols,” he said.

Newsday.com

Guantanamo inmates resolute in 2nd month of hunger strike - 13 are being force-fed - to protest conditions

BY LETTA TAYLER
September 10, 2005

Click to view - CNN photo

Scores or even hundreds of inmates at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay are entering the second month of a hunger strike that has led to the hospitalization of at least 15 prisoners, the Pentagon and defense lawyers said Friday.

Many detainees and their lawyers believe some of those fasting may starve to death to protest conditions at the controversial military outpost in Cuba. Thirteen inmates are being force-fed intravenously.

“People will definitely die,” detainee Binyam Mohammed, an Ethiopian-born British resident, said in one of several statements from inmates that defense lawyers recently declassified.

“Bobby Sands petitioned the British government to stop the illegitimate internment of Irishmen without trial,” Mohammed continued in reference to a famous Irish Republican Army inmate who died during a hunger strike in a British prison in 1981. “Nobody should believe for one moment that my brothers here have less courage.”

The hunger strike is the fifth among the foreign-born Muslim inmates at Guantanamo, all but four of whom are being held indefinitely without charges as part of the U.S. war on terror. The protest is likely to fuel further controversy over the base, which has been accused of denying inmates due process and subjecting them to physical and emotional abuse.

The Pentagon denied any wrongdoing and said in a statement that it is “constantly looking for ways to improve conditions” for detainees.

“The United States operates a safe, humane and professional detention operation at Guantanamo,” said Navy Lt. Commander Alvin Pexico, a Pentagon spokesman. He described the base’s legal procedures for detainees - which defense lawyers are barred from attending - as “appropriate.”

According to base spokesman Sgt. Justin Behrens, 89 of Guantanamo’s 505 inmates are on the current fast, which began Aug. 8. Behrens said 15 inmates were hospitalized and are in stable condition. The Pentagon defines a hunger strike as missing nine meals over 72 hours.

Defense attorneys said more than 200 inmates are fasting but some are accepting small amounts of liquid or occasional meals to prolong the strike.

Prisoners are demanding trials in U.S. courts, as well as such improvements as better food, bottled drinking water, more reading materials and greater religious freedoms.

“It’s a dire situation because the military is refusing reasonable negotiation,” said Clive Stafford Smith, a prominent British attorney representing several detainees. “It is incredible that the U.S. government is denying these inmates fair trials even if the alternative is that they could die of starvation.” He said the military refused to let him see one fasting client and threatened to arrest him for being a hunger-strike ringleader - which he denies - when he was visiting Guantanamo in mid-August.

More than 200 prisoners participated in the June-July hunger strike and about 50 had to be fed intravenously, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based civil rights group. Behrens said 68 inmates participated.

In declassified statements, detainees said they’d halted the previous fast after Guantanamo officials promised improved conditions. They said they resumed the hunger strike after some improvements didn’t materialize and more inmates were beaten or subjected to psychological abuse. Guantanamo officials denied those allegations but refused to answer repeated queries on what they promised or provided.

The detainees’ statements paint a scene of gruesome desperation during the previous hunger strike, with prisoners vomiting blood or collapsing in their cells.

“Many more people have fallen unconscious. … More are taken to hospital,” wrote detainee Omar Deghayes, a Libyan-born British resident, adding that he felt “like dead” from fasting. ” … I think things are getting worse and it will go out of control,” he added.

The military has not declassified most detainees’ statements about the current strike.

BBC

A major security operation is under way ahead of the re-routed Whiterock parade in Belfast.

The city’s most senior police officer has said he fears loyalist paramilitaries may cause trouble at the march.

Marchers are barred from going through security gates on Springfield Road.

Meanwhile, a van has been hijacked in north Belfast. It was taken at Ohio Street, but recovered a short time later. No-one was injured.

After a request by unionists on Friday, the Parades Commission reviewed its ruling on the Whiterock Parade, but did not change it.

Assistant Chief Constable Duncan McCausland appealed to community representatives to prevent tensions rising at the Orange Order parade.

“I am concerned tomorrow may bring some disorder, but I am also hopeful that common sense will prevail,” he said.

It was re-routed by the Parades Commission through the former Mackies site instead of Workman Avenue, off the mainly nationalist Springfield Road.

A feeder march on “a non-contentious part” of the road has been allowed by the commission.

Mr McCausland said their role was to police the commission’s determination but that tensions surrounding the parade have “no policing solution”.

On Friday, Springfield Road at Lanark Way was closed for a time as loyalists protested the re-routing for a third day.

In a statement, the Belfast County Grand Orange Lodge said “in spite of all the risks taken,” the Orangemen were “faced with a further attempt to humiliate and suppress their culture”.

It said nationalist and republicans would come to understand that “exercising a cultural veto” through their “Parades Commission puppets” would not be allowed to continue “without consequences”.

DUP leader Ian Paisley and the UUP’s Sir Reg Empey have met with Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde about the parade route.

Dr Uprichard said the commission’s ruling should be abided

They submitted what they said was new evidence to the Parades Commission, asking the body to review its decision, but their request was refused.

Presbyterian Moderator Dr Harry Prichard has urged both marchers and protesters to abide by the commission’s ruling.

“I understand that there are many concerns and worries about freedom to express culture, to achieve justice and equality and about human rights,” he said.

Earlier, Sean Paul O’Hare from the Springfield Residents Group said tension in the area was high.

“People need to take a step back. They need to look, in terms of their language and they need to appeal for calm,” he said.

The Orange Order first shelved the re-routed parade in June, which had been opposed by nationalist Springfield Road residents. It was re-scheduled for Saturday, but again restricted.

In its determination on the march, the Parades Commission cited “a possible adverse effect on community relations” if the march was allowed on the Order’s preferred route.

The Parades Commission was set up in 1997 to make decisions on whether or not restrictions should be imposed on controversial parades during Northern Ireland’s marching season.

An Phoblacht

By Shane Mac Thomais

On the 8 September 1921, 84 years ago, one of the most daring and successful IRA prison breaks took place.

In 1921 over 1,300 IRA Volunteers were imprisoned in the Curragh Camp, County Kildare. The camp was sprawled over ten acres and the men were housed in 60 wooden army huts arranged in four rows, designated A,B,C and D. The compound was rectangular and entirely enclosed by barbed wire fences and at each corner of the compound stood a high tower on which machine guns were mounted and manned 24 hours a day. Powerful searchlights swept continuously once darkness fell, making sure no prisoner was out of his hut at night.

The British believed it was impossible to escape from the camp and prior to September 1921 all attempts had ended in failure. One potential escaper concealed himself in a laundry van only to be discovered at the main gate, while another hid in a latrine until lights out and crept towards the wire only to find himself looking down the barrel of a guard’s rifle.

After many foiled escapes, the prisoners decided that if it wasn’t possible to go out through the wire, they would have to go under it. A first tunnel was started in April 1921, mined with the blood sweat and tears of Jim Brady and Jim Gavin. It was discovered by a squadron of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers when they received a tip off from one of the numerous stoolpigeons they had placed in the camp under the guise of prisoners.

After the discovery of the first tunnel, further escapes were postponed until after the Truce was announced on 11 July 1921. This time, two tunnels were started. The first was known as the Dublin Brigade tunnel, as most of those who worked on it were from Dublin. The second tunnel, mined by the men of the West of Ireland and a few men from Tullamore, was a smaller unshored boring known as the Tullamore tunnel or rabbit burrow.

Both tunnels were dug inch by agonising inch. The tools they used were a screwdriver and table knives they had stolen from the dining hall. The only ventilation came from the entrance of the tunnel and consequently, the atmosphere at the workface was foul. The IRA men worked on grimly hour by hour, enduring the fetid smell of damp earth in complete darkness for eleven days until they were close to exhausted. Excess soil from the tunnel was taken out in pillowcases and scattered from pockets into the soil of the camp and lookouts were posted to watch out for guards who might hear the digging under ground.

On 5 September British troops of the East Sussex Regiment began to unload timber and barbed wire at the perimeter fence and word went around the camp that a second camp was about to be made in the direct line of the tunnels. It became imperative for one of the tunnels to reach the outside perimeter as soon as possible. The Tullamore tunnel was chosen as it was more advanced. Onwards thence in a million, a military patrol had approached the tower just as the escapers had begun to cut the wire. The officer in charge of the patrol thought the challenge was directed at him and the sentry in the tower thought that the sound he had heard came from the patrol.

Brady and Galvin continued to cut the wire and then returned to the hut to tell the other escapers how to get out of the camp. Over 50 made good their escape. By the time most of them had reached the wire, a thick fog covered the Curragh. The next morning, a roll call was called at 7am and an immediate large scale search was mounted but to no avail, as none of the escapers were ever captured.

An Phoblacht

The new republican Garden of Remembrance at Gulladuff in County Derry will be the scene of a major historical commemorative event this coming Saturday (today) when plaques inscribed with the names of the republican dead from Counties Derry and Antrim will be unveiled.

According to Magherafelt Sinn Féin Councillor and former political prisoner Ian Milne, Saturday’s commemoration will become an annual commemorative event.

Milne went on to explain that the new plaques in the Garden of Remembrance will have a full and comprehensive list of republican activists from the United Irishmen to the Fenians to Volunteers from the Tan War and Civil War and up to and including the fallen heroes of this current phase of Ireland’s struggle for independence.

“Great strides have been made within Counties Derry and Antrim in recent times with the huge increase in the Sinn Féin vote in both counties. Coupled with this we have established a vibrant constituency service in Dunloy and built a magnificent new republican centre in South Derry. Activists have obtained all this as a direct result of the struggle and sacrifices made by republican activists and Volunteers over the generations,” said Milne.

Calling for a large attendance at Saturday’s unveiling, Milne said: “It is important that republicans from the Southeast Antrim and South Derry areas turn out in large numbers for this unveiling to show our political enemies that we are united and as purposeful as ever in our struggle to establish the independent Ireland so many died fighting for.”

The commemoration parade will commence at St Mary’s Church, Lavey at 7.45pm on Saturday 10 September and proceed to the Garden of Remembrance, Gulladuff. Refreshments will be served in the nearby Republican Centre.

BBC

Michael McKevitt challenged the partial funding of the civil case

A government award of £700,000 to help fund the Omagh families’ civil case against those suspected of the bombing was unlawful, the High Court has ruled.

The payment was authorised by the Lord Chancellor in a civil action claiming compensation of £14m.

His decision was challenged by Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt, one of the five defendants in the case.

The Real IRA has been blamed for carrying out the attack in 1998, which killed 29 people.

In his ruling, Mr Justice Coghlin said the payment was unlawful because the Lord Chancellor had no legal power to order the Legal Services Commission, formerly the Legal Aid Department, to fund the Omagh relatives.

A lawyer for the Lord Chancellor said he would revoke his order and would look at other ways of legally providing financial assistance and would change the law if necessary.

The court was told lawyers had already incurred costs of over £400,000.

However, Judge Coghlin said that as the money had been spent in good faith he would not order repayment.

McKevitt is currently serving a 20-year sentence in Portlaoise prison for running the Real IRA.

He and four other people in the Republic of Ireland - Seamus Daly, Seamus McKenna, Liam Campbell and Colm Murphy - are being sued by the families of those killed in the atrocity.

McKevitt had a claim for £1m in legal aid to fight the case turned down.

BBC: ON THIS DAY

10 September 1973

The King’s Cross bomb shattered glass in the old booking hall

Scotland Yard is hunting a teenage suspect after two bombs at mainline stations injured 13 people and brought chaos to central London.

The first explosion at King’s Cross - which injured five people - occurred seconds after a witness saw a youth throw a bag into a booking hall.

Fifty minutes later a second blast rocked a snack bar at Euston station, injuring a further eight people.

No group has yet said it planted the bombs, but police have said the 2-3 lb (0.9-1.4 kg) bombs were typical of IRA manufacture.

The King’s Cross bomb - which exploded without any warning at 1224 BST - shattered glass throughout the old booking hall and hurled a baggage trolley several feet through the air.

“I saw a flash and suddenly people were being thrown through the air - it was a terrible mess, they were bleeding and screaming,” a witness said.

The second explosion occurred just minutes after the Press Association received a telephoned warning from a man with an Irish accent, and the police had very little time to clear the station.

The manageress of the Euston bar targeted by the bombers said officers ran up and down the platforms with loudhailers telling everybody to get out.

“About three minutes after we heard ‘bomb scare!’ the blast went off,” she said.

Scotland Yard said it received more than one hundred hoax telephone calls throughout the day and was forced to evacuate three other London stations.

Officers have issued a photofit picture of the 5 ft 2 in tall, 15-17 year-old they wish to question about the King’s Cross explosion.

In Context

The IRA said they were behind the explosions which came during one of their sustained periods of activity in England.

Two days before, on 8 September, there were bombs in Manchester city centre and at Victoria station in London.

And forty-eight hours later further blasts in the country’s capital rocked Oxford Street and Sloane Square.

The IRA’s 1970s bombing campaign in England began soon after Bloody Sunday in 1972 and ended after the Balcombe Street siege in December 1975.

Independent

By David McKittrick, Ireland Correspondent
10 September 2005 00:37

The granite head of Horatio Nelson, severed from its statue by a republican bomb almost 40 years ago, has gone on show at a new home in Dublin.

In 1966, his statue was toppled from Nelson’s Pillar, the 120ft column which had stood for 150 years in Dublin’s main street as one of the city’s most prominent landmarks.

Interest has grown rapidly recently in Nelson as the bicentenary of his victory over the French at Trafalgar approaches next month. Most of the 13ft statue has long disappeared, but the head has been kept at several venues. It has now been put on display in Dublin City Archive, near its original location in O’Connell Street.

Its destruction was regarded at the time as something of a nocturnal jape by IRA members acting individually, and probably not with the sanction of the organisation.

No one was killed or injured and damage to property other than the pillar was minimal. The remaining stump was blown up by the Irish army, local traders complaining that the second explosion had caused more damage than the first.

An even larger monument to another British hero of Napoleonic times stands in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, the largest obelisk of Europe, in memory of the Duke of Wellington.

Although massive, it is almost lost in the park’s sprawling acres. It is made of solid granite and is not prominently labelled as a memorial to Wellington. Its sheer size may have helped protect it.

Less formidable statues have not been so fortunate. In the 1920s, a statue of King William III was blown up; in 1937, King George II’s memorial was dynamited and others were destroyed in the 1950s. After Nelson’s pillar was destroyed, much debate followed on how to replace it, but it was not until two years ago that a stainless steel spire, 130 metres high, was erected on the site. The pillar had stood in the city centre since 1808, surviving the huge damage to the street caused by the Easter rising of 1916.

Several years ago, a republican, Liam Sutcliffe, then 70, claimed he had blown up the pillar. He said: “I was having a drink with an old friend at the time. The 1916 rising was being marked with functions and dinners and the campaign was fizzled out. We thought the rising should be marked with something a bit more dramatic. So I said we should remove it.” He was arrested but no charges were brought.