SAOIRSE32

BBC

Cars have been set on fire in north Belfast

A third night of loyalist violence has erupted in Belfast following the re-routing of a contentious Orange Order parade.

Soldiers and police have been attacked with petrol bombs, blast bombs and fireworks in the Crumlin Road area.

An officer received head injuries in west Belfast and petrol bombs were thrown at New Barnsley police station.

Police moved water cannon onto the Shankill Road after being attacked by rioters throwing petrol bombs.

Cars have been set on fire in the Ligoneil Road in the north of the city and on the Kilcooley estate in Bangor.

Youths threw stones from Roden Street onto the Westlink in south Belfast.

The Fortwillliam exit of the M2 and the Grosvenor Road have been closed because of disturbances.

Disruption

Drivers have been advised to avoid the area.

Traffic leaving Belfast was disrupted by protesters

Earlier, road and rail traffic leaving the city was disrupted by security alerts and protests.

The blockades followed intense rioting by loyalists over the weekend.

Unionists said there had been a build-up of resentment within their community because of the government’s handling of the peace process.

Derriaghy Road at Milltown in the west of the city was blocked by protestors, as was Broadway in south Belfast.

The main Lisburn to Dunmurry road was also closed due to a protest by a crowd of between 50 and 60 women, but has also been reopened.

A PSNI spokesperson said the protest, described as “unofficial but peaceful,” ended at about 1800 BST on Monday.

Protestors at Tates Avenue in the south of the city and Twaddle Avenue in north Belfast have now moved off and the the roads have been reopened.

Meanwhile, a number of businesses in the city were reported to have closed early on the advice of the police following the recent rioting.

It is believed callers claiming to be police officers contacted several businesses in the city centre.

However, a PSNI spokesperson said police had not telephoned anyone or given any such instructions.

Trouble began in the city on Saturday after the Parades Commission refused to change their decision to allow the Orange Order’s Whiterock parade to pass through a nationalist section of Springfield Road.

Yahoo! News

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, AP
Mon Sep 12,12:16 PM ET

Click to view - AP Photo: The ruins of a branch of the Northern Bank

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - Protestant hard-liners blocked roads all over Belfast during evening rush hour Monday, causing massive traffic jams and threatening a third night of rioting with Northern Ireland police and British troops.

Starting at about 4 p.m. local time, thousands of Protestant men, women and children sat down on the main highway running through the capital and scores of other roads and intersections. Many Belfast shops and businesses closed early out of fear the illegal blockades would degenerate into violent attacks on police, as happened Saturday and Sunday.

Belfast is home to a third of Northern Ireland’s 1.7 million people.

Until early Monday, crowds of masked men and youths confronted police backed by British troops in dozens of hard-line Protestant districts in Belfast and several other towns. Gunmen shot at police and soldiers in at least two parts of the capital Sunday night, but nobody was hit.

Police units equipped with helmets, body armor and flame-retardant jumpsuits doused crowds with massive water cannons and fired several hundred plastic bullets.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland said 18 officers were injured Sunday night and Monday morning, chiefly by shrapnel from rioters’ homemade grenades, raising the force’s three-day casualty total to 50 injured.

“This is a moment of choice for everybody. … Whose side are you on?” the British governor, Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain, said before Protestant crowds resumed their street blockades Monday afternoon.

“Are you on the side of law and order, applied fairly and equally to every citizen? Or are you against law and order, siding with those firing bullets at the police, throwing petrol bombs and blast bombs at police and attacking them?”

Earlier, Hain received a detailed intelligence briefing on the weekend chaos from Northern Ireland’s police commander, Chief Constable Hugh Orde.

Hain said Orde and senior detectives presented “absolutely clear-cut” evidence that members of Northern Ireland’s two biggest outlawed Protestant groups, the Ulster Defense Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force, were instrumental in directing the riots. He said he planned to announce within days whether Britain would continue recognizing the legitimacy of the joint UDA-UVF cease-fire, which has existed officially since 1994.

Sixteen Protestants appeared in court Monday on a range of riot-related charges. One man, shot in the arm Sunday by British troops, was charged with attempting to murder police and soldiers.

Orde has blamed the Orange Order — a legal brotherhood with more than 50,000 members — for inspiring the riots. The violence began Saturday when police prevented Orangemen from parading near a hard-line Catholic part of west Belfast.

But the senior Orangeman in Belfast, County Grandmaster Dawson Bailie, said Monday he would not condemn the rioters’ actions.

“As far as I am concerned, the people to blame are the secretary of state, the chief constable and the Parades Commission,” Bailie said, referring to Hain, Orde and a joint Catholic-Protestant panel that since 1998 has imposed restrictions on Protestant demonstrations.

The American envoy to Northern Ireland, Mitchell Reiss, offered unusually harsh criticism of Protestant political leaders, whom he accused of offering halfhearted, ambiguous backing for the police.

Reiss said Protestant leaders should not be eligible to serve in any future power-sharing government — the central, unfulfilled goal of Northern Ireland’s 7-year-old Good Friday accord — unless they stood firmly behind the police and against their voters in the mobs.

“All of us are pretty disappointed with the abdication of responsibility by many (Protestant) unionist leaders,” Reiss said in Belfast.

Police and analysts agreed that the march provided a pretext for the UDA and UVF to launch a pre-planned rebellion against police authority. Their desire for street mayhem reflected their near-total disconnection from the British province’s decade-old peace process.

Both are supposed to be observing cease-fires and disarming in support of the 1998 peace pact, just like the outlawed Irish Republican Army rooted in militant Roman Catholic areas.

But while the IRA has built a support base through its Sinn Fein party and has grown central to negotiations, the Protestant paramilitary groups have failed to win electoral support and barely register in political talks. Instead, they wield power through criminal graft backed by occasional intimidating shows of force.

Daily Ireland

Francesca Ryan
12 September 2005

Nationalist residents of west Belfast’s Springfield Road claim they were subjected to two hours of loyalist intimidation and threats on Saturday as PSNI officers stood by.
The claims came after Orangemen and bandsmen held a protest on the Springfield Road in protest at the Parades Commission’s decision not to permit an Orange Order parade to process via Workman Avenue onto the Springfield Road.

Throughout last week, loyalists blocked roads in north and west Belfast in protest at the decision. The real trouble began on Saturday afternoon when a mob of Orangemen and bandsmen gathered at the junction of the Springfield Road and Watermouth Crescent.
A 500-strong mob made its way up the Springfield Road and stopped for almost two hours outside the nationalist cul-de-sac of Watermouth Crescent. The mob verbally abused residents and threatened to return later that night to burn them out of their homes. Only six PSNI officers were present. Most officers were stationed further down the road at Workman Avenue, where loyalists threw blast bombs and missiles across closed gates at residents.
One resident, who did not wish to be named, told Daily Ireland: “There were only two Land Rovers at the end of the street and only six cops to supposedly protect us from this mob. The few cops that were there were leaning against the wall watching us being abused.
“I have never experienced anything like that in my life.
“It was absolutely terrifying and we had nowhere to go.

“This is a cul-de-sac so we were just hemmed in and subjected to abuse, threats and intimidation.”
Contrary to the Parades Commission’s determination that the bandsmen could walk the few hundred metres to the sole beat of a drum during that part of the parade, the resident said the mob had staged a sit-down protest and played loyalist tunes for two hours while Orangemen hurled abuse. “They were calling us Fenian Bs and told us they would be back to burn us out later that night. The music was deafening and there were loyalist paramilitary flags being waved, which was also a breach of conduct.
“At one point, they had the pikes they carry in a position as though they were going to charge us.
“It was then the policemen moved in between us but, rather than push the Orangemen back onto the street, they pushed the residents further into the cul-de-sac. We had no protection whatsoever,” said the resident.
Another woman confronted three bandsmen in her garden as they urinated on her plants.
“My son was standing at our gate when one of these people told him they were going to ram him with a pike. My son looked around to see who the man was speaking to, then he said: ‘I’m speaking to you, you Fenian.’
“It was absolute mayhem. Three of them were going to the toilet in my garden. I told them to get out or I’d set the dogs on them. They didn’t say anything but just climbed over the fence and back onto the road.”
Seán Paul O’Hare, spokesman for the Springfield Residents Action Group, said the Orangemen and loyalists had tried their best to provoke residents into a violent response.

BreakingNews.ie

12/09/2005 - 13:31:18

A British government verdict on the ceasefire status of loyalist paramilitary organisations who plotted ferocious rioting on the streets of the North will be given within days, Secretary of State Peter Hain revealed today.

After being briefed by Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde on the violence that raged across Belfast and surrounding towns for two nights, leaving at least 50 police officers injured, Mr Hain confirmed he was set to announce his course of action.

He has been under intense pressure to specify the Ulster Volunteer Force for carrying out a gangland killing spree against rival loyalists.

And now that faction and the Ulster Defence Association have both been blamed for the weekend mayhem.

Mr Hain, who studied CCTV footage of gunmen opening fire on police and soldiers, and petrol bombers attacking security lines in Belfast, Co Antrim and Co Down, said he was horrified by what he had viewed.

He declared: “The evidence I have seen this morning is absolutely clear-cut. If it wasn’t clear-cut before, it’s absolutely categorical now.

“As a result, I’m now going through, and indeed have been over the past week, a process in which I will be making an announcement in the next few days.”

Mr Hain refused to say if that would involve specifying, or declaring the ceasefires of both organisations in tatters, but he added that detailed legal issues were being examined.

“I need to do this in a proper way,” he insisted.

Mr Hain added that the situation had now reached a defining stage for political representatives and all others caught up in the violence.

He said: “This is a moment of choice for everybody, for politicians and for people right the way down through every part of the community.

“Whose side are you on? Are you on the side of law and order, applied fairly and equally to every citizen?

“Or are you against law and order, siding with those firing bullets at the police, throwing petrol bombs and blast bombs at police and attacking them?”

BBC

Road and rail traffic in Belfast has been disrupted by security alerts and protests.

Broadway in south Belfast, which had been blocked by protestors, has reopened.

Central Railway Station at East Bridge Street, Belfast, has reopened following a security alert.

The main Lisburn to Dunmurry road has been closed due to a protest by a crowd of about 60 women.

A PSNI spokesperson said the protest, described as “unofficial but peaceful,” was expected to end at 1800 BST.

Tates Avenue in the south of the city has been closed, as has Twaddle Avenue in north Belfast.

Police have said Army explosives experts are preparing to carry out a controlled explosion on a suspicious device at Lanark Way in west Belfast.

Meanwhile, a number of businesses in the city were reported to have closed early on the advice of the police following the recent rioting.

It is believed callers claiming to be police officers contacted several businesses in the city centre.

However, a PSNI spokesperson said police had not telephoned anyone or given any such instructions.

BBC

US special envoy Mitchell Reiss said he was ‘disappointed’

Many unionist leaders have “abdicated responsibility” for weekend violence, President George Bush’s special envoy to Northern Ireland has said.

Mitchell Reiss said leadership was needed but “in the last few days we haven’t seen very much of it”.

DUP leader Ian Paisley denied prompting riots by saying the parade re-routing “could be the spark which kindles a fire there would be no putting out”.

Mr Paisley condemned the violence but said his prediction had come true.

“I was telling the truth, I said I was very very worried,” he said on Monday.

“At that time I was in the midst of trying to get a way whereby this would not happen. And it has happened - my words have been proved to be right.”

Two nights of violence began on Saturday when a controversial Protestant Orange Order march was re-routed away from the mainly Catholic Springfield Road area of west Belfast.

After a request by unionists on Friday, the Parades Commission reviewed its ruling on the route, but decided not to change it.

In a BBC interview, Mr Reiss said there was “absolutely no excuse” for the trouble.

“What you really need is leadership, and unfortunately in the last few days, we haven’t seen very much of it.”
Mitchell Reiss
US special envoy to NI

“I think all of us are pretty disappointed with the abdication of responsibility by many unionist political leaders,” he said.

“No political party, and certainly no responsible political leadership, deserves to serve in a government unless it cooperates and supports fully and unconditionally the police, and calls on its supporters to do so.

“It’s true for unionism, it’s true for all political parties, and I think that this was not the finest moment for politics in Northern Ireland over the weekend.”

The US Envoy said problems needed to be tackled by sustained hard work in communities.

“What you really need is leadership, and unfortunately in the last few days, we haven’t seen very much of it,” he said.

However, he singled out Ulster Unionist Belfast councillor Fred Cobain for praise for the work he had done over the weekend and in the past weeks.

“When people do stand up and take a courageous stand and exert leadership, they deserve to be recognised,” he said.

‘No justification’

Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern said that whatever grievances people may have, there was “absolutely no justification for violence”. He has asked for a full report from the Joint Secretariat in Belfast.

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams accused Mr Paisley and Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey of giving “wrong and negative leadership”. He said they could not wash their hands of what happened.

Mr Adams said if he had said “even a measure” of some of the comments made prior to the march, there would have been calls for his arrest.

Policing Board vice chairman Denis Bradley said “irresponsible” comments by DUP politicians were not helping the situation.

He said loyalists must realise rioting was “not the answer”.

BBC

Army bomb experts were sent to the scene

A security alert near a primary school in Ballymena, County Antrim, has ended.

Police said an Army explosives team defused three viable pipe bombs found at Casement Place in the Harryville area at about 1000 BST.

More than 140 pupils at Harryville Primary School were sent home on Monday morning because of the alert.

Forty homes near Casement Street were also evacuated. Principal Lesley Meikle said the children were first taken to a nearby park.

She said the alert was disguised as a fire drill to avoid worrying them.

“There was no panic at all - it was only later that the older children realised that something was wrong. We had quite a lot of tears and quite a bit of work to calm the children down,” she said.

“It makes me very cross that somebody can leave something at the side of a school. They have no concern for life whatsoever.”

Irelandclick.com

They came, they saw, they shouted insults, spat on residents and urinated in their gardens

12 September 2005

BBC photo

“The mob were verbally abusing us, taking photographs of us with their mobile phones, one even spat in a resident’s face and threatened to return to burn us out, all the while the police did nothing…”
Springfield Road resident

Springfield Road residents say they were subjected to two hours of loyalist intimidation and threats on Saturday as PSNI officers stood by.

The claims came after Orangemen and bandsmen held a protest on the Springfield Road in protest at the Parades Commission’s decision not to permit an Orange Order parade to process via Workman Avenue on to the nationalist Springfield Road.

Following the decision, DUP leader Ian Paisley said the issue “could be the spark which kindles a fire there would be no putting out”.

Throughout the week, loyalists blocked roads in North and West Belfast in protest at the decision but the real trouble began on Saturday afternoon when a mob of Orangemen and bandsmen gathered at the Watermouth Crescent/ Springfield Road junction.

A 500-strong mob made their way up the Springfield Road and stopped for almost two hours outside the nationalist cul-de-sac of Watermouth Crescent where they verbally abused residents and threatened to return later that night to burn them out of their homes. Remarkably, only half a dozen PSNI officers were present to prevent possible physical violence from erupting as most were stationed further down the road at Workman Avenue where loyalists were hurling blast bombs and missiles across the closed gates at nationalist residents.

“There were only two Land Rovers at the end of the street and only six cops to supposedly protect us from this mob,” one terrified resident told the Andersonstown News.

“The few cops that were there were leaning against the wall watching us being abused. I have never experienced anything like that in my life, it was absolutely terrifying and we had nowhere to go. This is a cul-de-sac so we were just hemmed in and subjected to abuse, threats and intimidation.”

Contrary to the Parades Commission’s determination that the bandsmen could walk the few hundred yards to the sole beat of a drum during that part of the parade, the resident, who did not wish to be named, said the mob had a sit-down protest and played loyalist tunes non-stop for two hours whilst Orangemen hurled abuse.

“They were calling us fenian b’s and told us they would be back to burn us out later that night. The music was deafening and there were loyalist paramilitary flags being waved which was also a breach of conduct. At one point they had the pikes they carry in a position as though they were going to charge us. It was then the policemen moved in between us but rather than push the Orangemen back on to the street, they pushed the residents further into the cul-de-sac. We had no protection whatsoever,” said the resident who was one of many in Watermouth Crescent who spent the night elsewhere for fear of being burnt out.

Another woman had to chase three bandsmen from her garden as they urinated over her plants.

“My son was standing at our gate when one of these people told him they were going to ram him with a pike. My son looked around to see who the man was speaking to, then he said ‘I’m speaking to you, you fenian bastard’. It was absolute mayhem, three of them were going to the toilet in my garden, I told them to get out or I’d set the dogs on them. They didn’t say anything but just climbed over the fence and back on to the road.

“The mob were verbally abusing us, taking photographs of us with their mobile phones, one even spat in a resident’s face and threatened to return to burn us out, all the while the police did nothing.”

Seán Paul O’Hare, spokesperson for the Springfield Residents’ Group, told the Andersonstown News that the Orange Order and loyalists had tried their best to provoke the residents into a violent response.

“The nationalist community must be commended for the restraint they showed under extreme provocation. Loyalist flags and banners were being waved as Catholics were showered with missiles on the Springfield Road yet they remained calm in the face of this provocation. Those who called on people to come out on to the streets must take responsibility for the violence across Belfast on Saturday,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sinn Féin South Belfast MLA, Alex Maskey, has challenged DUP leader Ian Paisley, UUP leader Reg Empey and senior Belfast Orangeman Dawson Bailey to condemn the widespread violence in the wake of disturbances on the Springfield Road.

“Ian Paisley, Reg Empey and Dawson Bailey must unequivocally condemn the orchestrated campaign of intimidation and terror carried out by the Orange Order and unionist paramilitaries. The widespread disruption and attacks are not just an attempt to terrorise the nationalist community, they are an attack on the whole community,” he said before adding, “Unionist leaders must make it clear that there can be no justification for such actions, and that they stand against this violence and intimidation.”

Journalist:: Francesca Ryan

Belfast Telegraph

By Marie Foy
mfoy@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
12 September 2005

COMMUTERS faced delays today as the morning drive to work was hit by closed roads, damaged traffic lights and debris on the streets.

Despite the disturbances, the main arterial routes into the city were open this morning.

A number of roads were closed through the night but most were passable with care by rush hour.

Only the Springmartin Road in the west of the city remained closed.

Commuters faced further difficulties on a number of routes where traffic lights were out of order.

These were at the Albertbridge Road and Holywood Road junction, Fortwilliam Road at Mount Vernon, and the Westlink at Roden Street.

Roads Service crews began a major clean-up operation from 3am, though some rioters were still on the streets in Newtownabbey at 5.30am.

The routes affected include: Glenmachan Street, Tates Avenue, Donegall Road, Shankill Road, North Queen Street, Albertbridge Road and Shore Road.

Colin Brown, network maintenance manager with the Roads Service, said: “The M1, M2 and Westlink were free and moving well this morning. The Westlink was closed between Broadway and Grosvenor Road during the night but all glass and debris was swept up by the Roads Service so that people could get into the city today.

“One of the biggest problems was the Shore Road at Fortwilliam and Mount Vernon. A lorry was burnt out on the motorway slip but that has been removed.

“There was a burned out car at Agnes Street on the Shankill and a bus and cars at North Queen Street, but again these are now passable with care.

“Another problem is the Albertbridge Road. We have been there since the early hours attempting to keep it as open as possible but there are something like 13 street light columns bent over. The whole place must have been pitch black during the rioting.”

Translink said that up to £500,000 worth of damage was caused to buses after the two nights of rioting.

One bus in Belfast and another in Bangor were burned. A third in Belfast was badly damaged and windows were broken on several other vehicles.

A Translink spokeswoman said: “We have been working in very difficult circumstances but have managed to have all services operating this morning.”

Belfast Telegraph

Hain put on spot after second night of violence

By Chris Thornton and Jonathan McCambridge
cthornton@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
12 September 2005

LOYALIST violence presented Secretary of State Peter Hain with a serious test today after the Chief Constable broke precedent to declare that the UDA and UVF have broken their ceasefires.

Police were today pushing forward one of their largest ever investigations into the apparently co-ordinated outbursts of rioting that gripped the streets of Northern Ireland on Saturday and Sunday.

Police have already made 21 arrests but that number is expected to rise rapidly through the week as the PSNI Crime Operations department focuses on paramilitary involvement in the rioting.

Thirteen people will appear on rioting charges at Laganside Magistrates Court today.

The violence - which broke out in the wake of Saturday afternoon’s Whiterock Orange march - saw gunmen open fire on police and soldiers, a blast bomb attack, and live ammunition and baton rounds fired back. Fifty police officers, at least one suspected gunman and several civilians were hurt. Several buildings were also burned.

Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde blamed the Orange Order and the two main loyalist paramilitary groups for the unrest, which also caused widespread damage in loyalist areas of Belfast and other towns.

Asked if the UDA and UVF had broken their ceasefires, he said: “There was no ceasefire ongoing yesterday.”

Chief Constables, including Sir Hugh, have previously said ceasefire breaches were a matter to be defined by politicians.

Those instances, however, have not included direct attempts to kill the security forces.

Mr Hain has faced repeated calls to declare a breach in the UVF ceasefire, but he repeated today that he has not yet reached a decision.

He said today that he doubted that declaring an end to the ceasefire “would have made the slightest difference” to the UVF members who took part.

He described the rioting as a “hideous throwback to the past” and said that Government needs “to understand the root causes of the frustration in unionist and loyalist communities”.

Belfast’s most senior detective, Chief Superintendent Phil Wright, will head up the police investigative team which will today begin the massive logistical job of sifting through hundreds of hours of CCTV footage.

Local DCU officers will also be investigating a number of alleged breaches of the Parades Commission determination following Saturday’s contentious Whiterock parade.

Police sources today said they were hopeful that the worst of the violence had passed but stressed substantial police and army resources are on standby in case violence flares again.

Clean-up operations were underway in many parts of Northern Ireland after a second night of rioting, described by police as among the worst disturbances in the UK in recent years.

Loyalists again opened fire on police and soldiers who responded by discharging plastic baton rounds and live ammunition. Approximately 500 plastic bullets have now been fired since the violence began.

Police came under blast, bomb and paint bomb attack at a number of locations in Belfast, Co Antrim and Co Down last night.

All main roads were reopened by this morning but motorists were being advised to leave additional time for their journeys.

Meanwhile Belfast’s most senior Orangeman, County Grand Master Dawson Bailie, rejected blame for the rioting.

Sir Hugh said the Order must bear responsibility.

Sinn Féin

Published: 11 September, 2005

Sinn Féin Chief Negotiator, Martin McGuinness MP has accused Unionist politicians of creating a political vacuum that is being filled by unionist paramilitary violence.

Mr Mc Guinness said:

“The political vacuum created by the refusal by Unionist Political leaders to engage with republicans is being filled by unionist paramilitary violence. Unionist politicians and the Orange Order cannot shirk responsibility for the increased violence seen over the past few days. And I would point out that contrary to the picture being painted in the media this violence was not just directed at the PSNI and British Army. Numerous nationalist homes and properties have been attacked in many areas of the North.

“It is incumbent on unionist politicians to stop the prevarication and engage with the representatives of the nationalist/republican people now in order to remove this political vacuum. Unionist politicians must use their influence in a positive manner to have all activity by unionist paramilitary organisations stopped immediately.” ENDS

BBC

Rioting sparked by the re-routing of an Orange Order march was “not loyalism but gangsterism”, Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain has said.

Mr Hain said the violence was tearing communities apart and has got to stop.

He is set to meet Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde, who described the violence as “the worst faced by police in the United Kingdom in recent years”.

He said shots were fired at officers by “loyalist paramilitary groups firing from the cover of the riot”.

He said the outlawed UDA and UVF had “taken advantage” of “what could have been a lawful parade which went completely outside the determination given by the Parades Commission”.

“There was no ceasefire ongoing yesterday - I’m absolutely clear about that,” he added.

Trouble broke out after a disputed Protestant Orange Order parade in the Whiterock area of west Belfast.

At the weekend, Sir Hugh had said the Orange Order bore substantial responsibility for the rioting and attacks on his officers.

The Orange Order described his remarks as “inflammatory”, but Sir Hugh rejected this.

“We are not in a position to be on one side or the other - every single time, my officers are absolutely in the middle,” he said.

He called for politicians, Orangemen and community leaders to “be responsible, rather than to walk away and leave it to police officers to try and fix”.

Mr Hain said it was wrong to say that the violence was symptomatic of a feeling by loyalists that they were losing out.

“The difficulty with Northern Ireland for a long time, and it remains, is that whenever one side is seen to gain the other side sees it as a loss.

“However, what we had at the end of July was an historic IRA statement, taking away the whole basis of the conflict between Catholics and Protestants, between nationalists and loyalists.

“And therefore it’s very difficult to see this particular episode over the weekend or indeed the wider concern - some bitterness and anger within unionist and loyalist circles - as part of the traditional pattern of Catholic against Protestant, loyalist and unionist politics.

“And I think there’s now a need for leadership on all sides, particularly from the Orange Order, from loyalist groups, from the unionist parties, to try to find a way forward.”

Telegraph

Burning barricades on the Shankill Road

Irish Independent

SEX traffickers are using the North, including Belfast International Airport, as a “gateway” to bring Eastern European women and girls into the Republic, senior immigration officials have warned.

And they say tighter security checks at immigration control points at Dublin Airport have led to traffickers using the Northern routes into the country.

As a result increased mobile Garda checks, in liaison with immigration officers, have been ordered at border crossings involving gardai from the Louth/Meath and Cavan/Monaghan divisions.

Details of the step-up emerged yesterday after a 15-year-old girl from Burundi made a dramatic late-night escape over the weekend from a “sex trap” in a house in Co Louth.

According to a Health Service Executive official, the east African teenager was held in captivity at a dwelling in Drogheda for a number of days.

It has been alleged that the girl was the victim of systematic rape and also subjected to serious sexual abuse. It appears the girl, who claims she was taken from her home village at age 12, was used as a “sex slave” in different countries before being moved to Ireland last month.

The teen was brought to Drogheda Garda station and then to hospital.

Patsy McArdle

BBC ON THIS DAY

12 September 1977

Steve Biko became the forty-first person to die in custody in South Africa

The leader of the black consciousness movement in South Africa, Steve Biko, has died in police custody.

The 30-year-old’s death was confirmed by the commissioner of police, General Gert Prinsloo, today.

It is understood Mr Biko died in hospital in Pretoria. The government minister of Justice and Police, James Kruger, stated that Mr Biko had been transferred 740 miles (1,191 km) from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria for medical attention following a seven-day hunger strike.

Mr Biko had been in custody since 18 August when he was arrested and detained under the Terrorism Act. He is the 20th person to die in custody during the past 18 months.

Medical student

Steve Biko was born in King William’s Town in the Eastern Cape of South Africa in 1946.

He became active in the anti-apartheid movement in 1960s when he was studying medicine at the University of Natal.

He initially joined the National Union of South African Students’ (NUSAS) but resigned in 1969 because he felt it did not represent the needs of black students.

He set up the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) in 1968 and was elected its first president the following year.

In 1972 Biko was expelled from medical school and began working full-time for the Black Community Programmes (BCP). He also started writing regularly for the SASO newsletter under the pen-name of Frank Talk.

By 1973 his work had come to the attention of the government who, in an attempt to curtail his activities, imposed a banning order on him restricting him to his home town..

But he continued his work with the BCP which succeeded in building a clinic and a crèche in King William’s Town.

He was also instrumental in setting up several community groups including the Zimele Trust Fund in 1975, which helped political prisoners and their families, and the Ginsberg Educational Trust, to assist black students.

In January of this year he was made honorary president of the BCP.

An inquest into his death is not to be held for several months, according to the authorities.

Mr Biko leaves a wife and two children.

In Context

Steve Biko’s death caused outrage in South Africa and almost immediately doubt was cast over the alleged cause of his death.

Newspaper editor Donald Woods, and close friend of Biko’s, accused the Minister of Justice and Police James Kruger of being directly responsible for the death.

Two weeks later preliminary results from a post mortem examination revealed Biko had died from severe brain damage.

His funeral was attended by more than 15,000 mourners. Thousands more were barred from going by security forces. Twelve Western countries sent representatives to the service, which was conducted by the Right Reverend Desmond Tutu.

Biko’s contribution to the black fight for freedom from apartheid is often placed as second only to that of former President Nelson Mandela.

The inquest into his death in November 1977 cleared the police of any wrong-doing.

But after the election of the ANC Government in 1994, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was set up under Archbishop Desmond Tutu, denied an amnesty to five policemen who admitted being involved in his death, although they have never been prosecuted.

The Commission found that Biko’s death was as a direct result of the injuries he sustained in custody.

His life story was dramatised in the film Cry Freedom.

Guardian

Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday September 12, 2005
The Guardian

The United Nations is investigating the CIA’s use of British airports when abducting terrorism suspects and flying them to prisons around the world where they are alleged to have been tortured.

The inquiry, led by Martin Scheinin, a special rapporteur from the UN Commission on Human Rights, comes as an investigation by the Guardian reveals the full extent of the British logistical support. Aircraft used in the secret operations have flown into the UK at least 210 times since the September 11 terror attacks.

Foreign Office officials have denied all knowledge of the secret flights, telling MPs on the foreign affairs select committee that the ministry has “not granted any permissions for the use of UK territory or air space”, and suggesting to the Guardian that it was “just a conspiracy theory”.

Privately, Ministry of Defence officials admit that they are aware of the flights, and that they have decided to turn a blind eye. “It is not a matter for the MoD,” said one. “The aircraft use our airfields. We don’t ask any questions. They just happen to be behind the wire.”