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July 25, 2006

IRA Has Ceased Its Criminality

News About Ireland & The Irish

BB 07/25/06 IRA 'Has Ceased Its Criminality'
BT 07/25/06 Former Terrorists Could Work For CRJ
BT 07/25/06 Ex-UVF Man Turned Peacemaker Dies
IN 07/25/06 Republicans To Attend Funeral Of UVF Founder
BT 07/25/06 Police Probe Malicious Primary School Fire
IN 07/25/06 Sectarian Attacks Increasing Despite Quiet March Season
IT 07/25/06 Ireland Faces Huge Kyoto Penalties
IT 07/25/06 Meehan Loses Case Against Guerin Conviction
SF 07/25/06 Ó Snodaigh Welcomes Ploughshares Vindication
IN 07/25/06 Opin: Brutal Attackers Again Dyed Ulster’s Bloody Hand

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/5213598.stm

IRA 'Has Ceased Its Criminality'

The IRA is no longer involved in any centrally organised
criminality, the British and Irish governments believe.

Speaking after meeting Irish ministers, NI Secretary Peter
Hain said cross-border intelligence indicated the IRA was
living up to its commitments.

Mr Hain said individual IRA members may still be involved
in criminal activities, but that should not prevent
political progress from being made.

He added that an "absolute state of perfection" was not
realistic.

"There probably is still some localised individual
criminality by former and maybe existing Provisional IRA
members for their own private gain," he said.

"What there is not is organised 'from the centre'
criminality any more."

"To that extent the IRA are delivering on their commitments
made last July, not just in respect of shutting down
paramilitary activity but also shutting down criminality."

Assessment backed

Mr Hain was speaking after meeting Irish government
ministers Dermot Ahern and Michael McDowell in
Hillsborough, County Down.

Irish Justice Minister Mr McDowell, who has been strongly
critical of republicans in the past, backed Mr Hain's
assessment.

Asked if he believed the IRA's war was now over following
its declarations and decommissioning last summer, he said:
"The Irish government and British government are working on
that assumption, based on the evidence we have."

BBC Northern Ireland political editor Mark Devenport said
it was as firm a statement on IRA criminality as the two
governments had made since it announced in July 2005 it was
ending its armed campaign.

The DUP are demanding more proof that the IRA has abandoned
all violence and criminality before re-entering any power-
sharing executive with Sinn Fein.

Devolved government was suspended over allegations of a
republican spy ring.

The court case that followed collapsed and one of those
involved, Denis Donaldson, later admitted working as a
British agent. Direct rule from London was restored in
October 2002 and has been in place since.

The British and Irish governments have given Northern
Ireland's parties until 24 November to reach agreement on
restoring devolution.

If that fails, the 108 members get a further 12 weeks to
try to form a multi-party devolved government. If that
attempt fails, salaries will stop.

Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2006/07/25 12:55:29 GMT
© BBC MMVI

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http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=699973

Former Terrorists Could Work For CRJ

New panel will vet applicants

By Noel McAdam
25 July 2006

Former republican and loyalist terrorists could become
involved in Community Restorative Justice schemes, new
Government guidelines confirmed today.

A revised scheme disqualifies people guilty of a 'serious
arrestable offence' since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement -
but a special 'suitability panel' will vet others on a
case-by-case basis.

And while the new panel, which will include the police,
will take into account involvement in criminal or
paramilitary activity in considering whether their
involvement would "compromise public safety or have an
adverse affect on public confidence", it will not be an
automatic bar.

Long-awaited new guidelines aimed at strengthening the
schemes were published today - but implementation was again
delayed by another period of consultation.

As he unveiled the new 'protocols' for the schemes, Justice
Minister David Hanson also warned: "Either we get it right,
or we don't do community restorative justice at all."

And he insisted that any group which does not fully sign up
to the protocols - which include a requirement for "direct
engagement" with the police - will not receive Government
funding.

The Government is heading into a renewed political row,
however, which could lead to a split in the system, with
schemes in republican areas potentially going their own
way.

Mr Hanson said society would not tolerate the officially-
approved schemes becoming a tool for paramilitary control
in local areas - and neither would the Government.

Launching the further 12-week period for fresh
consultations, he also admitted the Government's original
draft guidelines last December did not get it right.

One key change is while the initial proposed guidelines
allowed the schemes to report offences to the PSNI through
a third party - such as the Probation Service - a new
protocol insists on direct engagement with the police.

And despite the new consultation round, Mr Hanson
underlined: "This is absolutely non-negotiable."

An independent complaints procedure for victims and
offenders who have concerns over how a scheme has handled
their case will also be established.

"It was clear from the views expressed on the first draft
guidelines they were not robust enough to command public
confidence.

"We have listened and heard," Mr Hanson said.

"And I want to make it completely clear that when the final
protocols are in place, any scheme which does not sign up
to them will not receive any funding whatsoever from
Government for Community-based Restorative Justice."

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http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=699889

Ex-UVF Man Turned Peacemaker Dies

By Noel McAdam
24 July 2006

Tributes were today being paid after the death of a former
UVF man convicted of murder who came to play a leading
behind-the-scenes role in the peace process.

Billy Mitchell was jailed for life in 1977 for his part in
the murders of two UDA members - Hugh McVeigh, who was
described as a member of the UDA's 'inner council', and his
van helper, David Douglas.

But the Carrickfergus man became an evangelical Christian
while in prison and was released 11 years early on parole
in 1990.

Years later, arguing for a 'Yes' outcome to the referendum
for the Good Friday Agreement, he revealed that some of
those who had supported his release from prison were
campaigning for a 'No' vote.

Mr Mitchell, who is survived by his wife Mena and children
Juliane and Cameron, will be buried tomorrow at the Church
of the Nazarene in Carrickfergus. He was 65.

Born in Glengormley, he was brought up "next to poverty", a
friend said today, "in a tin hut he used to pretend was a
bungalow".

He had been general secretary of the Progressive Unionist
Party and worked with several conflict transformation
projects.

But even before his trial with 25 others in 1976, he had
shown his interest in politics with a pamphlet, published
in 1974, urging unionists to stretch out the hand of
friendship to nationalists.

The trial was one of the longest at the time. The bodies of
McVeigh and Douglas were not found until five months after
they had been shot and buried in shallow graves near the
Gobbins cliffs at Islandmagee in 1975.

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http://www.irishnews.com/access/daily/current.asp?SID=530374

Republicans To Attend Funeral Of UVF Founder

By Barry McCaffrey

Former loyalist and republican prisoners are today expected
to attend the funeral of one of the founders of the UVF,
who was credited with helping to bring about the 1994
ceasefires.

Billy Mitchell is credited with being one of the first to
“break down barriers” between republican and loyalist
communities in the early 1990s.

The former UVF leader will be buried today after he died
following a heart attack last week.

Mitchell was one of the founders of the UVF and was its
leader in south-east Antrim before being sentenced to life
imprisonment in March 1976 for a series of murders.

Before being jailed Mitchell had been one of the UVF’s key
strategists and had been involved in secret talks with
Official IRA leader Cathal Goulding in 1974.

In the same year he was part of a UVF delegation which met
PIRA leaders Brian Keenan, Seamus Twoomey and Martin
McGuinness in Co Cavan.

Inside Long Kesh Mitchell liaised with then PIRA prisoner
Gerry Kelly, later to become a Sinn Fein assembly member.

However in 1979 Mitchell chose to leave the UVF and lose
his political status after undergoing a religious
conversion.

He would later recall that the murder of Catholic woman
Mary Travers, shot dead during an IRA gun attack on her
father judge Tom Travers, convinced him of the futility of
violence.

He was eventually released in 1990 after serving 14 years
in jail.

Despite having left the UVF he was asked to join the
Progressive Unionist Party and is regarded as a key figure
in pushing for the

loyalist ceasefires of October 1994.

By then Mitchell was “breaking new ground” by holding talks
with nationalists.

In 1994 Mitchell and Liam Maskey, brother of Sinn Fein’s
Alex Maskey, formed the Intercomm group which employed
former loyalist and republican prisoners to help reduce
tensions along the interfaces.

In 1995 both men travelled to Washington to meet then US
president Bill Clinton in the White House.

In 1998 Mitchell was part of the PUP’s talks team
negotiating the Good Friday Agreement.

In 2001 he was among a group of Protestant church and
community leaders who brokered an end to the UDA/UVF feud.

Mitchell agreed to act as a mediator to diffuse any future
feuds.

In 2002 Intercomm was awarded the US President’s Prize for
peace building.

Loyalist sources last night confirmed that, even though he
was no longer a member of the organisation, he was asked
last year to conduct a review of the future direction of
the UVF.

That internal consultation is expected to lead to an end to
UVF activity.

Paying tribute to his former friend, Liam Maskey said: “I
first met Billy shortly after he was released from jail.

“He was working on the loyalist side of the interface and I
was working on the nationalist side.

“We found that we had a shared interest in finding some
kind of solutions, not just about the interfaces, but also
about bread and butter issues affecting working class
communities.

“Billy took great risks for peace. He went into republican
communities to talk to people despite his history.

“He also guaranteed my safety when I went into loyalist
areas

“He took considerable personal risks in working with
nationalists and republicans at a time when it was
dangerous to do so.

“Billy believed in peace and worked to bring that ideal
about.

“When they talk about breaking down barriers between the
two communities they are talking about men like Billy
Mitchell.”

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http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=699972

Police Probe Malicious Primary School Fire

By Lisa Smyth
25 July 2006

Twenty firemen battled a fierce blaze which gutted a north
Belfast school today.

A PSNI spokesman this morning confirmed that the fire at St
Mary's Primary on the Shore Road at Greencastle is being
treated as malicious and detectives are investigating the
cause.

He said it was too early to comment on whether there was a
sectarian motive for the attack.

Firefighters were called to St Mary's at about 1.30am today
and found a well-established fire.

Assistant Group Commander Graham Lowry said attempts to
bring the blaze under control were made more dangerous
because the fire had spread to the roof of the building.

"At about 1.30am, a crew was called to the school by its
automatic fire alarm and by the time they arrived, there
was quite a big fire," he said.

"Another four appliances were called to the scene, bringing
in total about 20 firefighters present at the scene to deal
with the fire.

"The fire was started in the gym and had been spread up
into the roof space and it was about 4am before it was put
out.

"Once the crew is working with ladders like that, it
certainly is a lot more dangerous for them."

It is not known how extensively the building has been
damaged by the blaze but police remained at the scene today
to carry out forensic examinations in an effort to trace
the people behind the arson attack.

A PSNI spokesman said: "Police are investigating a
malicious fire which broke out at a school in north Belfast
in the early hours of this morning.

"The fire authority was alerted shortly before 2am and they
contacted police and an investigation will continue this
morning."

Anyone who saw any suspicious activity can contact police
on 0845 600 8000 or freephone Crimestoppers in complete
confidence.

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http://www.irishnews.com/access/daily/current.asp?SID=530361

Sectarian Attacks Increasing Despite Quiet March Season

By Marie Louise McCrory and Barry McCaffrey

• AN INNOCENT CHILD: Six-day-old baby Emin who was in the
living room of her home when a masked gang attack the house
breaking the windows

SECTARIAN attacks have risen by 35 per cent in a year,
averaging five attacks every day.

Despite successful efforts to minimise tensions around
flashpoint Orange Order parades, this summer has
nevertheless seen a marked rise in sectarian attacks when
compared with last year.

Latest police figures show that since April there have been
an average of 38 sectarian attacks across the north every
week.

Between April 1 and July 7 there were a total of 491
reports.

This compares to 363 for the same period in 2005, an
increase of 128 – up more than a third.

The figures come after a fresh outbreak of violence in
north Belfast.

The homes of Catholic families in the Whitewell area were
targeted by a gang of 30 to 40 masked men armed with
crossbows, who claimed to be retaliating for attacks on
Protestant-owned houses in the nearby Graymount estate.

Targeted in the incident was the home of a six-day-old
child whose parents were among those attacked by the gang.

The child’s great-grandmother was the victim of a separate
sectarian attack on her own home in the north of the city
earlier this summer.

The period referred to in the police figures covers the
high-profile killing of Catholic teenager Michael McIlveen
in Ballymena.

Five male teenagers have been charged over his death.

Meanwhile, a 29-year-old Catholic man beaten in an attack
in Derry in the early hours of Sunday July 16 remains in a
critical condition in Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital
more than a week later.

Paul McCauley, a father-of-one, suffered serious head
injuries after a gang assaulted him and two other men.

He had to be resuscitated twice in Altnagelvin Hospital.

One of the other men also had his jaw fractured, while the
third was badly bruised.

Police said the attack at Chapel Road in the Waterside area
was sectarian and they are treating it as attempted murder.

However, Paul’s father Jim McCauley has said he was
“unhappy at the fact that it is being seen in some quarters
as a sectarian attack – we obviously don’t know the make-up
of the attacking group”.

The PSNI started gathering figures for sectarian attacks
last year.

The first annual figure available shows police recorded
1,701 in Northern Ireland between April 2005 and April
2006.

Jacqueline Irwin, deputy chief executive officer at the
Community Relations Council, said there was much work being
done to help build community relations.

“The issue at the moment is relating to young people,
groups and night culture,” she said.

“There are no formal structures in place.

“There are large groups of young people out and about
together with some characteristics of gangs.

“It’s like a peculiar by-product of a more normal society,
that young people feel safe to be out at night.”

Ms Irwin said there was also an issue with availability of
services.

“A lot of structures are not available during the summer,”
she said.

“There’s a gap between what’s available for the hard-to-
reach young people.”

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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2006/0725/1152913579335.html

Ireland Faces Huge Kyoto Penalties

25/07/2006

Ireland will have to pay tens of millions of euro in annual
penalties to meet its obligations to curb carbon dioxide
emissions by 2012 in line with United Nations Kyoto Treaty
commitments, writes Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent

Under the treaty, the State is allowed to boost CO2
production to 13 per cent above of 1990 levels - although
production from industry, homes and transport is currently
running at 23 per cent above the agreed target.

The State must now cut CO2 emissions by 7 million tonnes a
year - or 10 per cent of total production from 2008 to 2012
if the 1997 UN pledge is to be met, the Minister for the
Environment and Local Government, Dick Roche, told
journalists at a conference in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin,
yesterday.

Publishing a consultation document on the future shape of
Ireland's CO2 policy, Mr Roche said actions by the
Government has already cut 8 million tonnes a year off the
State's tally.

However, this reduction is largely accounted for by the
increase use of natural gas, the closure of Irish
Fertilisers and Irish Steel and reductions forced by the
European Union in the size of the national cattle herd.

Further reductions have been achieved by planting new
forests which act as carbon "sinks", the greater use of
wind energy, better insulated buildings, biofuels, the
removal of traffic bottlenecks on the roads and other
measures, according to the Department's document, Ireland's
Pathway to Kyoto Compliance.

Industry has been given responsibility for cutting 3
million of the outstanding 7 million tonnes under the
national allocation plan published recently by the
Environmental Protection Agency, though 4 million tonnes
worth of reductions will have to be made in the energy use
required by transport, housing and other sectors of
society.

However, the Environmental Protection Agency has already
made it clear that the State is ready to buy credits for up
to 3.6 million tonnes of CO2 production, where Irish
production can be compensated for by cuts somewhere else in
the world.

Nevertheless, Mr Roche said he wanted to minimise the
purchase of carbon credits.

"Buying allowances through the mechanisms does represent
reduced emissions elsewhere and, as climate change is a
global problem, I am completely satisfied that using this
option is contributing to the overall aims of the Kyoto
Protocol. It is, nevertheless, not the best solution for
Ireland in the longer term."

The more curbs Ireland put in place now, the "more we will
be able to reduce our emissions between now and 2012 and
the better prepared we will be to take on potentially more
demanding targets beyond 2012", he said.

Top UN experts on climate change believe that global
emissions of carbon dioxide will need to be cut by up to 70
per cent below 1990 levels if irreversible damage to the
world's environment is to be prevented.

An international carbon dioxide trading market has already
been established, though the cost of carbon credits has
fallen dramatically from €29 a tonne to €17 a tonne since
April, following signals that industry internationally may
have to buy fewer of the licences than had been expected.

The Government will not impose a carbon tax to discourage
the use of fossil fuels or fossil fuel-generated
electricity, Mr Roche said.

"There were huge increases in fuel prices over the last
year and there wasn't a huge reduction in the use of such
fuels by the public. There is a degree of price
inelasticity," he told The Irish Times.

The greater use of natural gas for home heating and
electricity production and the consequent drop in the
numbers heated by open fires has meant that the CO2
production of the State's homes has fallen significantly
since 1990, even though 80,000 houses a year are now being
built.

Furthermore, the Minister said the economy now got better
value from oil, gas and other forms of energy, since it had
grown by 150 per cent since 1990, although energy
consumption has increased by 23 per cent.

Nearly 60 per cent of all electricity generated by the ESB
and other operators is wasted because of inefficiencies in
generating plants and losses suffered as the power is
transmitted through the State.

© The Irish Times

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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2006/0725/1152913579177.html

Meehan Loses Case Against Guerin Conviction

25/07/2006

The Court of Criminal Appeal has dismissed the appeal by
Brian Meehan against his conviction for the murder of
journalist Veronica Guerin 10 years ago.

Meehan (41), of Crumlin, Dublin, is the only person serving
a sentence for Ms Guerin's murder on June 26th, 1996. He
was jailed for life by the non-jury Special Criminal Court
in July 1999 and was also given a concurrent jail sentence
of 20, 12, 10 and five years for drugs and firearms
offences.

Meehan had appealed against his conviction for all of the
offences.

The Special Criminal Court found after a 31-day trial that
Meehan was the driver of the motorbike from which a gunman
fired six shots into Ms Guerin as she sat in her car at
traffic lights on the Naas Road.

Meehan's appeal was delayed because of various appeals
brought by John Gilligan, the leader of the drugs gang of
which Meehan was a member, and whose final appeal against
his drugs conviction was rejected by the Supreme Court in
November last year.

Giving the judgment of the three-judge appeal court
yesterday, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns said the court
dismissed all the appeals against conviction in the case.

Retired Det Supt Todd O'Loughlin, one of the main Garda
officers in the Guerin murder investigation, was in court
for the hearing.

Meehan's counsel, Patrick Gageby SC, had argued during a
two-day appeal that the trial court should not have
accepted evidence of telephone traffic between Meehan's
mobile phone and the mobile phone of Russell Warren on the
day of the murder as corroboration of Warren's evidence.

Warren, who is in the witness protection programme, told
the trial that he followed Ms Guerin from Naas District
Court to Clondalkin, was in contact by mobile phone with
Meehan who was the driver of a stolen motorbike, and saw
the pillion passenger shoot Ms Guerin.

Replying to Mr Gageby, State counsel Peter Charleton SC
submitted that the pattern and timing of the calls between
Meehan and Warren was corroborative of Warren's testimony.

He said there were calls between Warren and Meehan up to
six minutes before the murder at 12.54pm on June 26th,
1996, and after that there was only one call between them,
at 13.23pm.

Mr Charleton said that apart from that one call, all of
Warren's calls after the murder were with Gilligan.
Gilligan, who was cleared of the Guerin murder, is serving
a 20-year jail sentence for importing drugs.

In the Court of Criminal Appeal's 62-page judgment, Mr
Justice Kearns said the most important thing to be said
about corroboration is that it was not a prerequisite to a
conviction where the main evidence against an accused was
that of an accomplice.

A corroboration warning, not corroboration, was the
mandatory requirement. It was "common case" that Warren was
an accomplice and that the Special Criminal Court gave
itself a warning about the dangers of acting on
uncorroborated accomplice evidence.

The Court of Criminal Appeal believed the Special Criminal
Court was entitled to conclude and hold that the telephone
traffic constituted corroborative evidence in respect of
the evidence given by Warren, he said.

Both the frequency and the pattern of phone calls between
Meehan and Warren and between Warren and Gilligan was
"striking".

The telephone calls, at 12.33pm and 12.35pm, to Meehan
supported Warren's evidence as to the time during which he
was following the victim and pointing out where she was
going, the judge added.

The Court of Criminal Appeal was also satisfied that the
Special Criminal Court had adequate evidence to convict
Meehan for the drugs and firearms offences, the judge
added.

© The Irish Times

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http://www.sinnfein.ie/news/detail/15204

Ó Snodaigh Welcomes Ploughshares Vindication

Published: 25 July, 2006

Sinn Féin International Affairs spokesperson Aengus Ó
Snodaigh has welcomed the verdict in the Circuit Criminal
Court today as a vindication of the Ploughshares Five.

The Dublin South Central TD said: “Over three years ago,
less than two weeks before a hundred thousand people took
to the streets of Dublin to protest against the rush to war
in Iraq, these five people courageously took a stand
against the use of ShannonAirport as a staging area for the
US invasion.

“The judgement today is a vindication of Ciaran O’Reilly,
Nuin Dunlop, Damien Moran, Karen Fallon and Deirdre Clancy
who were prepared to take a moral stand and face the
consequences.

“With tens of thousands of Iraqi dead and hundreds more
dieing every week along with thousands of occupying
coalition forces killed or injured, the Ploughshares Five
by their actions helped redeem the Irish people, helped
demonstrate clearly that this was not a war supported by
the people of this island.

“At all times Sinn Féin has maintained that the use of non-
violent direct action as was carried out in ShannonAirport
was a justified response to Irish complicity in the illegal
occupation of Iraq and the use of Irish facilities as a
pitstop for US warplanes.

“As we revealed last month, Shannon is not just being used
to transfer US troops, but also to facilitate the sale and
transfer of arms to human rights abusers. This judgement
will be heard right across the world but those who should
pay closest attention are those here in Dublin who have the
authority to end the use of Shannon by US forces and to
show the same courage shown by these five people.”

*************************

http://www.irishnews.com/access/daily/current.asp?SID=530371

Opin: Brutal Attackers Have Again Dyed Ulster’s Bloody Hand

By Susan McKay

Israeli flags are flying among the Union Jacks and UDA
flags in loyalist parts of Derry this summer and while
Israel was escalating its massacre of civilians in Lebanon,
some of its fans in the Waterside attempted to kick to
death a man in a wheelchair.

While they stamped on his head, his friend, 29-year-old
Paul McCauley, attempted to save him. As I write, Paul is
in a critical condition on a life-support machine.

He has been on the point of death more than once and has
had to be resuscitated by surgeons at the Royal Victoria
Hospital.

It was a beautiful summer’s night, the Saturday before
last.

One of Paul’s friends was about to head off to teach
English in Azerbaijan and the party, at a house on Chapel
Road, was in his honour. It was a small gathering but it
included Derry Catholics, Protestants and atheists, as well
as Polish people and Romanians. They had a barbecue in the
back garden.

By about 2am on Sunday morning most of the guests had gone,
leaving Paul and three others sitting in the garden
chatting, beginning to tidy up.

The attackers, a gang of about eight men, had, it seems,
crossed waste ground from the loyalist Irish Street area
some time earlier and had been lying in wait. They launched
themselves on their victims with shocking ferocity,
concentrating on the man in the wheelchair, who has a
muscle-wasting illness.

Paul was left for dead. The other man has serious injuries
and another of the friends was also hurt. The gang ran off
into the darkness. Paul is from a Catholic family from the
Waterside. He is a civil servant, based in Belfast. His
father Jim is a former teacher. His mother Cathy works with
people suffering from brain trauma.

The party was in a private back garden like thousands of
other parties that night.

The PSNI said the attack was “purely sectarian” and is
treating it as attempted murder. Derry City Council united
in condemning the attack and called for a “zero tolerance”
approach to sectarianism.

The DUP’s Gregory Campbell, whose base is in the Waterside,
described it as “merciless”. This is to be welcomed.
However, Mr Campbell also said it was the latest in a
series of tit-for-tat incidents which had increased tension
in the city. The PSNI likewise referred to tit-for-tat
attacks. It is true that nationalists have taken part in
deplorable attacks on unionists, particularly around the
small, isolated Fountain estate on the city side of Derry.
It is also true that nationalist and unionist community
workers have been working hard to put a stop to such
attacks and those carried out by loyalists.

But the violence is not evenly balanced. Most of the
serious attacks have been on Catholics and several have
involved the use of extreme violence.

Talking about this as if ‘one side is as bad as the other’
masks this reality.

Sectarian violence escalates and intensifies during the
marching season and this year, as usual, Catholic homes and
businesses across the north were attacked and individuals
assaulted.

Loyalists beat Ballymena teenager Michael McIlveen to death
in May.

The Reverend Ian Paisley denounced the killers but implied
republicans had provoked the attack by reneging on a local
deal on flags.

On the Eleventh night, disgusting banners celebrating the
murder appeared on bonfires in the north Antrim area.

Mr Paisley got up and ranted on the Twelfth about “the
blood of dedication and sacrifice” and the “awful price” of
liberty. “Compromise, accommodation and the least surrender
are the road to final and irreversible disaster,” he
boomed.

Unionists must walk the “safe path of No Surrender to the
enemy”.

He finished up with a song which included the warning that
“the Bloody Hand of Ulster may be dyed a deeper red”.

Paul McCauley and his friends were attacked at a house
which looks out over the River Foyle towards the walled
city which gave Paisley this, his one political slogan.

This crude militancy and ethnic exclusivity of the DUP’s
‘no surrender’ manifesto still fuels loyalist paranoia and
aggression, even though the IRA’s war is obviously over.

The marching season gets the blood up in brutal men for
whom the enemy is Catholics and the Lundys who consort with
them. Ten days ago in Derry they lay in wait watching a
group of friends from across a city and around the world,
celebrating life and summer and adventure.

Then they dyed the bloody hand of Ulster once again.

s.mckay@irishnews.com

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