Protestant anger, alienation give rise to riots in
Belfast
NEW
YORK TIMES Sunday, Sep. 18 2005
BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND Every morning last week,
the broken glass and burned-out cars have quickly disappeared from the
streets here after the previous night's rioting by Protestant mobs.
By late afternoon, the buildup to those riots begins again, as
protests stall traffic. And Belfast seems shaken by the realization
that deep-seated anger among Protestants has dashed hopes of a
reconciliation with Roman Catholics anytime soon.
The police
have blamed Protestant paramilitary groups for organizing the recent
violence, which has injured more than 80 police officers.
Britain's Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, said Wednesday
that the government no longer recognized the cease-fire of a militant
Protestant organization, the Ulster Volunteer Force, which has also
been accused of killing four members of a rival Protestant gang this
summer.
The violence was largely unexpected, since the Irish
Republican Army, the larger Catholic enemy of the Protestant
paramilitary groups, in July announced an end to its 36-year armed
campaign to drive Britain out of Northern Ireland, prompting Prime
Minister Tony Blair to declare a new era of peace.
But many people
said the clashes were the result of a more significant rift between
the British government and Protestants, who are in the majority here.
Britain wants to restart the local legislature set up by the 1998
peace accord to share power between Catholic and Protestant parties.
But the rioting shows how resistant Protestants are to the idea.
On Wednesday, the police dispersed a roadblock in a gritty
residential area. Davy Reid, a 28-year-old protester, said he was
responding to a ban on a parade by the Orange Order, a Protestant
organization, through a Catholic neighborhood last weekend. He listed
other grievances, including the closing of a hospital maternity ward
and the lack of a shopping mall nearby. Those services were available
in Catholic areas, he said. "The government hasn't been listening," he
said.
Nelson McCausland, a Belfast politician and a member of the
Democratic Unionists, a hard-line Protestant party, said: "There is a
fundamental anger and alienation. That sense of being marginalized and
disempowered runs very deep."
No prominent unionists, who are
largely Protestant and want the province to remain part of Britain,
condemned the violence.
Mitchell B. Reiss, the American special
envoy for Northern Ireland, criticized Protestants' failure to speak
out against the rioting. "All of us are pretty disappointed with the
abdication of responsibility by many unionist political leaders," he
said.
Protestants held a privileged position in Northern Ireland
for centuries, with access to better jobs and housing. That status has
gradually eroded since the 1960s, when a civil rights movement began
putting Catholics on an equal footing, and Protestants continue to
feel slighted.
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