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Protestant anger, alienation give rise to riots in Belfast




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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