Running the Gauntlet

[RedCeltic]

I just read this story in a weekly New York Irish American Newspaper called Irish Echo


Road of Hate

As school opens, loyalists resume attacks on children

Copyright 2001 Irish Echo Newspaper
September 05 - 11By Anne Cadwallader

BELFAST -- Catholic children as young as 4 were forced to run a gauntlet of loyalist verbal abuse, stones and bricks this week as they walked to school on the first day of a new school year in the Ardyone area of Belfast.
Loyalists staged protests along a 300-yard stretch of road leading out of a Catholic area to the school, which is located in a Protestant estate.
The protestors justified the attacks by claiming that they were protesting against attacks on their homes by republicans.
However, the assaults upon the schoolgirls and their parents was so intense that many parents have decided not to use the main gate of Holy Cross Girls' Primary School.
On the second day of term, Tuesday, however, roughly 45 children, accompanied by their parents, braved the protesters and successfully brought their children to school by the direct route.
At the same time, some parents are not sending their children to school at all and others are transferring their daughters to another school.
Most parents, however, say they will stand by the beleaguered school and do whatever they can to maintain normalcy.
The alternative route is three-quarters of a mile longer, involves walking along a busy main road, down a steep slope and trekking across a soccer pitch. Catholics also say that being forced to "use the back door" is a breach of their civil rights and tantamount to second-class citizenship.
One parent asked what would be next if Catholic parents agreed to take their children to school via a back door. "Are we now to be asked to go to our workplaces by a backdoor? No, we will hold our heads up and go through the same door as everyone else," the parent said.
At least four people were injured Monday by flying bottles. Blood could be seen pouring from cuts in their heads. One mother was taken to hospital.
Hundreds of RUC officers and British troops were deployed along the route and used riot shields to hold back the protesters.
Most of their children, all girls from 4-11, were sobbing or screaming in fear as they arrived at the school gates.
Ashen-faced parents decided to take many of the younger girls home early rather than leave them in the school, which at one point was besieged by loyalists. Sixty taxis from West Belfast were rushed to the scene to offer children a safe ride home.
One 7-year-old, Eirinn Keenan, was taken out through a back gate after witnessing fierce clashes between loyalists and riot police. "They were shouting all these names at me," she said.
"Fenian scum" and "get back to your rat-holes and your pedophile priests" were some of the milder epithets directed at the children.
Furious Protestants say nationalists have refused to engage in talks aimed at resolving a bitter dispute in the area over the erection of marching season flags. Nationalist community leaders have countered that they tried for nine weeks over the summer to get dialogue under way.
Loyalists say the blockade will only end once their demands are met. The parents say they are in no position to give any guarantees and that the proper forum for resolving difficulties must involve political representatives of both communities.

Unanimous criticism
The RUC chief constable, the SDLP, Sinn Féin and British ministers shared a rare moment of unanimity in saying that whatever the nature of Protestant complaints, there could be no justification for attacking the right of children to walk to school, using the route of their choice, in safety.
On Tuesday, the second day of the protest, the RUC and British Army parked their armored vehicles bumper-to-bumper on the pavement to create a pathway down the road. Despite the physical barriers, loyalists threatened individual parents by name, having seen them interviewed on TV.
None of the parents had anticipated how bad it would be on Monday, even those parents who had accompanied their daughters to school when the protest began in June, just before the summer vacation.
Many of the parental faces were streaked with tears. Many shook with fury.
Holy Cross is about 300 yards from the interface between the mainly Catholic Ardoyne and mainly Protestant Glenbryn areas. It was built in the early days of the Troubles on land attached to a Catholic seminary.
For 32 years, the schoolgirls of Ardoyne have made their way to class along the same route. There have been occasional ugly incidents, but nothing remotely like the naked sectarian violence inflicted on the schoolchildren this week.
Protestant residents are now demanding the British government close the school and build a new one inside the Catholic area. Progressive Unionist Party assemblyman Billy Hutchinson accused Sinn Féin of orchestrating the violence to take the media focus off the recent arrests in Colombia.
He also pointed out that his community had "suggested that the children walk on one side of the road, but they say no one will tell them where they walk. That has not helped".
These remarks prompted the area's assemblyman, Gerry Kelly of Sinn Féin, to compare the violence to that suffered by black children in Alabama during the civil rights era.
Fr. Aidan Troy, the chairman of the school governors, said: "I was on the road with the children and saw a savagery I have never before experienced. I know the alternative route is not remotely suitable for children and their parents, but in the interests of safety, I recommend they use it from now on."
The conflict began in June when Protestants in the area complained about an increase in the number and severity of attacks on their homes.
The tension boiled over during a row when loyalist flags were being tied to lampposts outside the Holy Cross. Parents bringing their children to school were advised by the police at the time that their safety could not be guaranteed.
Many nationalists believe the conflict has been caused by an influx of loyalist extremists, forced out of their homes elsewhere in the city during an internecine loyalist feud. They believe that those evicted moved into empty homes in Glenbryn and began to assert their authority over the local community.

[versus]

The loyalist suck cock. Even though I abhor Catholicism I have to side with the Irish Nationalists who desire to Give Ireland back to the Irish.

[El Commandante]

Ireland needs to go back to being Irish, I am British and we have right what so every to occupy the North. It costs millions of pounds every year, soldiers routinely die there and it brings violence to the mainland. We should withdraw and reunite the two Irelands as one.

The incident that Red Celtic is referring to is a disgrace, it is constantly on the news. What right do the Protestants have to prevent young children from going to school. They are abusing these children's rights and the government should take a more active stance rather than make a pathetic cordon which is not nearly sufficient.

[RedCeltic]

I found this more updated article on the subject in a local Long Island (NY) newspaper today....

Belfast - The Protestant protest yesterday was noisy - air horns and catcalls - but for the first time this week, Catholic girls and their parents were spared the barrage of stones and bottles that marked the opening of the school year. One missile made the difference.

The pipe bomb hurled Wednesday by a paramilitary missed the families on their way to Holy Cross Girls Primary School, but it wounded four members of the police cordon that has been shepherding the Catholics. And it triggered revulsion across community lines.

At a meeting that night, Protestant parents decided enough was enough. Billy Hutchinson, a member of the hard-line Progressive Unionist Party, said the Protestants made it clear they "wanted a new beginning from today" and told police their protest would be peaceful and there would be no paramilitaries among them.

"All the aggression ... has been taken away, and I think the residents have to get some credit," Hutchinson told Reuters. "In many ways, the residents have gotten smarter."

But not quieter. On day four of the dispute, the Protestants kept up a thunder of derisory sound, and they turned their backs as the Catholics walked briskly past, flanked by riot police. A police helicopter added to the din.

"I still feel intimidated by it, but a lot happier as long as they keep it peaceful. It's still senseless," said Elaine Burns, her daughters Leona, 8, and Niamh, 4, by her side.

The school's front gate lies in a Protestant pocket of North Belfast where the two communities live cheek by jowl. Protestants want the girls to enter the school by a back entrance away from Protestant homes. Catholics refuse, insisting they have walked the same route since the school opened 32 years ago.

Protestant residents complain they have come under frequent attack from Catholics in recent months and say their grievances must be addressed before they will let Catholics reach the school by the front gate without protest.

The 1998 Good Friday peace accord has not filtered down to the Ardoyne district. The intensity of sectarian animosity was captured by a Catholic resident, Jim Boyle: "It's weird but true that you can tell somebody's religion by the side of the street they walk on."

[RedCeltic]

This article is from Sinn Fein.


On Thursday, the paramilitary Red Hand Defenders issued death
threats against the parents of several children attending the
school. But under the glare of the media spotlight, loyalists
appear to be changing the nature of their blockade, sounding
whistles and foghorns and crashing bin lids as the children go to
school.

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said the blockade of
the school and the loyalist protest should end now. "There can be
no excuse or justification for the sectarian abuse and violence
directed at the children and their parents as they try to make
their way to school," he said. "Children have a right to
education and a right to travel to and from their school free
from threat and intimidation. The picket is being fuelled by
elements of the DUP and the violence is from the UDA and is based
on pure sectarian hatred. Sections of the media have sought to
present this issue as one of 'each side as bad as the other'.
This is not true."

Sinn Fein MP Martin McGuinness has accused unionist politicians
of creating the conditions and encouraging the campaign of
terror against the nationalist and republican community.

"These attacks and threats are designed to provoke the IRA into
retaliation," he said. "It is no coincidence that the upsurge in
loyalist attacks and threats directed at republicans and
nationalists has coincided with David Trimble's agenda to
collapse the political institutions as spelt out in his letter to
the Ulster Unionist Council last October. Both are designed to
put the republican peace strategy under pressure. They will not
succeed.

"We thought that loyalists had stooped as low as they could
during the blockade of Harryville Church but the political vacuum
created by David Trimble in undermining of the institutions and
the British governments' failure to check his actions has
encouraged them to sink to even lower depths.

"Their cowardly sectarian campaign has now spread to targeting
young children, firstly in preventing pupils from going
unhindered to school at Holy Cross in Ardoyne and now underage
GAA members in South Derry wishing to participate in sporting
activities.

He said the UDA -- using another of its flags of convenience --
had forced one business in South Derry engaged in transporting
children to Gaelic sports activities to close. Other businesses
had similarly been threatened "without a whimper of censure from
Unionist politicians," he added.

"While I would encourage everyone to be vigilant and to take
precautions against such threats and attacks it is imperative
that communities do not allow themselves to become paralysed by
paranoia. I would ask the many decent protestant and unionist
people who live in these areas to show solidarity and support for
their nationalist and republican neighbours by letting it be
known that there is no support for this activity."

[Nickademus]

this whole this is absolutely awful. the threats etc may be directed towards the children's parents but it is the children who ultimatly suffer. they are the ones with tears down their faces, going to school in fear for thier lives and their parent's lives. the children can't chose their religion, they are truly innocent. they are the ones that both sides should be trying to protect. i haven't really taken a side in the whole battle in northern ireland but this is just ridiculous

[Guest]

The struggle in Northern Ireland is not about religion --but deep imperialism. The minority of people (Irish Republicans - who just happen to be Catholic) want the end of British partition of Northern Ireland and want reunification to the Irish Republic. The supporters of Petition, the Unionists, just happen to be Protestant because they adopted the religion of their British Lords and masters.

[Moskitto]

One of the problems in Northern Ireland (Infact probably the main one) is the Pimps, Drug Dealers and Protection Rackets who run off the terrorism. But i digress.

I think it's sick what's going on over there. There little 4 year olds and i'd dispute with anyone who says you can have a true religion at the age of 4. They'e not Catholics they're school kids. Hey i'm not even a Catholic but I just wanna throw a firebomb at those protesters for stopping legitimate education.