Appeal from Short Strand Resident

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday August 23, 2002 18:17 by Mags

Please go to http://www.32s.org and SIGN THE PETITION TODAY.

IF OUR SKIN WAS BLACK THE TRUTH WOULD BE TOLD

As a community worker in the Short Strand area and a resident of Clandeboye Drive I feel I must write to inform your readers of the ongoing loyalist attacks on homes in my area and the constant refusal of the PSNI to deal with the perpetrators who are being allowed access into Cluan Place to wage these attacks.

I have lived in Clandeboye Drive for 22 years, as have most of my neighbours. We all moved here together in October 1981. In that time we have never had a problem with our neighbours over the wall in Cluan Place.

In the early hours of June 1 loyalist paramilitaries decided to create an interface between Clandeboye and Cluan Place by waging a vicious attack on homes in Clandeboye Gardens and Drive. This attack lasted three days while the PSNI stood by and did nothing to stop it. Since then we have been under constant attack, day and night. Our homes have been pelted with bricks, bottles, ball bearings, marbles, golf balls, snooker balls, fireworks, paint bombs, petrol bombs, pipe bombs and blast bombs. Most of the windows and doors in Clandeboye Drive and Gardens are boarded up.

Our children cannot play in their own gardens or in the street and residents are totally worn
out and in a state of absolute despair.

We have had little or no sleep over the past
three months and are living in constant fear of our lives while the PSNI, the media and unionist politicians portray the ordeal we are living through as “tit for tat sectarian clashes”.

Over the past three months we, the residents, have constantly approached the PSNI to stop these attacks.

Their response to our pleas have been:
·There is nothing coming over the wall
·There is no-one in Cluan Place
·Bombs thrown at our houses were put there by us
·Fireworks and bombs must have been thrown by us
·The situation is contrived
·“You people should catch yourselves on”‚ followed by the usual sectarian abuse and taunts of “F*** off, what do you want us to do?”

We are told that there is a 24-hour police presence in Cluan Place and that only three of the 25 houses in this small cul-de-sac are occupied. Yet police have continuously allowed crowds of loyalists into Cluan Place and Paulett Avenue to wage these attacks.

While we, the residents of Clandeboye are attempting to survive this nightmare, police make the situation worse by issuing misleading statements and downright lies to the press.

These actions have lead us to the conclusion that the PSNI are not only unwilling to stop these attacks but they are facilitating those responsible to wage them.

We would like answers to the following questions;

·How are loyalists in Cluan Place able to make explosive devices, and hurl them at houses in Clandeboye, on a daily basis in full view of the police?

·Why did police allow 40 Apprentice Boys into
Cluan Place to attack houses on the night of Saturday 10 August, yet on August 1 they kept them out and we had a relatively quiet night?

·How were hundreds of loyalists able to wage an attack on our community for five hours on Thursday 15 August, hurling tens of petrol bombs, pipe bombs, fireworks and various missiles, from Cluan Place and Paulett Avenue, without police intervention?

·Why did police riot squads attack Clandeboye residents on Saturday 10 August, Thursday 15 August, and Saturday 17 August when there
was no riot taking place?

Why have unionist politicians refused to condemn these attacks and the ongoing siege of the entire Short Strand community?

We are being accused of ethnic cleansing by unionists yet it is our community which has been refused access to all essential services in East Belfast.

Protestants live, work and travel through this area without fear or hindrance but Short Strand people cannot even visit the doctor’s surgery in safety.

Shopkeepers in East Belfast have been told not to serve Catholic customers. Our post office is closed down because loyalists threatened the owner they would burn him and his shop if he served “Short Strand taigs”. He closed the shop because he refused to serve just one section of the community and his whole life has been disrupted too.

If people in my community were doing similar things to Protestants I would be on the streets actively condemning their actions, as would the majority of people in Short Strand.
If our skin was black this blatant sectarian campaign would be headlines throughout the world and those responsible condemned from the high heavens.

However we’re just Short Strand taigs so it doesn’t really matter what we suffer.

The police, media and unionist politicians are attempting to kill this community by refusing to tell the truth.

I would ask anyone who cares to come in here and see for themselves what is really happening and please try to put an end to this nightmare before it’s too late and coffins come out of Clandeboye estate.

Deborah Devenny
Clandeboye Drive
Belfast