'They Are Trying To Burn Us Out Of Our Homes'

by Dave Wed Jun 05, 2002 08:22

Needs to be told, by given that the report originates from the US, it is unsurprisingly biased. Northern Ireland may have a long hot summer ahead, requiring completely unbiased reporting - not that which sways ever so slightly toward the nationalists. There are victims on both sides - given that three Protestants were shot, perhaps they should have been asked to comment as well?

by ona deathlist Wed Jun 05, 2002 14:20

the 3 loyalist shot on saturday were on the walls of cluan place throwing bags of petrol, bricks, bolts at catholic houses, one perported to be social worker, a social worker armed with a gun firing at short strand residents, armed republican militia men and wimin dressed all in black then took up positions on the rooftops to deter the social worker who was firing indiscriminately into homes, 2 more hunscum were also shot on mon night, after the tiny enclave of short strand which is surrounded by 70000 loyalists hell bent on celebrating the queens jubilee by burning out catholics ran amok, over 1000 people were engaged in hand to hand fighting, as many republicans from all over belfast came to support the beseiged short strand community.

by ona deathlist Wed Jun 05, 2002 14:23

obviously im not a catholic or republican but i do like a riot, any opportunity to fight neo nazi hunscum and tie up pig and brit army resources cant be bad.

by Mags Wed Jun 05, 2002 14:40

Perhaps you should head up and try your neutral 'referee' act. See how long that lasts.

For anyone with a clue, or even just a genuine interest, here is an update from the Pat Finucane Centre at lunchtime Thursday.
----
More Short Strand clashes
(12.00pm 5 June)
There have been more reports of clashes in East Belfast this morning. According to various reports the trouble started during a loyalist picket of a pharmacy and a post office in the Albertbridge Rd area. Pensioners from the nationalist Short Strand were prevented from entering the post office and the situation escalated. However local sources have told the PFC that pensioners were not assaulted during this incident. According to BBC reports loyalists then attacked St Matthews Catholic church while a funeral was being held. When British troops intervened loyalists called on them to 'go home ye English bastards'. (?) A number of vehicles have been hijacked in the area and a stand-off has developed in the Newtownards Rd area. The local Sinn Fein councillor, Joe O'Donnell, was struck on the head with a brick while being interviewed by the media.
There are also reports that another Catholic church in East Belfast was attacked this morning in addition to the home of a Catholic pensioner. More details to follow.
PFC

by Leon Wed Jun 05, 2002 22:33

The PFC does important sterling work exposing state repression but they aren't unbiased.

No queens No presidents

by Shane OCurry Wed Jun 05, 2002 23:39 shaneocurry at hotmail dot com

As one of the authors of the above Pat Finucane Centre(PFC) dispatch and the coordinator of the most comprehensive monitoring scheme on sectarian violence in the north (better than the NIO, the PSNI or any of the other NGOs, a fact that may surprise some readers given all the cash available, especially to the 'cross-community' ngos) I refute absolutely and unreservedly the accusation of bias. The PFC is based in the nationalist community, there is no doubt of that, and it makes interventions in pursuance of a Human Rights agenda. It is non-party political and anti-sectarian. It reports on state abuses of human rights and on sectarian attacks, wherever they come from. To do so it uses sources from across the community. As such it has on occasion been accused by the state and its official media (whom we have successfully sued) of pursuing a nationalist agenda ( accusations by the same state that brought you everything from discrimination and gerrymandering to shoot-to-kill and collusion with loyalist paramilitaries - unless of course you believe that to say such a thing is biased). I challenge anyone to look at the PFCs log of attacks at www.serve.com/pfc, to compare them to other reports available, and find a hint of bias.

As for sectarian attacks in general and the Short Strand in particular. It is a fact that the overwhelming majority of sectarian attacks are carried out by loyalists on Catholics. To say that is not to be partisan, it is merely to make a statement of fact rather like "the majority of race attacks in Britain are committed by white racists on people of colour" or "most domestic violence is committed by men on women or by adults on children". It is no accident that the perpetrators of violence in all these situations are supported by ideas of supremacy (the Protestant State for a Protestant People, The White Nation or just stupid ideas bout male supremacy) and all feel a sense of threat by the section of society it was taught to hate and look down on, especially if it appears that that section of society is making advances in the direction of equality. Violence erupts in these circumstances. The UDA and sections of the UVF in the east Belfast are currently in a legitimacy crisis, what better way to revive their authority than to have ago at a vulnerable enclave of a couple of hundred papists in a sea of Protestants and see if they can stoke up a sectarian war? After all , the tactic worked for the BNP in Oldham. Of course there is republican violence too. The five protestants shot were in the process of attacking a community under siege. So for unbiased reporting let's tell things how they are. Attempts to "neutral-ise" reporting only serve the author's agenda of needing to appear to be unbiased and obscure the truth.
www.serve.com/pfc

by Curious Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:58

Why does the PFC refuse outright to detail human rights abuses committed by the Provisional Republican Movement especially those they commit against their own community? Yes the PFC does sterling work but it is biased and that will always be its weap spot.

by Shane OCurry - Pat Finucane Centre Thu Jun 06, 2002 18:17 shaneocurry at hotmail dot com

"Curious" and "Leon" both insist on the PFC's alleged bias, citing it as its "weap" (sic) point. Could you substantiate the claims please? The accusation that the PFC refuses to condemn punishment attacks by the republican movement is misleading (and biased). The PFC has always and will always condemn all political and other forms of violence. It maintains an archive on "punishment" attacks, but is under resourced and so is not in a position to actively monitor them. It has however (and no doubt will again) written critical articles about punishment attacks at a time when it was even more unpopular to do so in this community than it is now, it has also helped produce a time-limited study on punishment attacks. Members of the PFC have also mediated, at the behest of the former, between would be victims of punishment attacks and the would-be perpetrators, succesfully. What more can we do? If you look at the material we produce, you will see that we don't make explicit condemnations of domestic or homophobic violence either, it doesn't mean we support it. Our focus is on state and state related violence because it is our analysis that the mainstream media and state institutions underreport and misreport in these areas. The Pat Finucane Centre produces a monthy log of sectarian attacks which is the most comprehensive one in existence, more comprehensive and cross-community than any data produced by non governmental or semi-governmental bodies, academic institutions, the madia, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (formerly the RUC), the Community Relations Council or the Nothern Ireland Office. Instead of making wild accusations of bias against us, shouldn't you be asking why it is that, in a part of the world which is synonymous with sectarianism, the state and its attendant bodies do not monitor sectarianism?

by Dave Sat Jun 08, 2002 10:48

The PFC does hold a bias, that cannot be denied. It holds a nationalist remit and focuses on the actions of the state against the nationalist community. That does not undermine its important work. It would be interesting to see the reaction if a group was set up to monitor abuse of the protestant community, or violence by the PIRA on its own community - also important issues. Perhaps they can be investigated without the slant of the mainstream 'madia', forming a strong body of work on sectarianism that, as Shane notes, is sorely lacking here in the North. As for Mags, I am not trying to be a referee, I am just trying to push for clear reporting of what is happening. Any bias contained in leftist media is just as annoying and detrimental to the facts as that of the right. And I am already 'up', certainly closer to events than the American article that kicked this whole discussion off (which quotes such neutral sources as the Irish Republican News and Information).

by Shane OCurry Sun Jun 09, 2002 22:45

ok if you want to get philosophical about it, all points of view are biased, subjective, there is absolutely no way of telling an exact 'truth', objectivity is impossible to obtain, the only way to compensate for this is to state where you are coming from, which the pfc does... no other source of information from the north builds this kind of proviso into the information they give out and yet it is the pfc that is accused of bias. On the other point, about reporting republican violence against its own community, there was such a group; FAIT, set up with more than just a whiff of MI5 money and puppeteering. Its employees? Vincent McKenna, convicted child rapist, and Clifford Peebles, notoriously violent christian fundamentalist preacher and convicted terrorist. Now there's objectivity for you.