Northern Ireland

While all the attention is on London/Egypt at the minute the situation in Northern Ireland could prove historic.
While Sinn Fein are at Downing Street today discussing what could be the end of the IRA as a militarrey force up to 100 UDA and UVF members have occupied a housing estate in Garnerville to prevent LVF members from moving back in after they were recently driven out of their houses in a feud which has already claimed two lives.
I know we have herd allt he talk before (most of you probably mroe than me) but this is pretty big stuff if the IRA lie down their guns or if the the UDA get drawn into this feud which the head of the PUP said will get worse.....or both.
Although the PSNI and Army aledgedly have the Garnerville area under control stating that it is "not under the control of paramilitaires" it makes me laugh that Sir Reg Empey is today ranting about "republicans up to their neck in criminal activity" and "what the IRA does not what it says" while the UDA and UVF occupy a whole estate!

I've said for a long time that the IRA/Republican movement as a whole should take the moral high ground and put down their arms. That would leave it up to the other side to show they mean peace too

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Originally Posted by Éanna

I've said for a long time that the IRA/Republican movement as a whole should take the moral high ground and put down their arms. That would leave it up to the other side to show they mean peace too

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Deffinatly-laying down the arms would do a whole lot mroe for the Republican movement than keeping them.

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Originally Posted by Éanna

I've said for a long time that the IRA/Republican movement as a whole should take the moral high ground and put down their arms. That would leave it up to the other side to show they mean peace too

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yes the IRA and REAL IRA and CONTINUITY IRA WHATEVER YOUR HAVING YOURSELF and the UVF, the LVF, the MVF, the NVF and UDA and IDA and ODA should all disband and disarm. Then all the weapons including Ian Paisley Senior's Gob can be decommissioned and we can all live in peace...Amen :D

I'm happy to see Loyalist thugs shooting each other, just so long as they keep it in their in-bred little communities and innocent people don't get in the way. Like a scene out of Reservoir Dogs, hopefully when the dust settles only one of them will be left standing, and he'll then start a row with himself that leads to his own assasination.... :D

The Provos WILL do something - it's come too far to not do so. It's just painful how slow they are taking over the inevitable. No doubt Sinn Fein has created a coimplete strategy for the announcement etc, so they're obviously holding-out for further concessions, promises, better timings etc.

Let's hope the remaining Republican dissidents take a leaf out of their fellow hoods in the LVF/UVF and develop an internescine feud of their own.....

a big part of the problem here at the minute is due to the total lack of policing (thank you so much mr.patten).
at least in the past one section of the community was policed, with "community policing" supposedly dealing with the other section (thats a laugh), but now neither is policed at all. they are a toothless waste of space nowdays.
apparently this is a big part of the reason for the goings on in the garnerville area. the hoods who moved into that area were really just drug dealing criminals and the police repeatedly refused to take any action against them (a similar story as in quite a few areas these days). seems the locals felt they had no other option (what a state things are in eh?) but to ask the uda and uvf to intervene and sort it out.
see if i'm honest here, since the ceasefire things have gotten much worse in a lot of respects and the brazen openess of the paramilitaries is nothing short of shocking. but sure, what have they to worry about? the cops or politicians won't lift a finger against them for fear of upsetting them or for fear of having to actually put a murderer in jail and NOT let them out again. a joke all round.

that releasing of prisoners thing was a disgrace, no 2 ways about it. not 1 of them should have been freed imo.

btw. "in-bred little communities" - not nice. very insulting actually. pot, kettle, black.

Trouble is the thugs have seemed untouchable since the 1998 Agreement.

In Larne, in Seacourt or Craigyhill there wasn't much point in calling the police because they weren't going to do too much about things. (Policing Seacourt meant putting a Land Rover at the entrances to the esate)

One of the bands down around the Boyne square were causing problems in '98. I talked to one of the local PUPs and who said that the height of ambition for the lads in the band was to have a few quid for cans of beer and a video at the weekend, to get some wee girl pregnant so as to get a flat off the Housing Executive, and one day to become local commander of the UVF.

No-one ever attempted to do any serious community development work in the Loyalist estates - they were electoral fodder for the DUP. The decent majority who lived there didn't count for anything as long as the thugs were placated and Mr Blair kep his 'peace process' rolling along.

As regards the 'inbred little communities', my sister is a graduate from an English university; speaks Italian and Greek (she lived for four years in each of the countries); lives in Tiger's Bay in North Belfast and is marrying a bloke from the Shankill.

it tells you a lot when housing estates that were, to a certain extent, mixed and reasonably quiet all through the troubles (in what was a quiet town with very, very few incidents of major note) have become sectarian ghettos, off-limits to "the other side", since the ceasefire, not to mention paramilitary flags etc. i never saw a paramilitary flag in my whole life in larne or in most other places until the ceasefire.

this is the same everywhere, and on both sides. gutless policing would be my opinion.

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Originally Posted by -lamb-

that releasing of prisoners thing was a disgrace, no 2 ways about it. not 1 of them should have been freed imo.

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Agreed......."peace" at the cost of releasing murderers? Can't even consider it when things are the way they are-there ahd to be another way anyways. IF you blew up a fish shop (ok not a good example at the moment) or threw grenades into a cemetary full of innocent mourners or shot innocent people in a pub or a taxi driver in England for no reason you'd be locked up and the key thwon away.....do it in th eNorth and throw around a few 3-letter intials and you get off scot-free to a celebration outside the gates-sickening,. They are murders plain and simple whatever the ideology or cause!

I heard of this, but I don't have the impression it was talk of the day. Belfast life has just continued like everyday, and at work no one was discussing it...

I hope to stay out of the sectarian thing. I try to stay as neutral as possible, let's see how long I will last before making a mistake without realising, like the time I -without any politic undertone- accidently said Londonderry in the middle of a Dublin bar (can I help in Belgium all maps say Londonderry ?!)

So far I've crossed Sandy Row couple of times, seems to be quite peaceful nowadays. My place of habitat is at 5 minutes walk of Sandy Row, so I keep my fingers crossed it'll stay that way...