In our document on Rosemary Nelson, we included an appendix that listed all known loyalist attacks from 1 January 1999 through 30 April 1999. Given the nature of the document the list focused on loyalist attacks. Since that time, we have continued to document attacks across the North, expanding our remit to include all attacks that might be considered sectarian (sometimes, however, the motives aren’t always clear.)
The following list of sectarian attacks is from 1 December through to the New Year. Should any incidents have inadvertently been left off the list please contact us. The issue of inclusion/exclusion is very problematic. For instance this document does not include punishment beatings 'within' a community, attacks by the security forces on civilians or by civilians on the security forces or murders where the perpetrators are believed to be from the same community and the motive is not thought to have been sectarian. We have also not included violent incidents connected to feuding within loyalism.
We will update this list each month.
7 December - The Irish News reports that Sinn Fein councillor Danny Lavery was involved in "ongoing negotiations" with Translink over sectarian attacks on north Belfast school pupils. The negotiations were prompted by reports of stone throwing at buses and children waiting at bus stops along Belfast's Whitewell Road.
8 December - A 42-year-old 'computer whiz' from Larne, Co. Antrim appeared before the high court in Belfast. The man is alleged to have helped loyalist paramilitaries make pipe bombs by downloading bomb-making information from the Internet. In addition to possessing incriminating computer records, the man faces charges of possessing pipe-bomb components and of having four devices with intent to endanger life.
In a Belfast high court the RUC claimed to have "smashed" the loyalist Orange Volunteers. But a crown lawyer warned: "While police operations have been successful in stopping any ongoing activity, this is not to say the organisation cannot regroup."
The Orange Volunteers came into being in 1998 and since that time they have been involved in a number of sectarian grenade and pipe bomb attacks on Catholics in the North.
10 December - Brid Rodgers, a member of the SDLP and the new agriculture minister for the North, was subject to sectarian verbal abuse as she opened a marine centre in Portavogie, Co. Down. Nearly two dozen protesters carrying loyalist flags and a 'Portvogie Supports the Portadown Orangemen' banner confronted the minister. They shouted, "Go home you Fenian bitch", "No surrender" and "What about Rosemary [Nelson]"
The protesters also pelted her with eggs.
Nearly a dozen nationalist youths wearing Celtic scarves and wielding hurling sticks attacked seven Protestant school children as they made their way home from Clondermott High School in Derry. The children, all from the Fountain estate on Derry's Cityside, were attacked on the Carlisle Road. The attack was sectarian.
Three children - one with a suspected broken nose - were later taken to the hospital. They had been beaten about the head, body and legs.
Commenting on the attack, Derry SDLP mayor Pat Ramsey said, "I would … call on civic, community, and political leaders in the nationalist community to do everything possible to bring these types of attacks to an immediate end."
Republican sources report that two nationalist teenagers from West Belfast were at the centre of a kidnapping incident. The pair got lost and ended up on the loyalist Shankill Road, where a taxi driver picked them up and brought them to a depot where he interrogated them about republicans and threatened to kill them. Their ordeal ended when another man in the depot refused to become involved.
In the eight days coming up to the Christmas holidays, nationalist school pupils from the Whiterock area in Belfast travelling by bus were attacked on three separate occasions by people believed to be from the White City estate. On all three occasions the bus had its windows broken by people hurling sectarian abuse as it made its way up the Whitewell road. These attacks are part of an on going pattern of sectarian attacks on nationalsists walking in the street and in their homes. Greencastle community worker Paul McKernon hit out at the RUC and Translink bus company for their lack of interest in the incidents.
At the same time a bus from the Model Boys Secondary School passing through the nationalist Old Park area in North Belfast became source of sectarian friction when its occupants kicked out the windows and threw bottles at passers-by, causing a number of injuries, republican sources said.
Related items:
Reporting on the first of a number of school walkouts protesting the appointment of Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness as education minister, an article in the Irish News (2/12/99) notes that:
It is not the first time such a protest has put the school in the spotlight. In the 1970s parents staged a walkout during a performance of The Sound of Music in protest at the show's Catholic associations.
The school in question is the Kilkeel High School in Kilkeel, Co. Down. While the protest was focused on the appointment of McGuinness as education minister, it was not without sectarian overtones.
An article in the Irish News (9/12/99) highlighted a complaint made by a Ballymena Catholic regarding UVF graffiti on the inside perimeter fence of the regimental headquarters of the Royal Irish Regiment. The man argued that the graffiti "must have been painted on by someone with access to the premises…"
While the graffiti had been visible from a public road for several months, it was only after the complaint was made that an army spokesman "said he was grateful that the presence of the graffiti was highlighted and it would be tackled straight away."
At a Belfast High court hearing for self-confessed Orange Volunteer Force member Alan Lynn (30), who is charged with possessing hand grenades and guns with intent to endanger life and having documents which could be useful to terrorists, heard on Dec 7 that the Royal Ulster Constabulary now believes it has smashed the terror organisation.. Lynn was released on his own bail.
The UDA (Ulster Defence Army), using its nom de guerre, the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), held a press conference in Belfast on Dec 8, during which they announced they were appointing representatives to liaise with General de Chastelain on the issue of decommissioning. The delegation to the Independent International Committee on Decommissioning is believed to include John White, of the Ulster Democratic Party, Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair, who has a conviction for directing loyalist terrorism and William "Winkie" Dodds, described as one of the most senior loyalists in Belfast. In a statement read out at the press conference in a West Belfast Club by a masked man in a khaki sweater, the organisation stated that "Disarmament will only be considered in the context of the IRA already having begun to decommission its arsenal of weaponry." The statement was welcomed by Ulster Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson who added that the onus was on the IRA to lead in disarming.
The father of Michael McGoldrick, the Queen's University graduate working as a taxi driver who was lured to his death by a loyalist death squad in 1996, has repeated his forgiveness for his son's killers amid allegations that a leading loyalist recently released from prison was the man who pulled the trigger. The Irish edition of the Sunday Times (12 Dec '99) claimed that a leading loyalist and former supergrass had made a confession to a political researcher for Westminster Labour M.P. Jeremy Corbyn, while in prison. During the alleged confession, the man claimed he had set up and carried out the murder as a "birthday present" for loyalist leader Billy Wright. The allegations have since been denied by Jeremy Corbyn's office. Michael McGoldrick snr, echoing what he had said at Michael jr's funeral, said that he had found peace by forgiving his son's killers, he added that their release was a matter for the authorities.
The British Irish Rights Watch report on the murder of Rosemary Nelson was released on 10 Dec, it can be found at the main menu on the Rosemary Nelson website.
The Stevens' investigation into the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane was set up "to prevent a full public judicial inquiry", says his brother Martin Finucane. The family were responding to renewed calls by British police chief John Stevens for relatives of the dead man to assist the investigation. "A criminal investigation is not a public process," says Martin. "Its sole function is to secure criminal convictions not to find the truth. It is our opinion that the Steven's investigation is no substitute for a full public international judicial inquiry."
Three of London's most eminent lawyers, Imran Khan, Gareth Pierce, and Michael Mansfield QC, joined human rights campaigners and Diane Hamill in Camden Council Chamber in London on Tuesday 14 December to speak to a joint meeting of the Robert Hamill Campaign and the recently formed National Civil Rights Movement. The NCRM provides support for the victims of racial injustice and promotes family-based campaigns to challenge the criminal justice system and institutional racism. Meanwhile British Labour MP Kevin McNamara called on Wednesday, 8 December for an independent judicial inquiry into the killing of Robert Hamill.
A Derry court was told on Dec 17th how an elderly lady's annoyance at the republican songs being sung by her neighbours led to a UDA attack resulting in Anthony Creane (53) having a leg amputated after being shot four times in the leg and groin. His brother Francis was shot in the knee. Five men pleaded guilty to taking part in the attack. Two of them, along with a sixth man, pleaded guilty to UDA membership.
The Seamus Ludlow case has, after years of silence, broken new ground with the announcement by the Dublin government that an inquiry into it is to be included in the investigation into the Dublin/Monaghan bombings. (See below) "For 23 years we were told lies by the Gardai and the state and Seamus Ludlow's name was smeared," says relative Jim Sharkey. The body of Seamus Ludlow, a 47-year-old forestry worker, was discovered in a lane at Culmore near Dundalk in May 1976. He had been shot three times by three men from the Red Hand Commandoes, two of whom are believed to be members of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR). The family had been told by Gardai that the shooting was carried out by republicans. There have been no prosecutions relating to the case in spite of one of the loyalists involved coming forward. Dublin's justice minister, John O'Donoghue has ruled out a full public enquiry into the case.
The announcement of the terms of an official Irish government investigation into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings has been welcomed by relatives of the victims. Thirty-three people were killed in the bombings in Dublin and Monaghan in May 1974. There is more than a suggestion of British collusion in the loyalist attack. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern announced the appointment of retiring Chief Justice Liam Hamilton to conduct a thorough "fact-finding and assessment" examination of all aspects of the atrocities. Justice Hamilton will also be examining the bombing of a public house in Dundalk in December 1975, which killed two man and injured 20. The Justice for the Forgotten group, which represents a number of survivors and victims of the bombings, is still insisting on a full public inquiry. In September, the group objected to an announcement of a private inquiry based on the recommendation of the Irish State's Victims' Commission.
Silverbridge families make public appeal
On December 20 the PFC organised a press conference in Belfast along with the Silverbridge families from South Armagh. Below is the text of the press statement. The families of three people who died in a 1975 gun and bomb attack on Donnelly's Bar in Silverbridge, Co Armagh, are to make a public appeal for information at a press conference in the Europa Hotel on Monday December 20 at 11am. The relatives of Michael Donnelly (14), Patrick Donnelly (24), and Trevor Brecknell (32) are appealing to present or former members of the security forces who were based in South Armagh at the time to come forward with any information that could help solve the mystery surrounding the attack. They are in particular appealing to the RUC officer who led the investigation to come forward and make contact.
At the press conference the families will reveal why they wish to contact this officer and details of information recently provided to them by a former member of the RUC who served in the area at the time.
Spokesperson for the families, Alan Brecknell, (son of Trevor) added, "allegations have been made that members of the security forces may have been involved in the attack on Donnelly's Bar and a similar attack on Kay's Tavern in Dundalk earlier that night which left two dead. There are strong suspicions that some of the same individuals were also involved in the worst atrocity of the past 30 years, the Dublin/Monaghan bombings.
We are not seeking revenge. We are simply demanding answers to questions. Was this investigation blocked at a higher level? Were charges considered but dropped because of security force involvement?
Meanwhile at Drumcree Orangemen celebrated the festive season with a carol service on Dec 22 and a new years eve celebration on Dec 31. Both events passed off without incident.