Violence in Northern Ireland, this time from and between rival Protestant paramilitary organizations:
Tensions were already high in the area following police raids aimed at curbing the bloody feud raging between the rival loyalist paramilitary groups, the UVF and LVF, that has claimed four lives this summer. That turf war escalated further on Friday when two men were shot in separate gun attacks in Portadown.
Then tension hit a higher notch when Ian Paisley, the now undisputed leader of unionism, warned that the Whiterock parade could prove ‘the spark which kindles a fire there could be no putting out’.
The first hint of the havoc ahead came when a 29-year-old Catholic man was savagely beaten by 10 men early on Saturday morning on the Albert Bridge Road near the Short Strand.
After snipers fired at least 50 shots at his officers following the parade, the chief constable, Sir Hugh Orde, accused the Orange Order of stoking the violence. He said: ‘I have seen members of the Orange Order in their sashes attacking my officers. I have seen them standing next to masked men. That is simply not good enough … The Orange Order must bear substantial responsibility for this.”
And after so much progress. . . the goal here of course is to antagonize the Catholic paramilitaries to respond. Let’s hope cooler heads (not to mention law and order) prevail.