Thursday, July 24, 2008
“It is a small element who were involved..”
An interesting convergence of stories in west Belfast where we had been told previously that “volunteers” had been “working in their communities on the streets” and “patrolling” Belfast neighbourhoods. A matter of days after Fr Aidan Troy highlighted a “suspected INLA extortion campaign” three men were reported to have been arrested in Poleglass and UTV noted that “Police say community representatives in the area had also reported a number of extortion attempts in recent days.” Meanwhile the Irish News front-page today carries a report of “community worker” Martin Kelly whose home was attacked by up to 40 people, his son assaulted, and his family “ordered [] to leave the district within 24 hours”. According to a BBC report [not included in their online version which adds, “One man who was arrested has been released on police bail"] this happened after an Andersonstown News article was printed about the St James Community Watch of which Mr Kelly is a member - Mark has noted that particular story here, “Who is watching the Community Watch?”. Adds My mistake, the BBC report didn’t refer to that previous article. It actually referred to the reaction when the Andersonstown News reported this incident. The background detail would seem to be relevant though. From the Irish News [subs for now]
The 48-year-old ran from work to his home at St James’ Road after a panicked phone call from his wife who told him that a gang had gathered outside and were chanting about burning the house down.
Mr Kelly is also quoted in the report
“This is a personal vendetta against me because every weekend I am out on the streets trying to keep the area safe.”
And from Sinn Féin councillor Marie Moore
“It is a small element who were involved in this antisocial behaviour and I would ask the community to stand by their own area and to give support to Martin and his family.”
Pete Baker @ 12:40 PM
For the moment, leaving aside political considerations and whatever local undercurrents/fueds might be involved, and, assuming the reports are accurate, a question.
Excuse my naivety but how the fuck is it possible for a family to be under siege for two hours by an ‘angry mob of 40 youths’ and one of the family members have the shit beaten out him in the process?
Do neighbours not give any assistance? (yeah, I await the slagging for asking that one)
Do the polis stand idly by?
Are any calls made for assistance? If so, to whom? What’s the response for help?
If your home is under siege by 40 angry youths for two hours, the minutes turn to hours.
Sorry guys, but just WTF is going on?
all plausible explanations welcome.
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 02:38 PMI find this all very confusing. Not so much what the right honourable wild turkey reffed above, but the tension that seems to exist between this branch of the community watch and the rest of that organisation - and by extension other republicans?
Can any locals shed any light on this?
I did go to the thread Mark started, but apart from the news that a certain someone has resigned from the ATN (surprise!) no real insight into what in blazes is going on.
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 02:44 PMI’m totally confused too. It would seem that the community workers are cooperating with the PSNI so why did no-one call for help? Damn weird.
And just who exactly is doing the “ordering” these days?Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 03:25 PMIt seems that some republicans are now getting a feel for the kind of thuggery that goes along with being on the field with active militant republicans just as SDLP people experienced the same during the Troubles.
There are no lengths to which militant republicans will not go to bully and intimidate vulnerable people. This is just the beginning of the process of exposing Sinn Fein’s strategy weaknesses, i.e. Your problem is that you simply don’t have any guns (Mr Mallon).
One has to wonder whether Sinn Fein will have the same determination and commitment to non-violence as the SDLP.
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 04:00 PMIt seems from the fact a police woman was assaulted (as noted in one of the linked reports) that the police were called, and did intervene. The question is whether they allowed this to continue after they were called, and if so, why.
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 05:06 PMI’m also confused. Is this a case of SF using its newspaper to monster a community group it doesn’t control, then backing off when the monstering gets out of control?
Because that’s what it looks like.Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 05:21 PMMemories of Ballymurphys spate of intimidation and exclusions come to mind.
Surely sinn fein knew the caliber of people they were victimising and in turn would have known time would be no healer due to the feeling of total betrayal felt by those who had always towed the leaderships line.The unletting slur against anyone who questioned the leaderships true agenda.
All the time people who would not have joined the frontline in the war against the brits throwing in their pennys worth (shall they be so eager to back the leadership in times to come)?
Especially as many republicans have recently become aware of what had really been going on behind the scenes (and their backs) for years.
As seen in Derry with the death of another young man recently the leadership have now begun recruiting community workers etc as another weapon in their arsonal to score political points against anyone not prepared to tow the party line.
These same people have been totally silent for 30 years so WHY NOW ?
The simple fact is that republicans want answers to republican leadership collusion and as long as its not forth coming long standing republicans are more easily dispencing of that once unbreakable loyalty.Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 05:28 PMAnd these are the people who want power over policing and justice placed in their hands.
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 06:08 PMIt’s at time like this when ‘The Blanket’ is sorely missed, in terms of elucidating the events that are taken place.
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 06:46 PM“There are no lengths to which militant republicans will not go to bully and intimidate vulnerable people.”
Militant Republicans have small brains in their thick baldy skulls. They are so like the BNP and the Billy Wright/Johnny Adair brigade. Why do people support them and their thuggish actions?
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 06:51 PM‘It’s at time like this when ‘The Blanket’ is sorely missed, in terms of elucidating the events that are taken place. ‘
Picador, fair enough and a sentiment shared. However things have come to a pretty pass when in the absence of McIntyre leads to confusion and incredulity in making sense of an event like this.
Then again, maybe there is no sense, as in sentinent empathetic beings, in all this.
I remained perplexed, befuddled and scared.
Very scared.
It appears thugs can, with at least impunity and perhaps encouragement, lay siege to a family home inflicting fear, pain and damage.
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 07:25 PMSeveral questions arise:
1. Does St James ‘Community Watch’ co-operate with the PSNI?
2. Are Sinn Féin involved in St James ‘Community Watch’?
3. Are ‘dissidents’ (note use of quote marks) involved in St James ‘Community Watch’?
From the sounds of it ‘hoods’ were central in this attack. But have these hoods been stirred up for ‘political’ motives to do with control of the area? Or have they spontaneously decided to take action against someone who has been countering their activities?
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 07:42 PMA dreadfully introduced thread. Does slugger have to have a reference to every f***ing story from the last few weeks in an effort to guess its way to some sort of narrative?
Fun though to see so many people on here admit they haven’t a clue what’s going on. Indeed.
So much for “hugging the inside track”.
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 07:52 PMB-J R
Fair enough critique. That’s just the way Pete does it. I’d be more succinct probably. To reprise my previous question. Is it the darkness or the candle?
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 08:11 PMBillie Joe.
From the sheer number of times you’ve moaned about this thread and that thread over the last few weeks, one wonders why you bother logging on if it annoys you so much?
Why not just find a site which posts the things you want to talk about instead?
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 08:27 PM‘A dreadfully introduced thread. Does slugger have to have a reference to every f***ing story from the last few weeks in an effort to guess its way to some sort of narrative? ‘
Pete has made an admirable effort in giving us access to relevant reports and previous posts. I suspect it is made in a genuine effort to inform discussion on this disturbing topic.
Well BJ with the benefit of time and hindsight, let us now read your astute, pithy and insightful alternative intro to the topic at hand.
Your remark in this instance, as in many others, has no relevance at all to the thread.
It is getting beyond the point of tedium.
Put up or shut up.
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 08:30 PMWell, see, here’s the thing. I like politics and political sites. This one could be good and I’m trying to suggest some of the obvious flaws. Like the amount of times the same subject is flogged to death.
Turgon recently decided to start a thread because he “likes to blog” and because he wanted his take on an exhausted subject to be top of the thread. Such arrogance.
As someone else pointed out there are 8 threads on one subject. And do we really need “I agree with JS Mill and then a big cut and paste job as Duncan Simply dreadful did last night? It’s like a politics essay. From fifth year.
I appreciate it may be “tedious” but hopefully now you all realise how many times I can make the point because (and here’s the heart of the matter) WHOEVER STARTS THE THREADS seems to just rattle out any old shit again and again. Now that is tedious. GYAC Gail Walker’s article has just appeared again. Why? That election in Fermanagh and several other issues just come up again and again.
I comment when - get this - I have something to say. And I try to keep it short.
It’s all about opinions and you can criticise my opinion and I’ll do the same. That’s how it works, isn’t it?
Now, do f*** right off
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 09:15 PMPete is right to cross reference if he thinks or suspects that there is an emerging pattern.
Information on just what is going on in the St James seems sparse so does anyone have the inside track?
I would make two points.
First, when for 35 years you have urged communities to resist the state and authority and then one day they all wake up and find that you have become the authority, there is a difficult transition to be managed.
Second, to police any area effectively the police need the support of the community. That is the source of their legitimacy. Community policing, in a difficult inner city area anywhere, is hard. There are many competing interests and views which have to be balanced. It demands effort, resources and fairness and needs to be seen to be responsive and effective.
There are those in the Republican community who have conflated electoral success and past history with the right to police the detail of peoples’ lives including their disputes with negighbours, lifestyle, behaviour etc. They believe that they have the right almost to define the norms for those communities and to enforce them ‘on behalf of local people’.
Well, it ain’t necessarily so. That past history, even that electotral success, doesn’t automatically confer that policing legitimacy. It also doesnt make them good at community policing because being good at it is not about the use of force and is not the same as intimidating into submission various factions in the community.
In saying this I am not attacking all those involved in many of these community groups. Many of them followed different models in different areas. In the past they sometimes also provided a real lifeline in communities with major, deep seated problems.
But time moves on and peoples’ attitudes and expectations change. They want more policing and more effective policing and they want that policing to have legitimacy.
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 09:55 PMOh dear.. what really should have been a simple case of reporting a thuggish assault by hoods on a west Belfast resident who happens to volunteer some time to his local community watch has been transformed through smoke and mirrors to an attack on republicans.
What an accomplishment for some…
The linking of Fr. Troy’s statement and the incident on the Stewartstown Road is perplexing, given that they would appear to involve dissident republicans, whereas this is a straightforward example of hoods picking on members of a community watch scheme in one area- something which, unfortunately, is an all too regular occurence, though not involving the numbers or level of violent intent apparently involved on this occasion.
I hope I haven’t ruined things…
oh, and I hope Mr. Kelly and his family recover from the incident and the hoods involved spend time behind bars.
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 10:02 PMB-J-R, Slugger is pretty much the window on the NI world for some of us who now live outside of areas such as these which we used to frequent.
I for one am glad to see stuff like this posted. Cos it gets damn all discussion elsewhere. Unless, of course, you think that this is a non-story? On a par with David and His Imaginary Flute?
Anyway. Sorry I live in the sticks.
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 10:04 PMChris,
I’m familiar with PB’s republican-bashing tendencies.
This ‘Community Watch’ group came up in a thread posted by éirígí member Mark McGregor recently which cited an Andytown News story on tensions involving something which appeared in a local news-sheet. I didn’t pay the thread much attention at the time but now there has been this attack. It’s reasonable to wonder if there’s any more to this that sheer thuggery on the part of ‘hoods’.
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 10:25 PM“Oh dear.. what really should have been a simple case of reporting a thuggish assault by hoods on a west Belfast resident..”
That’s what the BBC is for Chris, surely.
I prefer to add as much available context to the story as possible - as ‘wild turkey’ noted.
“transformed through smoke and mirrors to an attack on republicans.”
Really? Where’s that attack in the original post?
“whereas this is a straightforward example of hoods picking on members of a community watch scheme in one area- something which, unfortunately, is an all too regular occurence, though not involving the numbers or level of violent intent apparently involved on this occasion.”
Feel free to blog such straightforward examples on a regular basis.
Some of those examples are linked in the original post.
And ‘cynic’ makes some good points worth considering.
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 10:29 PMthis was a family feud that has been blown out of proportion by the person under attack lets just say the decision to go public with this story was a political one and thats why an incident that happened on sunday night was only first reported on thursday the person under attack assulted a 13 year old last year and this has been simmering since then
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 10:56 PMlets just say the decision to go public with this story was a political one
On the part of who?
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 10:59 PMI am a Catholic from North Belfast who works in West Belfast and they are TWO big SHITHOLES. From the Upper Glen Road to Divis St and Carlise Circus to Bawnmore it’s one big unlawful ghetto/township with anti-social scumbags, drunken lazy layabouts, benefit scroungers, drug heads, drug dealers, marauding gangs, criminals, pseudo republican groups, rich republican groups, disaffected republican groups etc. The decent hard working people who do hold down a job are very much the minority so when stories like this appear you just don’t know what to believe. You have people who do a hard days work living beside lowlife who do NO work but seem to have endless income to sit up half the night partying or outside boozing all day when the first burst of sunshine comes. Like most ordinary people in these areas I would leave these two stinking hellholes behind but am tied by job and mortgage. Maybe I should pretend I am an alcoholic, lone parent, depressed or unloved then I would get ALL the money and housing the government could throw at me.
Posted by on Jul 24, 2008 @ 11:16 PM
