VoyForums

Sunday, December 27, 2009 11:53:20am Ireland Time [ VoyUser Login optional ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: [1], 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 23:35:43 08/03/05 Wed GMT
Author: Lynn
Subject: Feuding Loyalist factions emerge in NI (Kansas City Star)

------------------------------------------------------------------------Posted on Sun, Jul. 31, 2005

Feuding loyalist factions emerge in N. Ireland
By BRIAN LAVERY The New York Times

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Protestant paramilitary groups that have been the Irish Republican Army’s foes say they will wait and see whether the IRA disarms before they make similar gestures.

But these days, it almost seems the loyalists have switched their focus — from fighting the IRA to fighting one another.

In a town called Hollywood on the outskirts of Ulster’s capital, police have had to set up nightly checkpoints to keep warring Protestant factions apart. The effort came after hundreds of people aligned with one loyalist gang drove another gang’s families out of their homes last week. Residents say the victims were evicted for selling drugs, but police say the episode was part of a turf war between rival loyalist factions.

For decades, Catholic and Protestant paramilitaries terrorized working-class people in the opposite communities with tit-for-tat killings of each other’s members and of civilians, while acting as de facto defenders of their own side.

As a killing machine, the IRA was more effective, claiming double the number of lives. But loyalists — so called because of their loyalty to the British crown — often operated with the help of Protestant-dominated British security agents who wanted to undermine the IRA, and with a savagery that became infamous because of serial killers like the Shankill Butchers, a gang that murdered 30 innocent Catholics with meat cleavers in the 1970s.

By the 1990s, the worst sectarian viciousness had faded, and fighters put their energies elsewhere.

“There has been very little violence between paramilitary organizations since the cease-fires in 1994,” said Adrian Guelke, a professor of comparative politics at Queens University in Belfast, referring to battles between Protestant and Catholic groups. Instead, he said, “Feuding is part of the territory; it has always been around in some shape or form.”

Even though criminal enterprise — besides drug dealing, police say loyalist groups are involved in extortion, money laundering and some smuggling — and controlling urban areas may be their principal activities, loyalist groups change to suit the political climate. They could easily become a more threatening, or politically active, force, if Protestants grow more disaffected, Guelke said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
First glance

? With political tensions fading in Northern Ireland, Protestant paramilitary groups are putting their energies elsewhere.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]
[ VoyUser Login ] Not required to post.
Post a public reply to this message | Go post a new public message
 * Notice: Posting problems? [ Click here ]
 * HTML allowed in marked fields.
* Message subject (required):

* Name (required):

  Expression (Optional mood/title along with your name) Examples: (happy, sad, The Joyful, etc.) help)

  E-mail address (required):

* Type your message here:

Choose Message Icon: [ View Emoticons ]

Notice: Copies of your message may remain on this and other systems on internet. Please be respectful.

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 2.94, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2008 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.