There is something highly amiss when kids get attacked on thier way to school. Especially, when the attackers are doing it on "religious" grounds. If Jahovah, any any variation of that entity actually exists, I don not believe this was in the game plan.
from the NY Times
Panic as Bomb Explodes Near Belfast Catholic School
By BRIAN LAVERY(AP)
BELFAST, Northern Ireland, Sept. 5 — Protestant paramilitaries in North Belfast threw a homemade bomb at police officers who were escorting Roman Catholic girls to elementary school just before 9 this morning. Two police officers were seriously injured and a group of 100 students and parents fled in panic.
The Red Hand Defenders, the cover name used by two Protestant paramilitary groups, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The incident dashed hopes that sectarian tensions in the Ardoyne neighborhood would recede from the violence and riots of this week, which required hundreds of British Army soldiers and police officers to keep the peace.
Protestants began blockading the street last June to protest what they said was harassment by Catholic residents, and they successfully forced the Holy Cross Primary School to start summer vacation early. The school is a few hundred yards on the Protestant side of a "peace line," a cross-street separating Protestant and Catholic homes.
Today dozens of armored vehicles lined Ardoyne's main street to create a protected corridor for the students, who walked around burned-out cars and strewn rubble left over from two nights of riots.
With machine-guns at the ready, British soldiers stood at the fences and doorways of Protestant homes to prevent residents from clashing with parents. On Monday and Tuesday a cordon of officers in body armor walked in front of the students, some as young as 4, and drew nightsticks as they chased Protestants back through the front yards of private houses.
The ordeal began much more peacefully today. Fewer protesters were on their doorsteps, and fewer epithets were shouted out. Then a shower of stones and broken bricks slammed into police vehicles and into the street, and a thunderous bang came seconds later. Schoolgirls, surrounded by parents and supporters, ran screaming.
"I feel terrified," said 6-year-old Aina Booth, in a red sweater and tie uniform, as she stood at the school entrance with her mother. "But the worst is the bad words."
On Monday, under less police protection, the girls came face-to-face with Protestants chanting "Scum, scum!"
Their tactic has won little public sympathy. The tear-streaked faces of distraught young girls, with ribbons in their hair for the first day of school, have flashed across England and Ireland all week.
Even more than physical violence, concern for the emotional and psychological welfare of their daughters has driven many parents to keep their daughters at home. Only half of the 230 pupils have been coming to school, according to the school principal, Anne Tanney, and half of those are usually too upset to stay.
"They were very traumatized," Ms. Tanney said. "We couldn't teach them under those conditions." But most students cheered up once they were safely inside their classrooms, she said.
The situation has alienated Ulster's Protestant community from the outside world at a time when they were briefly winning the public relations war. Unionists and loyalists want Ulster to remain part of Britain. They had been on a media offensive since three members of the Irish Republican Army were arrested in Colombia last month under suspicion of training rebels in guerrilla warfare.
Politicians from both communities refuted claims that the blockade was a legitimate protest. Secretary of State John Reid, Britain's representative in the province, returned early from vacation today to survey the situation in Ardoyne.
"It's clearly anti-Catholic sectarian bigotry," said Martin Morgan, a local legislator for a moderate Catholic political party. "Time will only tell what emotional impact the trauma will have."
And while Billy Hutchinson, a hard-line unionist politician with ties to Protestant paramilitary groups, stopped short of saying that residents should call off their protest, he could hardly hide his disgust.
"There is nothing that justifies this," he said, pointing to where an injured police officer lay in the street after the explosion.
"I want to walk away from it, and even leave this country," he said. "It isn't worth fighting for any longer. This is not about children going to school any longer; this is about people hell-bent on causing trouble. I'm sick to my stomach, and I'm ashamed to be a loyalist."
The Royal Ulster Constabulary has felt the brunt of the violence. An officer was struck by a pipe bomb and hospitalized with a broken collarbone on Tuesday; 41 officers were injured on Tuesday night alone, when police estimate that more than 250 homemade gas bombs, nail bombs and other homemade explosives were thrown in Ardoyne.
Unionists accused the I.R.A. of hijacking the situation and urging Catholics not to negotiate.
But the Red Hand Defenders warned Catholic parents on Monday to stay away from the area, and threatened to exact vengeance on the police if any Protestant protesters were injured.
Most parents whose children did attend class followed police advice to use a circuitous alternative route, through the grounds of an adjoining school.
"We're in uncharted territory now — this is beyond words," said the Rev. Aidan Troy, a member of the Holy Cross Primary School's governing board. "The road must be used, because otherwise we have decided to retreat into barbarity."
In one sense, the girls are pawns in a long-running battle for supremacy over the rough concrete streets of North Belfast. Political reforms have given Catholics more power in Northern Ireland's government than ever before, and the Catholic population in this part of the city is growing, making Protestants feel even more under siege.
Community leaders pledged to reopen a dialogue between warring Protestant and Catholic communities.
The police say they are prepared to continue their escorts for as long as necessary.
"We're all to blame," Ms. Tanney said. "This should never happen to children."
from the NY Times
Panic as Bomb Explodes Near Belfast Catholic School
By BRIAN LAVERY(AP)
BELFAST, Northern Ireland, Sept. 5 — Protestant paramilitaries in North Belfast threw a homemade bomb at police officers who were escorting Roman Catholic girls to elementary school just before 9 this morning. Two police officers were seriously injured and a group of 100 students and parents fled in panic.
The Red Hand Defenders, the cover name used by two Protestant paramilitary groups, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The incident dashed hopes that sectarian tensions in the Ardoyne neighborhood would recede from the violence and riots of this week, which required hundreds of British Army soldiers and police officers to keep the peace.
Protestants began blockading the street last June to protest what they said was harassment by Catholic residents, and they successfully forced the Holy Cross Primary School to start summer vacation early. The school is a few hundred yards on the Protestant side of a "peace line," a cross-street separating Protestant and Catholic homes.
Today dozens of armored vehicles lined Ardoyne's main street to create a protected corridor for the students, who walked around burned-out cars and strewn rubble left over from two nights of riots.
With machine-guns at the ready, British soldiers stood at the fences and doorways of Protestant homes to prevent residents from clashing with parents. On Monday and Tuesday a cordon of officers in body armor walked in front of the students, some as young as 4, and drew nightsticks as they chased Protestants back through the front yards of private houses.
The ordeal began much more peacefully today. Fewer protesters were on their doorsteps, and fewer epithets were shouted out. Then a shower of stones and broken bricks slammed into police vehicles and into the street, and a thunderous bang came seconds later. Schoolgirls, surrounded by parents and supporters, ran screaming.
"I feel terrified," said 6-year-old Aina Booth, in a red sweater and tie uniform, as she stood at the school entrance with her mother. "But the worst is the bad words."
On Monday, under less police protection, the girls came face-to-face with Protestants chanting "Scum, scum!"
Their tactic has won little public sympathy. The tear-streaked faces of distraught young girls, with ribbons in their hair for the first day of school, have flashed across England and Ireland all week.
Even more than physical violence, concern for the emotional and psychological welfare of their daughters has driven many parents to keep their daughters at home. Only half of the 230 pupils have been coming to school, according to the school principal, Anne Tanney, and half of those are usually too upset to stay.
"They were very traumatized," Ms. Tanney said. "We couldn't teach them under those conditions." But most students cheered up once they were safely inside their classrooms, she said.
The situation has alienated Ulster's Protestant community from the outside world at a time when they were briefly winning the public relations war. Unionists and loyalists want Ulster to remain part of Britain. They had been on a media offensive since three members of the Irish Republican Army were arrested in Colombia last month under suspicion of training rebels in guerrilla warfare.
Politicians from both communities refuted claims that the blockade was a legitimate protest. Secretary of State John Reid, Britain's representative in the province, returned early from vacation today to survey the situation in Ardoyne.
"It's clearly anti-Catholic sectarian bigotry," said Martin Morgan, a local legislator for a moderate Catholic political party. "Time will only tell what emotional impact the trauma will have."
And while Billy Hutchinson, a hard-line unionist politician with ties to Protestant paramilitary groups, stopped short of saying that residents should call off their protest, he could hardly hide his disgust.
"There is nothing that justifies this," he said, pointing to where an injured police officer lay in the street after the explosion.
"I want to walk away from it, and even leave this country," he said. "It isn't worth fighting for any longer. This is not about children going to school any longer; this is about people hell-bent on causing trouble. I'm sick to my stomach, and I'm ashamed to be a loyalist."
The Royal Ulster Constabulary has felt the brunt of the violence. An officer was struck by a pipe bomb and hospitalized with a broken collarbone on Tuesday; 41 officers were injured on Tuesday night alone, when police estimate that more than 250 homemade gas bombs, nail bombs and other homemade explosives were thrown in Ardoyne.
Unionists accused the I.R.A. of hijacking the situation and urging Catholics not to negotiate.
But the Red Hand Defenders warned Catholic parents on Monday to stay away from the area, and threatened to exact vengeance on the police if any Protestant protesters were injured.
Most parents whose children did attend class followed police advice to use a circuitous alternative route, through the grounds of an adjoining school.
"We're in uncharted territory now — this is beyond words," said the Rev. Aidan Troy, a member of the Holy Cross Primary School's governing board. "The road must be used, because otherwise we have decided to retreat into barbarity."
In one sense, the girls are pawns in a long-running battle for supremacy over the rough concrete streets of North Belfast. Political reforms have given Catholics more power in Northern Ireland's government than ever before, and the Catholic population in this part of the city is growing, making Protestants feel even more under siege.
Community leaders pledged to reopen a dialogue between warring Protestant and Catholic communities.
The police say they are prepared to continue their escorts for as long as necessary.
"We're all to blame," Ms. Tanney said. "This should never happen to children."
