South Belfast UPRG Press Release Politicians must start to help residents of Suffolk The Ulster Political Research Group in South Belfast has hit out at the continuation of a campaign of intimidation against the residents of a small Protestant enclave in West Belfast. In recent weeks there has been a series of incidents ranging from the assault of a local man to the petrol bombing of a home where a five year old child and two week old baby lived. While many locals are rightly outraged over the attacks, they feel that they have been let down by politicians from both sides of the community and the local PSNI. The first incident to happen was the vicious assault of a young man returning home from the local community centre, this was followed by a petrol bomb attack on a home close to the peace line at Kells Avenue and then only this week the burning of the local bonfire. It has also been discovered that up to twenty four cars had been vandalised over the space of a few weeks and only when residents got together did they realise the true extent of this attack. The small estate at the top of the Blacks Road has been a stable community for many years and while some isolated incidents have been largely unreported over the last couple of year’s residents have complained of a marked escalation in attacks which is leaving community relations on a knife edge. Local UPRG spokesman James Smith criticised the response from politicians and the police as he said “we have seen one statement condemning the petrol bombing and nothing else, Sinn Fein have to be called to account for this as they have been very vague with their condemnation to say the least. When questioning the motives of this attack they actually asked “IF it is sectarian in nature” instead of coming straight out and calling it for what it is.” The UPRG point out that locals feel there is a bias in existence as in other cases across the city mention has been made of hate crime, attempted murder and sectarian intimidation yet when the attacks come from within the Republican community in West Belfast it seems there is a different set of rules. The local cross community group SLIG has also come under attack for their lack of support in the area as James Smith mentioned “SLIG has been an award winning group tasked with improving the interface on the Stewartstown Road, while they might have made visible changes to buildings they haven’t sought either the support or opinion of local residents in Suffolk estate. There are no condemnations coming from them, no support work being done on the interfaces by them or indeed any positive change being delivered except to one side of the community. This has to change.” There has not ever been a physical presence on the interface during clashes and responsibility has been left to local residents to ease tension. In fact most refer to it as the Lenadoon interface group as they seem to only work for one side of the community Mr Smith also pointed out that the job of easing tension amongst the young is even harder as they see not only their homes being under attack but also their culture and tradition. Ends
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 10:43:24 +0000
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