BELFAST, Northern Ireland – The violence that has spread across Northern Ireland this month, from the towns of Londonderry and Belfast to smaller towns, was a strong reminder that this corner of the UK remains bitterly divided along political and cultural lines.
Rioters in loyalist areas threw bricks and petrol bombs at police night after night, responding with water cannons. So far, nearly 90 officers have been injured. Dissidential Republican groups such as the New IRA have also moved to renew a bombing field aimed at intimidating the police force. On April 19, a bomb was discovered outside the home of a female officer near the city of Dungiven.
To many observers, the violence is reminiscent of the conflict, known as ‘The Troubles’, which for three decades saw pro-British loyalists and trade unionists speak out against Irish nationalists who wanted Northern Ireland to break free from the United Kingdom and with the independent Republic. Ireland would unite.
More than 3,600 people died during the conflict, and tens of thousands were injured. Despite the vast majority of Northern Irish people wanting peace, the era is defined by violence and unrest, suppressed by frequent bombings, riots, police attacks, sectarian killings and military repression.
Since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, the conflict no longer involves paramilitary factions using bombs and bullets to advance their cause. However, the agreement was just one step in a faltering, ongoing peace process, and tensions continued to simmer, fueled by the perception among loyalists that their culture and identity were being eroded.
These frustrations have reached a boiling point this year after tense negotiations between the European Union and the British government over the implementation of Brexit, loyal activists in Belfast told NBC News.
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The United Kingdom consisting of Great Britain and Northern Ireland remains one country. However, under the terms of the Brexit agreement, Northern Ireland will continue to be subject to EU trade and customs rules.
That decision – known as the Northern Ireland Protocol – aims to create a hard economic border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Irish and European leaders have repeatedly warned that hardening the border could lead to violence. Instead, customs controls will be imposed on goods crossing the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland.
Unionists believe the British government has put the interests of Irish nationalists first, but leaves them feeling betrayed and driven away.
“Northern Ireland is being torn away from the United Kingdom on the basis of nationalist threats of violence,” said loyalist activist Jamie Bryson. “I mean a child can understand that.”
Anger has increased since the terms of the Brexit agreement came into force earlier this year. In March, the Loyalist Communities Council, an umbrella organization that provides political representation to various loyalist paramilitary groups, officially withdrew its support for the Good Friday Agreement. Faithful community workers refused to help police prevent illegal gatherings.
“People in loyalist communities feel that their identity is always threatened,” said activist Stacey Graham. “Now we have the protocol and feel they are not equal citizens like the rest of the UK, and I think it has just reached a boiling point.”
In addition to the grievances over Brexit, loyalists regularly accuse law enforcement of ‘two-tier policing’ and claim that the Northern Ireland Police Service, like the British government, now treats loyalists more harshly than nationalists.
This belief is strongly disputed by nationalists and the police themselves, but it was exacerbated when prosecutors recently decided not to attend charges against leaders of the Irish Republican Sinn Fein party, which was among thousands of people, to attend the funeral of the former provisional IRA leader Bobby Storey. in apparent violation of coronavirus restrictions against mass gatherings.
“There is a pattern of pacifism towards Republicans and in particular Sinn Fein,” said Moore Holmes, a loyal activist in east Belfast. “There has never been a clearer and clearer example of this than the funeral of Bobby Storey.”
Sam McBride, political editor of the trade union-leading newspaper Belfast News Letter, said the handling of the Storey funeral undermined support for the police, but he did not see it as part of a larger campaign to favor the police.
“I do not think it is fair to describe these mistakes as evidence of prejudice, because they were mistakes that dominated both sides of the community,” he said. “Some of this is about politics, but others are also about the consequences of just bad decisions by the police.”
Dolores Kelly, a prominent member of the Nationalist Social Democratic and Labor Party, and a member of the Police Council overseeing the activities of the Northern Ireland Police Service, said recent independent police inspections have not biased treatment of loyalist communities identified. But she was also critical of nationalists who attended the Storey funeral.
“I do think that Sinn Fein, and especially the Republican movement, have serious questions to answer regarding their judgment and how they felt they were above all other than the law and the law of Covid restrictions,” she said. said.
In turn, Chief Constable Simon Byrne defended the police record, insisting that the police’s handling of the funeral was impartial.
In addition to the political factors underlying the loyal rage, there are also concerns that paramilitary groups have helped incite violence to retain control of certain areas.
The news reports pointed out that older men were dropping off young people at trouble spots in their cars, and video clips on social media seemed to cheer adults on the young rioters.
Allison Morris, a crime correspondent for the Belfast Telegraph, said the riots in the city of Newtownabbey, for example, could benefit from drug trafficking run by a faction of the paramilitary Ulster Defense Association, led by repression by local police and the British National National faced. Crime agency.
“They think if they riot, they could turn their neighborhood into a no-go zone for community policing,” she said. “Community police are the ones who are going to get information about these people.”
Under the grip of shadowy paramilitary groups and finding themselves constantly being politically manipulated by Irish nationalists, loyalists also feel let down by their own elected representatives, who along with almost all mainstream political figures have condemned the riot while doing much of the same expressed concern.
“These are just empty words in the media, on the radio, on TV, and they are not really dealing with the local people on the ground,” Graham said.
According to McBride, the leading party of loyalism and trade unionism, the Democratic Unionist Party, has been at the center of power for so long that it has been ‘detached from some of its roots’ as the anti-establishment, left-of-center previously forcing it .
The death of Prince Philip on April 9 has almost completely interrupted the violence for now, as the UK observes a period of national mourning. But summer in Northern Ireland is often a season of unrest, as loyalists and union marches traditionally parade through the streets. There are already concerns about what the next few weeks and months will bring, as younger loyalists itch to make their presence known.
“You have the hawks and the pigeons,” Morris said. ‘You have the older men who went to jail, men who went through The Troubles, lost people and clearly do not want to go back to the past. Then you have the younger people who want to take a much harder approach.
“It does not take a majority to destroy peace, but only a minority – 1,000 people can bring this place to a standstill.”