Racist attacks in the North of Ireland New Year period, and continue to escalate. Most attacks have taken place in the Donegall Road area of South Belfast. They have included pipe bombs being planted at the homes of non-whites, houses being set on fire, racial harassment on the street and racist graffiti appearing on walls. In the face of this intimidation a number of African and Chinese families have been forced to flee the area.
While this has been ongoing for a number of years, the level of racist intimidation has been steadily rising. Official figures reveal that there were 212 reported racist incidents throughout the North during the last eight months of 2003.
This represents a rise of 900 per cent over a five-year period. In South Belfast alone there were 5l racially motivated attacks between October and December 2003. There is one attack or incident of intimidation almost every day. Given that many incidents go unreported, the actual number is All the facts point to loyalists orchestrating an ongoing campaign, in particular, the Donegall Road UVF .... ..... likely to be much higher.
The problem of racist attacks was brought to public attention over the Christmas period with a particularly vicious attack on a Chinese couple in the Donegall Road area. The man suffered a fractured skull, and his wife, who was due to give birth in days, was also injured when an armed gang broke into their home. Another Chinese couple and an African couple were forced to flee after their homes, also in the Donegall Road area, were attacked on the same night.
Early in the New Year, the home of a Pakistani family, including a pregnant woman, was attacked when a six foot long wooden plank was thrown through the front window. Two houses occupied by Romanian and Pakistani families were badly damaged after being set on fire.
There has also been harassment of Filipino nurses who work at the nearby City Hospital, and threats against foreign hotel workers. A local estate agent has been warned not to let any property to nonwhites.
All the facts point to loyalists orchestrating an ongoing campaign, in particular, the Donegall Road UVF. The attacks without exception have taken place in areas under their control.
It is inconceivable that any other group, such as the NF or Combat 18, would be involved, as this would be a challenge to the authority of the UVF. Although the UVF does have associations with neo-Nazi groups in Britain and Europe, it is loyalism's long record of sectarian murder that defines it as reactionary and right wing. The racist attacks are not some new turn for loyalism but something that flows inevitably from it.
What also comes with loyalism is criminality. This has overlapped with racism in the Chinese businesses. It has been reported that the current racist attacks are partly in response to the refusal of the Chinese busi ness community to bow to the latest financial demands of the UVE.
Spokespeople from the UVF aligned Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) concede that members of the group are involved. Their only defence is that they are not "sanctioned" by the leadership. But of course they were saying this for years in response to sectarian attacks.
Recent events have shown the limitations of the Anti-Racist Network (ARN), a group set last year by NGOs and trade unions, in which the SWP in Belfast is also heavily involved.
Rather than expose the loyalist organisations behind the attacks, the ARN's approach has been to appeal to the leadership of the organisations to deal with "rogue" members who may be carrying out racist attacks. The underlying assumption is that loyalist groups are not inherently racist,
This approach effectively calls on loyalists to play a policing role within Protestant comlong running extortion campaign against munities, and confers legitimacy on their control, ignoring the parasitic and oppressive role that loyalists play in these areas. It is also dangerous. The UVF would think nothing of carrying out punishment attacks on some local youths to show that they are being tough on racism.
Much of the weakness of the ARN results from it being made up mostly of NGOs such as the Council for Ethnic Minorities, the Chinese Welfare Association and the Multi Cultural Resource Centre. These groups are funded by the state and have to work within an established political framework based on accommodating loyalism.
In the warped concept of equality that prevails in the North, to identify loyalists organisations as being responsible for the racist attacks would be seen as a bias against one community. Racism, therefore, is only dealt with in the most general terms and is presented as something that is throughout society.
There is no hope of building a real alternative to sectarianism and racism until loyalism is acknowledged, not as part of the solution, but as the major part of the problem.
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