Northern Irish leaders struggle to quell worst violence in years
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[April 09, 2021]
By Jason Cairnduff
BELFAST (Reuters) -Northern Ireland's
power-sharing government put aside factional differences on Thursday to
call for calm after frustration among pro-British unionists over post-Brexit
trade barriers helped trigger some of the worst violence in the region
in years.
Despite the appeals, clashes spread further into Irish nationalist areas
on Thursday night where police responded to petrol bomb and stone
attacks with water cannon. The White House joined the British and Irish
governments in urging calm.
Hundreds of youths in the British province's capital Belfast set a
hijacked bus on fire and attacked police with stones on Wednesday in
scenes reviving memories of decades of sectarian and political strife
that claimed some 3,600 lives prior to a 1998 peace deal.
A week of violence has injured 55 police officers and seen boys as young
as 13 and 14 arrested on rioting charges.
"We are gravely concerned by the scenes we have all witnessed on our
streets," the compulsory coalition, led by rival pro-Irish Catholic
nationalists and pro-British Protestant unionists, said in a statement.
"While our political positions are very different on many issues, we are
all united in our support for law and order and we collectively state
our support for policing," the statement said.
The British and Irish Prime Ministers held talks, while the White House
press secretary said the Biden administration was concerned. The U.S.
State Department warned that the Good Friday Agreement, the 1998 peace
accord, must not become "a casualty" of Brexit.
Irish nationalists Sinn Fein and others accused First Minister Arlene
Foster's Democratic Unionist Party of inflaming hostilities with their
opposition to the new trade barriers that their supporters feel erase
part of their UK identity.
After London left the European Union's (EU) orbit at the start of this
year, checks and tariffs were introduced on some goods moving from
mainland Britain to Northern Ireland as the province was now bordering
the bloc via EU member Ireland.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson had promised there would be no hard border
between Ireland and Northern Ireland as result of Brexit, and unfettered
trade between the province and the rest of the United Kingdom.
But critics of the departure deal's Northern Ireland Protocol say a
border is now in effect in the Irish Sea, leaving unionists feeling
betrayed by London.
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A fire burns in front of the police on the Springfield Road as
protests continue in Belfast, Northern Ireland April 8, 2021.
REUTERS/Jason Cairnduff
Johnson on Thursday dispatched his Northern Ireland minister Brandon
Lewis to Belfast for talks with political and community leaders in a
bid to calm the situation.
"I absolutely understand the challenges ... that people of the
Unionist community have felt around the protocol" and other issues,
Lewis told journalists after the talks. But "there is no
legitimization or excuse to take to violence."
'DESTRUCTION AND DESPAIR'
The DUP has also pointed to a police decision last week not to
prosecute Sinn Fein for a large funeral last year that broke
COVID-19 regulations. They called for Northern Ireland's police
chief to step down over the matter, but the party's leader Arlene
Foster met him on Thursday in a bid to defuse tensions.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said a number of factors were
responsible for the anger and that the post-Brexit trading
arrangements were clearly one of them.
Much of Northern Ireland remains deeply split 23 years after the
Good Friday deal. Many nationalists aspire to unification with
Ireland while unionists want to stay in the United Kingdom.
Police said on Thursday that in some instances adults had stood
applauding and shouting support while youngsters committed crimes of
violence.
On Wednesday, Irish nationalist and pro-British loyalist groups
threw fireworks, bricks and petrol bombs at each other from either
side of one of Belfast's so-called "peace walls" that have divided
the two communities in parts of the city since the Northern
Ireland's "Troubles" began.
Thursday's clashes between nationalists and police took place nearby
but were far more muted and part of the crowd dispersed under heavy
rain.
(Additional reporting and writing by Padraic Halpin and Conor
Humphries in Dublin; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Angus MacSwan and
Daniel Wallis)
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