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Police vans in Belfast
Police vans come under attack during the riots in Short Strand, east Belfast. Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP
Police vans come under attack during the riots in Short Strand, east Belfast. Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP

Belfast riots: a setback for area barely reshaped by peace process

This article is more than 12 years old
Violence in the traditional flashpoint of Short Strand was fuelled by youth unemployment and growing UVF militancy

With its back to the river Lagan and encircled by the blank walls of a protective "peace line", the Short Strand has been a traditional sectarian flashpoint.

A republican enclave in predominantly loyalist, working-class east Belfast, the area has barely been reshaped by the peace process. Some paramilitary murals have been replaced by less violent imagery.

For a city attempting to rebrand itself under the heritage marque of the Titanic and as a film industry location, the reappearance of petrol bombs, balaclava-clad youths and massed police Land Rovers on the streets is a public relations disaster.

Several nights of rioting and gunfire have been blamed by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) on the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a loyalist faction that has become increasingly detached from the broader process of cross-community reconciliation.

While dissident republicans have built up their armed campaign – killing four police officers and soldiers since 2009 – loyalist paramilitaries, officially on ceasefire, had been relatively quiet.

The murder last May by the UVF of the loyalist Bobby Moffett, during an internal feud, however, raised questions about the organisation's commitment to transforming itself.

The leader of its political wing, Dawn Purvis, resigned shortly afterwards in protest at the UVF's involvment in the killing. The death of David Ervine, from a heart attack in 2007, had already deprived loyalism of its most able and charismatic persuader for peace.

The latest sectarian disturbances come in the buildup to the summer marching season. The Short Strand was the scene of similar, week-long skirmishes in June 2002, when republicans said bunting for the Queen's golden jubilee had been draped on railings of the local Catholic church.

High youth unemployment, reinforced by Ireland's severe economic downturn, has also left a pool of recruits susceptible to paramilitary influence. To a younger generation that missed out on the worst of the Troubles, tales of past paramilitary deeds told in late night bars can be deceptively beguiling.

"The spectre of youth unemployment is of grave concern," warned Margaret Ritchie MP, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party. "Rioting in east Belfast over the past two nights, to some degree, shows the dangers within economically deprived areas with high levels of youth unemployment."

Growing UVF militancy in east Belfast is said to be a result of resentment at targeting of the local UVF "brigadier" by the police assets recovery agency.

There are also fears among the wider UVF leadership that investigations by detectives in the historical enquiries team (HET) into murders from the Troubles may lead to the arrest of prominent loyalists.

Graffiti declaring "HET go home" have appeared on walls in north Belfast. That UVF gunmen have been exposed as long-term special branch informers has created further anger in loyalist ranks.

Rival groups with links to the Ulster Defence Association are said to have gathered support locally, fuelling the need for the group to flex its muscles.

For the past five years, the Northern Ireland Office has funded programmes to remove bloodthirsty paramilitary murals from the gable ends of terraced houses across the city. Convicted UVF and IRA gunmen have, in places, been replaced by paintings celebrating less divisive figures from history such as a Victoria Cross winner from the second world war. In recent months, masked and armed UVF men have re-appeared on murals in east Belfast.

If the UVF triggered the latest round of sectarian confrontation, the burst of shots let off on Tuesday night that struck a photographer marked retaliation by the Real IRA or another dissident republican group.

The fear is that violence may spread around other peaceline flashpoints. Community workers on both sides of the sectarian divide have been trying to persuade youngsters to stay away and resist calls to take to the streets. Senior Sinn Féin figures have been out in the Short Strand urging restraint.

Alex Maskey, a senior representative of the party in the Stormont assembly, said: "Those who were responsible for the shots need to realise that they have nothing to offer and will not in any way aid the search for a solution to the problems being faced by this community.

"Anyone bringing out weapons will not make this community [Short Strand] safer and it shouldn't happen. The notion that these elements are protecting this area is a nonsense following the shooting of a photographer."

For the republican movement it is a symbolic moment. The area was the scene of a notorious gun battle with loyalists in June 1970 that saw the emergence of the Provisional IRA. Dissident republicans may now challenge Sinn Féin by claiming they are the true defenders of republican streets.

One feature of the disturbances has been the PSNI's use of water cannons to break up crowds of youths. British forces have been watching their deployment with interest for several years.

To interpret the re-emergence of paramilitary groups as proof of Northern Ireland's uniquely atavistic affection for tribal warfare is too easy. Gangland killings are a common feature of modern, dysfunctional urban estates in Los Angeles, London and Manchester.

But as one despondent blogger on Northern Ireland's popular Slugger O'Toole website commented about the prospect of a golf-led, commerical revival of the province: "Bang goes the Rory [McIlroy] tourist boom then."

More on this story

More on this story

  • The truth about Belfast's riots

  • Belfast riot shooting blamed on dissident republicans

  • Belfast riots are an own goal

  • Belfast riots: Woman arrested on weapons charge

  • Belfast sectarian riots – in pictures

  • Sectarian clashes hit Belfast for second night

  • Photographer shot in Belfast riot

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