Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Eye for an EyeAuthor(s): Brian RowanSource: Fortnight, No. 322 (Nov., 1993), p. 8Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25554277 .

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2 Eye for an

eye

Brian Rowan

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Treated like human refuse?a victim of the cleansing depot attack

Shortly after one o'clock in the after

noon on Saturday, October 23rd, an

IRA bomb in the heart of the Shankill

Road in Belfast shattered a commu

nity and further raised tension in an

already bitter climate.

In cold terms of fatalities, the attack

was the worst since the Enniskillen

remembrance day bomb six years ago.

The blast devastated entire families,

with four women and two young girls

among the dead.

A Semtex device detonated prema

turely, probably while still being car

ried into the fishmonger's where it

exploded, causing ten deaths?one

of them the IRA bomber Thomas

Begley. At the time of writing another

paramilitary suspect, critically injured, was under police guard in hospital.

The offices above the shop were,

until the banning of the Ulster De

fence Association {Fortnight 309), ac

knowledged as the west Belfast base of

the organisation. But for a little over a

year, while still a meeting place for

prominent loyalists, the offices had

been known as the headquarters of

the Loyalist Prisoners' Association.

The IRA claimed its intention had

been to attack those offices?more

specifically, an alleged leadership

meeting of the Ulster Freedom Fight

ers, nom de guerre of the UDA. Loyal

ists, however, were adamant that the

building was empty at the time.

Within hours, the UFF said: "This

afternoon the loyalist people of west

Belfast have been at the receiving end

of a blatantly indiscriminate bomb

attack supposedly aimed at the leader

ship of the UFF." It issued a sinister

threat to the entire Catholic commu

nity: "As from 18.00 hours tonight all

brigade area active service units will

be fully mobilised. John Hume, Gerry

Adams and the nationalist electorate

will pay a heavy, heavy price for to

day's atrocity."

Later, there was another statement

from the IRA, saying not all its opera

tives had been accounted for. It said

the intention had been to give a warn

ing to allow the fish shop and the

immediate vicinity to be cleared. The

organisation spoke of people being

"tragically and unintentionally killed"

by the premature explosion. Precisely

what warning was intended is hard to

gauge: the IRA's intention had un

doubtedly been to kill.

Loyalists had been to the fore in the

escalating violence which preceded

the bombing, with the UFF and Ulster

Volunteer Force behind around 30

attacks?some clearly intended to

cause multiple deaths. The UFF had

been involved in intense activity, its

statements threatening "mass murder"

and generic "nationalist" targets.

Loyalists attributed the upsurge to

the Hume-Adams talks, adamant in

response to the peace plan communi

cated to Dublin that there could be no

Irish government dimension to a po

litical settlement. Meanwhile, the IRA

had threatened a response to the "loy

alist death squads", warning that those

involved would be "held accountable".

But on the Shankill road the IRA

slaughtered civilians in a bomb it said

"went tragically wrong". In the after

math, few see any signs of hope. These

lie buried deep beneath the images of

rubble on the Shankill and bullets

scattered across a council cleansing

depot in Catholic west Belfast. There,

three days later, two workmen were

murdered by the UFF.

Kevin Cullen adds: In an interview

before the Shankill bomb, two lead

ing members of the UDA denied that

they had tried to kill SDLP members

with devices at their homes?but

warned of lethal attacks following the

Hume-Adams agreement.

The inner council members de

scribed the devices?the latest were

placed at the homes of the West Bel

fast MP, Joe Hendron, and four coun

cillors, four days before the joint statement by the two party leaders in

late September?as "token bombs,"

aimed at registering their disapproval of the Hume-Adams dialogue.

"Those were shots across the bow,"

said one. Now, however, his group

would "take someone out".

Both the SDLP and the police are known to be taking this threat

seriously. ^

What plan?

Paul Sweeney

A he hoo-ha last month over the ?8

billion that never was obscured an

important fact about the ?20 billion

'National Plan' of which the enhanced

EC structural fund support for the

republic was to be the centrepiece. It

is not a national plan at all.

8 Fortnight November 1993

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