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A memorial garden which glorified loyalist paramilitaries has been transformed into a new playpark and multi-sports area for children in a deprived area of Belfast.
The £90,000 project in Nubia Street, off the Donegall Road in the Village area of the city, has been built on the site of a UVF memorial garden.
Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie said it has “brought a renewed sense of community identity and pride”.
The park was opened just a day after the government said that it now recognised the UVF’s ceasefire.
Last May, the UVF said it was assuming “a non-military civilianised role”.
Ms Ritchie said the new park had “regenerated a rundown area into an attractive space for the local community”.
Children from local primary schools turned up for the grand opening where they were given a chance to roadtest the new equipment.
The project was developed over the last two years by the Greater Village Regeneration Trust and local people, in conjunction with Belfast City Council and the Department of Social Development.
Councillor Bob Stoker said it was an example of how communities were being encouraged to take ownership of and responsibility for their local parks.
Mr Stoker, who chairs the council’s parks and leisure committee, said he hoped the new facility would “act as a catalyst for more regeneration work within the neighbourhood”.
By Diana Rusk and Seamus McKinney
Irish News
**Via Newshound
14/05/08
ATTACK AFTERMATH: Forensics officers at the scene of Monday night’s car-bomb explosion at Spamount Crossroads near Castlederg in Co Tyrone [PICTURE: Margaret McLaughlin]
A YOUNG Catholic police officer seriously injured in a booby-trap car-bomb has said he is determined to return to work.
He was supposed to have been playing in a match with his Co Tyrone soccer team last night but was instead recovering from shrapnel wounds to his legs and lower body.
While he was seriously injured and underwent emergency surgery, it is thought he will be able to walk again following the explosion as he drove through Spamount village, near Castlederg on Monday night.
The officer told his superiors from his hospital bed that he still believed he had done the right thing by joining the police service three years ago.
It is understood he moved into a new home in the Castlederg area with his girlfriend a month before being targeted by the bombers.
Police yesterday cordoned off the house as part of their forensic examinations. While police blamed dissident republicans for the attack, no organisation had formally claimed responsibility last night.
However, sources said it was carried out by fringe group Oglaigh na hEireann. The officer – whose name police are not making public – had just left his home and was on his way to start night duty at Enniskillen police station in Co Fermanagh when the bomb, attached to his car, detonated.
The bomb went off on the Drumnaby Road in an area popular with walkers at around 9.30pm.
A group of people rushed to the officer’s aid and dragged him from his car, which later went up in flames.
Adam Lyons (30), who had been driving along the road, said he heard a bang and thought he had driven over a football before he turned the corner and saw the officer lying beside his vehicle.
“He had a lot of shrapnel in the back of his legs and in his rear end. I think the guy was in shock but apart from that he was in a lot of pain and was talking,” Mr Lyons said.
“He said he was driving along and the car seemed to have exploded.”
The officer had been based in Co Fermanagh since joining the force, first in the Lisnaskea area before moving to the area headquarters at Enniskillen.
Originally from Omagh, he has written on a social networking website that his two “great passions” are
Liverpool FC and the Tyrone county GAA team. A member of the officer’s soccer team last night said he was “absolutely stunned” to hear news of the attack.
Chief Inspector Alywin Barton, the young officer’s area commander, stayed with him in hospital until the early hours of yesterday.
“We sat with him until 1.30am and he was very positive,” he said.
“He was clearly shocked and has physical injuries but I have no doubt he believes he still has a contribution to make.
“I believe it is his intention to continue and his faith that he has done the right thing and that those who did this to him are wrong remains.
“This officer sought out a career to make the community a safer and more enjoyable place to be and all these people can do is try to visit mayhem on him.”
Mr Barton said that the officer had proved himself a “very capable, intelligent young man who has an enormous amount to contribute to society in Northern Ireland”.
The bomb attack was widely condemned. Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, who last night visited the injured policeman, described it as spiteful, selfish and futile.
“It was conducted by people who have no mandate. They certainly have no strategy whatsoever and clearly they represent no-one,” the Sinn Fein MP said.
“There is a duty, a responsibility on everyone within society and indeed anyone who has information about this particular attack, to give the information to the police as quickly as possible.”
First Minister Ian Paisley said it was an attack on democracy.
“There can be no turning back to the dark days of the past,” he said.
Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde said fingers of blame pointing to dissident republicans were “pointing in entirely the right direction”.
“They are out of date, out of time, and they are lashing out at an easy target, an easy target which will give them some sort of publicity,” he said.
“It will not put my officers off delivering community policing and it will not deter every member of the community who is in their right mind from working with us to deliver a safer Northern Ireland.”
The inquest into the death of Denis Donaldson has been adjourned until February 2009.
Mr Donaldson’s body was found at an isolated cottage
The former Sinn Fein Stormont official and British agent was found dead at an isolated cottage he owned in Donegal more than two years ago.
The decision to adjourn the inquest was made following an application by a Garda superintendent.
He asked the coroner not to proceed due to the ongoing criminal investigation into his death.
Mr Donaldson was expelled from Sinn Fein in December 2005 after admitting he was a paid spy.
He then moved from his Belfast home to live as a recluse in a cottage without electricity or running water. No-one has ever been charged with his murder.
By Patrick Corrigan
Amnesty International UK
15 May 2008 at 15:09
Wall mural, Belfast
As mentioned yesterday, Israelis are celebrating 60 years since the foundation of their State. Meanwhile, Palestinians have been marking 60 years of ‘al Nakba’, the catastrophe. The Guardian has a short article here and a good photo series describing the day that’s in it from a Palestinian perspective.
As often happens in Belfast, a new political solidarity mural has been commissioned (see above) to mark the occasion and was recently unveiled on the city’s Falls Road. As you can see – and as is normal with these Belfast landmarks (and tourist attractions) – an awful lot of political information and imagery has been captured by the mural-painter’s brush.
More background information available online from Amnesty on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Associated Press
15 May 2008
BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — Four suspected Irish Republican Army dissidents were arrested Thursday in connection with a bomb attack that wounded an officer earlier in the week, police said.
The four, arrested in rural County Tyrone, were being questioned at the main police interrogation center west of Belfast in connection with Monday’s attack, authorities said.
A small bomb went off beneath the seat of the police officer’s patrol car as he was driving to work. The officer – a Catholic – remained hospitalized Monday with wounds to his legs and back.
Such booby-trap bombs were frequent during the IRA’s failed 1970-97 campaign to oust Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom. Dissidents reject the IRA’s decisions to renounce violence and disarm.
By Aine Kerr Political Correspondent
Independent.ie
Thursday May 15 2008
THE decision of the Northern Secretary to recognise the ceasefire of the loyalist parliamentary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), was last night welcomed by the Government here.
Northern Secretary of State Shaun Woodward announced his decision — but deemed the dissident republican group calling itself Oglaigh na hEireann an illegal organisation.
In September 2005, the UVF’s ceasefire had ceased to be recognised following a feud with the Loyalist Volunteer Force, which claimed four lives.
But last May, the loyalist force announced it was assuming “a non-military civilianised role” and that it would put its arms beyond reach.
Last night, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin said recognition of the UVF ceasefire represented another important step in building a better future for Northern Ireland.
“It recognises that the UVF has made considerable progress over the last year and that the ceasefire is holding,” he said.
Focus
“Our focus must remain in securing a complete abandonment of paramilitary activity, together with tangible progress on full decommissioning from all groups.”
The decision to proscribe Oglaigh na hEireann was also welcomed by the Department of Foreign Affairs, describing it as a “small, totally unrepresentative element”.
The organisation was blamed for the murder of Andrew Burns by the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC), the body which monitors the paramilitary ceasefires.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Woodward said he had “taken a careful look” at the UVF’s position.
The decision to recognise the ceasefire means some prisoners could now be eligible for early release, if they were convicted before the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
“In the light of this and in acknowledgement of their commitment and additional factors, I have therefore concluded that there are sufficient grounds to de-specify the UVF/RHC,” he said.
Leader of the Progressive Unionist Party Dawn Purvis, whose party has political links to the UVF, last night said the announcement was further evidence of Northern Ireland’s strides towards normality.
Belfast Telegraph
Thursday 15, May 2008
Dissident Republicans planned to import weapons and ammunition from the US to a school in Donegal, the Omagh civil court case heard yesterday.
The landmark lawsuit, being taken against five men said to be responsible for the worst atrocity of the Northern Ireland conflict, heard the address of the school in Ballyshannon was given to an FBI agent who infiltrated the Real IRA.
The Dublin hearing was told David Rupert passed the evidence on to gardai who were probing terrorist activity on both sides of the boarder.
Michael McKevitt, the alleged leader of the RIRA, Liam Campbell, said to be his number two, Colm Murphy, Seamus McKenna and Seamus Daly all deny any involvement in the bomb attack in the Co Tyrone town on a busy Saturday afternoon in August 1998.
Superintendent Diarmuid O’Sullivan said five statements were taken from Rupert who, on January 20, 2001, in Chicago, handed over a brown envelope containing a number of documents.
The items included a business card which he said he was given from veteran republican Joe O’Neill. It allegedly had “Kathleen Askin, Vocational School, College Street, Ballyshannon” handwritten on the top. Ms Askin was Mr O’Neill’s sister and a teacher at the school.
“This was the address that David Rupert was given by Joe O’Neill to ship military supplies from the US for the Continuity IRA,” said Supt O’Sullivan.
Rupert also handed officers a piece of paper with the name and address of a man in Worcester, Massachusetts.
“David Rupert indicated that this was the person that Michael McKevitt instructed him to meet in the US to conduct his affairs,” the detective told the court.
The envelope also included the name of a man who would act as a go-between for a journalist in Chicago and McKevitt.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland plans to close three rural police stations in County Tyrone.
The police intends to close stations in Pomeroy, Coagh and Stewartstown, but said they would consult with locals in the summer first.
District Commander Chief Superintendent Michael Skuce said the move should be seen in the context of the constraints on the policing budget.
He said he wanted more officers out on the streets rather than behind desks.
Last month proposals to cut the number of stations in the whole of County Fermanagh from seven to three were put out for consultation and schemes for cuts in the Dungannon and Omagh areas of Tyrone are expected to be outlined soon.
Police said Pomeroy station was currently closed to the public, while Coagh was only open to them by appointment.
“My view is that Neighbourhood Police Team officers based on Cookstown can maintain these functions,” Mr Skuce said.
“I believe the needs of the rural community can better be served by a greater flexibility of my officers and I want to see them out and about in the area, rather than being tied to police stations that, in any event, are no longer suitable for the purpose for which they were built.”
Mr Skuce said he was exploring alternative methods of delivering policing and the use of a mobile police station was delivering accessible policing in many parts of County Fermanagh and could do so in the Cookstown area.
He insisted the PSNI remained committed to maintaining a service for all in the area.
The chief superintendent said he wanted to have a constructive debate with the people of the Cookstown area and a consultation period would run until mid-July.
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