BELFAST, Northern Ireland – The violence that has spread across Northern Ireland this month, from the cities of Londonderry and Belfast to smaller towns, is a strong reminder that this corner of the UK is still bitterly divided along political and cultural lines.
Night after night, rioters in loyalist areas have thrown stones and gasoline bombs at police, who responded with water cannons. Nearly 90 officers have been injured so far. Dissident republican groups such as the New IRA have also begun to renew a bombing campaign aimed at intimidating the police. On April 19, a bomb was discovered outside the home of a female officer near the town of Dungiven.
For many observers, the violence is a reminder of the conflict known as “The Troubles,” which for three decades turned pro-British loyalists and unionists against Irish nationalists who wanted Northern Ireland to break away from the United Kingdom and unite with the United Kingdom. independent Republic of Ireland.
More than 3,600 people died during that conflict and tens of thousands were injured. Despite the overwhelming majority of the Northern Ireland population wanting peace, the era was marked by violence and unrest, punctuated by frequent bombing, riots, attacks on the police, sectarian killings and military crackdowns.
Since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the conflict has eliminated paramilitary factions that use bombs and bullets to further their cause. However, the agreement was just one step in a stuttering, ongoing peace process, and tensions have continued to simmer, fueled by the perception among loyalists that their culture and identity are being eroded.
Those frustrations reached a boiling point this year after tense negotiations between the European Union and the British government over the implementation of Brexit, loyalist activists in Belfast told NBC News.
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The United Kingdom, consisting of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, remains one country. However, under the terms of the Brexit deal, Northern Ireland remains subject to EU trade and customs rules.
That decision – known as the Northern Ireland Protocol – was designed to prevent the creation of a hard economic border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Irish and European leaders repeatedly warned that hardening the border could lead to violence. Instead, customs controls will be imposed on goods crossing the Irish Sea into Northern Ireland.
Unionists believe the British government has prioritized the interests of Irish nationalists, leaving them feeling betrayed and adrift.
“Northern Ireland is being snatched from the UK on the basis of nationalist threats of violence,” said loyalist activist Jamie Bryson. “I mean, a child can understand that.”
The anger has increased since the terms of the Brexit deal went into effect early this year. In March, the Loyalist Communities Council, an umbrella organization that provides political representation to various loyalist paramilitary groups, officially withdrew its support for the Good Friday Agreement. Loyalist community workers have refused to help the police prevent illegal gatherings.
“People in loyalist communities feel that their identities are always under threat,” said activist Stacey Graham. “Now we have the protocol, and they don’t feel like they’re equal citizens like the rest of the UK, and I think it’s just boiling.”
In addition to grievances over Brexit, loyalists often accuse law enforcement of “two-tier policing” – claiming that the Northern Ireland police, like the British government, are now treating loyalists more harshly than nationalists.
This belief is strongly disputed by nationalists and the police themselves, but was exacerbated when prosecutors recently decided not to press charges against leaders of the Irish Republican Sinn Fein Party, who attended the funeral of the former Provisional IRA among thousands of people. leader Bobby Storey attended. in clear violation of the coronavirus restrictions against mass rallies.
“There is a pattern of pacifism towards Republicans and Sinn Fein in particular,” said Moore Holmes, a loyalist activist in East Belfast. “There has never been a clearer and clearer example of this than Bobby Storey’s funeral.”
Sam McBride, political editor of the Unionist-leaning Belfast News Letter, said the handling of the Storey funeral undermined support for the police, but he didn’t see it as part of a larger campaign of cronyism by the police.
“I don’t think it’s fair to characterize those errors as evidence of bias because they were errors that were actually on both sides of the community,” he said. “Part of this is about politics, but part is also about the consequences of just bad decisions by the police.”
Dolores Kelly, a prominent member of the Nationalist Social Democratic and Labor Party, and a member of the Policing Board that oversees the activities of the Northern Ireland Police Department, said recent independent police inspections do not have a biased treatment of loyalist communities. . But she was also critical of nationalists attending the Storey funeral.
“I think Sinn Fein, and the Republican movement in particular, have serious questions to answer regarding their judgment and how they felt they were above everyone else in both the spirit and the law of Covid restrictions,” she said .
Chief of Police Simon Byrne, for his part, defended the police record and insisted that the police handle the funeral impartially.
In addition to the political factors underlying the loyalist anger, there are also concerns that paramilitary groups may have contributed to instigating some of the violence to maintain control over certain areas.
News reports show that older men drop young people off in trouble spots in their cars, and video clips on social media seem to show that adults are encouraging the young rioters.
Allison Morris, crime correspondent for the Belfast Telegraph, said the riots in the city of Newtownabbey, for example, could benefit drug trafficking operations led by a faction of the paramilitary Ulster Defense Association, which faced a crackdown by local police and the United States. British National. Crime Agency.
“They think if they riot, they could turn their area into a no-go zone for the community police,” she said. “The community police are the ones who are picking up information about these people.”
Under the grip of shadowy paramilitary groups, and consistently outwitting themselves politically by Irish nationalists, loyalists also feel abandoned by their own elected representatives who, along with nearly all mainstream political figures, have condemned the riots and at the same time many of the same concerns.
“They’re just empty words on the media, on the radio, on TV, and they’re not really talking to the locals on the ground,” said Graham.
According to McBride, the leading party of loyalism and unionism, the Democratic Unionist Party, has been at the center of power for so long that it has “become detached from some of its roots” as the anti-establishment, to the left of the center. strength it was.
Prince Philip’s death on April 9 has almost completely halted the violence for the time being as the UK observes a period of national mourning. But summer in Northern Ireland is often a season of turmoil, as loyalist and unionist brass bands traditionally parade the streets. There are already concerns about what the next few weeks and months will bring, as younger loyalists are itching to make their presence felt.
“You have the hawks and the pigeons,” said Morris. “You have the older men who went to prison, men who went through The Troubles, lost people and clearly don’t want a return to the past. Then you have the younger folks who want to take a much tougher approach.
“It doesn’t take a majority to destroy peace, it only takes a minority – 1,000 people could bring this place to a halt.”