This week's violence in Craigavon, in which PSNI members were attacked, has been blamed on dissident republicans. Can local leaders restore calm?
IT USED TO be among the wickedest of months for violence and death during the Troubles. This August saw fresh violence in Co Armagh mixed in with ongoing political stalemate and a new and higher level of turmoil that could yet bring down the new Stormont institutions.
Theories abound as to why this week's trouble flared in Craigavon. Did the Bebo generation, bored with a wet summer, opt for some nihilistic "recreational rioting" to let off steam before the end of the school holidays? Or did local nationalist youth respond to allegedly heavy-handed tactics by PSNI officers searching houses for dissident republican bombs? Parties on both sides of the divide, as well as the PSNI itself, blame newly-formed republican groupings opposed to Sinn Féin's presence in a power-sharing Executive at Stormont. It is alleged these groups seek to exploit the political vacuum between the DUP and Sinn Féin, in particular their inability to agree terms for the devolution of justice powers. Whatever about the theories, the facts are plain enough.
PSNI officers had carried out a series of searches in nationalist housing estates in the Brownlow area of Craigavon, notably Tullyglass and Drumbeg, in response to bomb warnings.
Nothing was found and no one was arrested in connection with the searches. However, crowds of youths assembled and the situation boiled over into one of confrontation with the police.
The area now bears the scars of the recent trouble: burned out vehicles, scorched roads, rubble, glass and fresh graffiti. It also bears the scars of long-standing problems - crazy 1960s planning and the failed unionist grand projet to create a new city bearing the name of the former Stormont prime minister.
Petrol bombs were thrown, cars hijacked and set alight. Council vehicles were attacked and police cars damaged. Such were the disturbances at one point that the PSNI advised motorists to stay away from the vicinity of the trouble. Blast bombs were also thrown and four or five shots were fired by a gunman using a long-barrelled weapon.
Further violence broke out in parts of south and east Belfast and in Derry. The past 12 months have been marked by sporadic dissident republican attacks, mostly at police officers and usually when off-duty.
The area's DUP MP, David Simpson, the Drumcree Orangeman who defeated David Trimble, is clear in his mind about the general culpability of republicans.
"It is disgraceful. It seems there are those within republicanism, whatever strain, who are hell-bent on shedding the blood of police officers," he says.
HE ACCUSES LOCAL republicans of seeking "to lure the police officers into that area to get a go at them". Sinn Féin's John O'Dowd denounces what he alleges are recently formed dissident "micro-groups" which have no strategy for unifying Ireland.
"This is not a game, this is not fun," he said. "What we've seen . . . is actually attempted murder. Please stop it now before someone is killed."
According to the police, the violence was much more serious than anything seen recently.
Chief Supt Alan Todd, the local commander in Craigavon, says: "What is very clear . . . is that this is a very small minority in that area seeking to impose their will against the vast majority of people working, living and travelling.
"They are clearly people who align themselves to the dissident republican movement and they are clearly people who are struggling with the success being seen locally in the partnership between community and policing which has brought about the lowest crime level in a significant number of years."
Republicans opposed to Sinn Féin and to the new political set-up at Stormont are also clear about what they say is really going on. They maintain the Craigavon violence is merely symptomatic of nationalist refusal to accept either "British" forces such as the PSNI or "British" institutions such as those at Stormont.
A video posted on YouTube shows the PSNI search commencing at the home of the Collins family in the Drumbeg area shortly before one member of the family was arrested in connection with the earlier trouble and hijackings.
Colin Duffy, a former senior IRA figure who is now a spokesman for Eirígí, a republican group opposed to Sinn Féin's endorsement of policing, says: "Cathy and her children were verbally and physically abused, forced into the back garden against a shed, searched and interrogated. When Cathy's brother [ Ciaran] arrived to establish what had happened, he was then arrested, while her son was also threatened with arrest.
"This type of behaviour by the RUC-PSNI is commonplace in working-class nationalist communities," says Duffy. "This family knows it. The residents of this estate know it. Anyone who has the temerity to challenge the actions of the British police force knows it.
"Unfortunately, the politicians, who have restricted their comments about yesterday's events to appealing for local people to supply the same people who terrorised the Collins family with information, seem to be sticking their heads in the sand.
"We in Eirígí will continue to expose and oppose the 'new' RUC. Their tactics, behaviour, role and raison d'etre remains unchanged - the protection of the British occupation and the repression of nationalist communities. Republicans of all hues should continue to confront these bigots and those who direct them to make sure the truth of their actions gets out."
Perhaps because of this line of attack, John O'Dowd of Sinn Féin balances his criticism of the rioters, and those he believes orchestrate them, with fault-finding with the police.
"We are not saying they are perfect, far from it," he says of the PSNI. "But we believe the mechanisms are now in place which can build towards a policing service which people can rely on and can hold to account."
HE PLAYS DOWN the significance of the trouble and the apparent hardening of republican attitudes. The rioting was small-scale, he insists, involving no more than about 40 people. He argues further that republicans such as Colin Duffy have no plan to meet the general requirement for a fair and professional policing service.
The SDLP's Dolores Kelly, a local Assembly member and member of the Policing Board which oversees the PSNI, asserts that the violence was orchestrated to serve an overall political plan by dissident groups.
"It was opportune given the current political impasse [ between the DUP and Sinn Féin over policing devolution]," she says. "But it was also a way in which to draw young people in - young people who have no ambition for themselves, no real hope."
Kelly alleges the manipulation of the post-ceasefire generation into conflict with the police "gives them a taste for it" and can act as a recruitment agent for the dissidents.
"Let's face it, it was used very successfully in the past by the Provos and others," she says.
Tensions arising from this are building ahead of the new political term at Stormont. The Executive has not met since June and intensive talks involving the DUP and Sinn Féin, designed to sort out a difficult agenda headed by the row over policing and justice, have not taken place.
The Craigavon violence means the stakes at the Executive table have just got higher.