Row over SF warning to youths

[Shades40]

I once stood beside an IRA man firing an AK over the heads of Loyalists as they were petrol bombing Catholics homes and using a chainsaw to take down the phone lines (no calling for help) during Drumcree, a good defender he was indeed.

[Wasp]

Glad to hear you see him as a good defender, what about the rest of his organisations antics???

[Wasp]

earl said:

wasp said:

maybe then both communities will not have to live in fear of their so called hypocritical defenders.

Here, here!

Earl while we have had our major differences etc, at least this is something that we both entirely agree with. Really mate I wish you had the chance to live in certain areas to see what it is really like for those who fall foul of the 'defenders'.

[Wasp]

Setanta it WAS sin fein officials who were involved here. Is the priest lying about that, is the family?

[Wasp]

setanta said:

What's a bleedin offical? No one went near the family either.

I will repost this part.

When I heard that threats had been made I approached Sinn Fein who at first denied knowing anything about the incident.

“After I threatened to get the PSNI involved, they told me two of their community workers had overheard the threats from masked men behind our house

[Wasp]

Maybe official was the wrong choice of word. Sinn fein IMO need to repremand these community workers and have them apologize directly to all those concerned for how they handled the situation. They also need to be crystal clear in what they actually saw and heard which I find suspicious anyway.

Sinn fein perhaps could conduct an enquiry with a neutral person at the head of it to find why they handled this so poorly, to find out why they first of all denied the incident then came out with the excuse after the psni were going to be brought in. Then they could take the findings to all those involved and correct any wrongdoing to try to ensure this never happens again.

The party leaders could then make a statement about what actually happened, what went wrong and then state that every effort will be made to prevent the likes of this happeneing again. It is highly suspicious how sinn fein has acted concerning attacks and murders on republicans by republicans in republican areas.

[Wasp]

Tossers, alot of them have fuck all respect for anyone or anyones property. I was in HMV the other day and one of the security guards came over to three young lads and asked one to leave as he is not allowed in the shop. The abuse that guard got by one teenager in particular who told the guard he was going to get the uvf on him and burn him out of his house. Alot more needs to be done to kerb these hooligans but a threat from a paramilitary organisation which could mean death is not the answer. A good boot up the hole is.

Anyway I am not in a party so I do not know the internal workings of parties, but IMO more should be done than what you are suggesting to deal with this. Sinn fein are encountering more disillusionment from within their own community from there own voters. So far this in scale seems to be small but it does seem to be growing. This is not just a party issue, it is also an issue where people were threatened and that IMO makes it a community and public issue.

[Jim]

No you are completely right threats from paramilitaries are not the answer but the police seem to be doing fuck all and the law ends up supporting the scumbags causing trouble. There was a fella in Andersonstown a few years back that had his window put through by a crowd of teenagers and the glass had smashed around a kid sitting watching TV. So he runs out, grabs one of them (the one who threw it) and gives him a hard dig in the face and drags him to his parents house.

A few months down the line he has a court order against him which will stay on his "file" for 10 years and was fined a lot of money.

Its just as bad in England, the police are either powerless or they dont give a fuck, only here people have no one else to call on, in NI people will call on the paramilitaries instead and according to some of my friends here who asked me about this lark, they wish they had that.

[Wasp]

I agree setanta but some parents are worse than any kids and have their own form of backing if you understand me. Unfortunately families live in fear because of the bully boy tactics of both loyalists and republicans.

[bearhunter]

Now, now Setanta, you're not supposed to call them vigilantes. They're COMMUNITY WORKERS, okay?

[Wasp]

Setanta I know several cases where people have done similar and ended up being ordered out of the country or getting a severe beating. Sometimes they have to move town because going into a local pub can end up with them in hospital if any of these so called defenders are in.

But then again there are those who would be fairer and not let there members behave that way. I have been told as I said before if I have any hassle whatsoever in certain estates I am to go straight to a certain person who will make sure it doesn't happen again. This advice came from that same person and this happened in both republican and loyalist estates.

[bearhunter]

Nah, mate just policing. Either have a police force that covers the entire country, or don't have one at all and leave it up to individual communities to police themselves. Either or, both together doesn't work.

[Jim]

If the police done something worthwhile you'd not have communities doing their own policing.

Wish we had it here in England, honestly. Send the boys over to England, show them how to knock it on the head. Here the police seem to do more about badly parked cars than the huge scale drug dealing going on.

[Wasp]

Why don't any of yopu ask how many parking tickets etc were handed out in the bogside or shantallow area? For republicans supporting the psni it is strange that the police are under orders not to do so as it will only end up with them being attacked. BTW if you want links, all I can say is that this came from two police officers whom I know and are stationed in Londonderry. This was the case up to a few months ago at least.

Going by this the police are not being given much of a chance to tackle anything in republican areas. Saying that there are those officers who don't want the hassle or paper work no matter where they are at and IMO they should be kicked off the force.

[Jim]

They've been given plenty of chances in west belfast. I've phoned them loads (had too because of my job) and once they didnt even show up!