Black Flag 217 index
Friends of the Garvaghy Road
The Good Friday Agreement is supposed to create a level playing field in thesix counties, with freedom, justice and equality seen as rights for bothcommunities.
Rhetoric, though, is little protection against the contained violence ofLoyalist paramilitaries. The nationalist community in Belfast has beensubjected to repeated kidnap and murder attempts by Loyalist gangs. Recently,John Brady and Jackie Dixon were abducted and savagely beaten while walkingthrough the Whiterock Estate. Over thirty Loyalists armed with bricks andpetrol bombs rampaged through the Parkside area of North Belfast on April26th. There remains, as Sinn Fein assembly member Gerry Kelly noted, "aconcerted, planned, sectarian campaign of intimidation by Loyalistorganisations against Catholics."
Residents of the Garvaghy Road have suffered more than most. As one residentputs it, "In Portadown, being a catholic is almost as conspicuous as a blackskin amongst white supremacists. There are numerous give away signs - a name,address, your school, where you socialise, what direction you are walkingfrom or to. Robert Hamill was kicked to death because he was walking awayfrom a Catholic social club towards a nationalist estate." Portadown isIrelandıs Alabama. Since July 1998 there have been over 170 Orange ralliesand marches in Portadown, the vast majority around the Garvaghy Road. Afurther 50 are planned between April and July this year. Portadown towncentre has become a no go area for Catholics. In August 1998 several hundredLoyalists forcibly expelled Catholic families from the shopping mall whilethe RUC stood by. Seventeen families have been driven out by Loyalist mobs inthe last ten months.
A London Support Group has been set up. Contact Friends of the Garvaghy Road,PO Box 3923, London NW5