IN/0373

Portadown at thugs mercy
By Nevin Farrell

A SIMPLE message taped to a bunch of flowers lying at the foot of the war memorial in Portadown town centre in the wake of the Omagh bomb atrocity reads: "Let there be peace".
But as the flowers and several others bouquets withered, so too did hopes for a peaceful end to a tension-filled summer in Portadown.
Many residents had dared to hope that the Omagh atrocity would force everyone to reconsider their positions and steer groups away from street politics and open-air demonstrations - but the hopes for calm in Portadown after the bomb were quickly dashed.
Just yards from the war memorial a Catholic-owned bedding business, Slumbertime, in William Street was destroyed in a sectarian arson attack at the weekend when a 500 strong loyalist mob rampaged through the town.
One Catholic woman shopping in the centre of Portadown yesterday lamented that in the aftermath of the Omagh bomb surely most people would have been brought to their senses.
We all thought that after Portadown the campaign surrounding Drumcree would have ended but instead things got worse with large mobs taking over the centre of the town.
"Those messages of peace at the war memorial obviously weren't read by the bigots who were able to lob petrol bombs so close by. I just don't know where and when all this is going to end in Portadown."
Like many other Catholics in the town she didn't want to give her name.
"At the end of the day we have to live in this town and you just try to keep as low a profile as you can but certainly its getting to the stage were you have to think seriously about going down the town to get the shopping on Saturdays," she said.
Many people in the large nationalist estates off the Garvaghy Road are now learning to become virtually self-sufficient in their own district - doing messages there instead of venturing into the town centre.
But as the woman said: "While there are plenty of shops up in the estates now you can't avoid making trips into the town for larger goods like televisions."
She added: "To be honest with you as long as you watch yourself you are usually all right down the town but certainly these large mobs on recent Saturdays are a scary development."
Another resident from the nationalist Obins Street district disagreed with media reports at the weekend claiming that nationalists clashed with loyalists saying that Catholics merely gathered near the entrance to their area fearing an "invasion" by loyalists.
Portadown has been racked with tension since Orangemen were banned from marching down Garvaghy Road on July 5 but in disturbing developments in recent weeks Catholic-owned businesses have been attacked.
LVF graffiti was scrawled on the Slumbertime business and that of other Catholic-owned properties in the town centre. Slumbertime sits on the street leading to St Patrick's Hall in the area where Catholic Robert Hamill was seriously beaten by a loyalist mob in April 1997, and died the following month.
The "wall of fire" campaign in Portadown town centre was described by one businessman as "akin to the Mississippi burning attacks on Negro owned property In the southern states of America".
Two adjoining shops at West Street were badly damaged last Thursday with the cost estimated at anything between £50,000 and £100,000 while the damage at Slumbertime is also believed to run into tens of thousands.
It is understood several Protestant businessmen have rallied round the shop-owners while many Protestant customers talked of their disgust at the fire attacks.
One Catholic shop owner, who didn't wish to be named, said a meeting of Portadown Chamber of Commerce was being held at the town hall this morning to discuss the response to the upsurge in street violence.
He said: "I don't want named because loyalists read the Irish News too and I don't want to be targeted. We are on a sticky wicket here and you have to be careful what you say.
"There is a lot of tension in the town, a blind man would know there was tension."