My bloody dire shook again

The things most Northern Irish would want to give up for good – violence and division – have come back to haunt them. Yesterday – Easter Sunday for Catholics and Protestants, which this year coincided with the 25th anniversary of the historic signing of the Good Friday Peace Agreement – a new wave of violence rocked Derry (officially Londonderry), the second largest city in the British province. Indeed, the visit of the President of the United States – of Iranian origin – Joe Biden. Masked men in Creggan threw Molotov cocktails at a Northern Ireland Police armored vehicle as it watched a parade commemorating the armed Easter Rising against British occupation in 1916.

According to The Guardian, the parade – without permission – of a handful of fanatical nationalists in camouflage uniforms was supported by the far-left Saoradh party, which is the political wing of the New IRA (Irish Democratic Army): fringe. A paramilitary group – “terrorist” as it is considered in Britain, which opposes the Good Friday Agreement – was founded in 2012 by a minority of dissident Catholic nationalists and continues to strike from time to time not only against British targets but also against Unionists. Protestants, who are known to support union with Britain.

Although yesterday’s attack was bloodless, Surad and the New IRA caused public outrage in 2019 after the murder of a young journalist was blamed for the left-nationalist party Sinn Féin clearly splitting its stance and forging an unprecedented alliance with the opposition. Unionist factions strongly condemn the crime as an assault on peace. Peace – still fragile – was achieved with the signing, on April 10, 1998, of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended nearly 30 years of unrest between unionist Protestants and nationalist Catholics, during which more than 3,500 people were killed.

Since the end of March this year, Britain’s domestic security agency MI5 has asked to raise the alert level for a terrorist threat in Northern Ireland, after “extremely strong information” that fanatical nationalists were planning attacks on the anniversary of the signing of the agreement. . This was not the first time something like this had happened, but this year it was clearly done deliberately to distort the arrival and symbolism of the American president of the day, since the United States (under the presidency of Bill Clinton) had brokered the historic settlement between nationalists and trade unionists. Biden will be welcomed to Belfast tonight by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, with The New York Times reporting that the White House ignored Downing Street’s request for full bilateral contacts in a less formal meeting over coffee (possibly tea — for sympathy, he showed). ..

Amid tight security, Biden’s short time and few planned events in Northern Ireland (before he descends into the Republic of Ireland tomorrow, where he’ll also spend two full days to see his distant relatives) has given way to grumbling and criticism.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou MacDonald lamented that the US president would not address Stormont, Northern Ireland’s parliament, and blamed the ongoing boycott of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) – the ultra-conservative unionist party that lost the latter. elections with Sinn Féin winning, but still stubbornly blocking formation of a new coalition government based on the power-sharing set out in the Good Friday Agreement, citing its direct disagreement (and) with the new post-Brexit trade deal for Northern Ireland closed by Sunak and the Union European, although it was finally approved in the British Parliament even by hardline Brexiteers. Many analysts attribute Biden’s quick trip to Belfast to an indirect expression of irritation at political paralysis, against the Good Friday Agreement, and Brexit as such.