TERROR GANGS FIGHT TO KEEP STREET POWER

As Hoodlums Invade the Paramilitaries' Turf, the Tarring and
Feathering of an Alleged Drug Dealer in Belfast, Cheered on by
Locals, Signals a Return to Vigilante 'Policing'. Henry Mcdonald Reports

In broad daylight, close to one of Belfast's busiest, trendiest
quarters, they staged a brazen 'arrest' operation.

Jock Nelson was stopped, searched and, his captors said, was found to
be carrying up to six bags of crack cocaine. Although he was
'released' after the drugs were allegedly seized, Nelson's time on
'remand' was shortlived. Forty-eight hours after he was confronted on
Belfast's Bradbury Place the alleged drug dealer suffered a
humiliating punishment.

Those who 'arrested' Nelson on Friday, 24 August, however, were not
drug squad officers from the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Instead they came from that section of society offering an
'alternative justice system' to the official rule of law. Jock Nelson
fell into the hands of the Ulster Defence Association, and the price
he was to pay for his alleged crimes brought back memories of the
darkest days of the Troubles.

Last Sunday the ex-pub bouncer was tarred and feathered and a placard
hung around his neck naming him as a 'drug dealing scumbag'. This act
of public humiliation in front of women and children at shops in south
Belfast followed a savage beating earlier that afternoon.

His mother, Jean Nelson, angrily describes the charge that her son was
supplying crack to teenagers as 'slander'. She has said little else
except to plead for privacy and to warn reporters that her family,
including her son's four children, still live on the Taughmonagh estate.

She could also point out that those who carried out the attack are
open to charges of hypocrisy. Loyalist and police sources told The
Observer this weekend that one of the UDA's most notorious young
gunmen - who also lives on the estate, and who is a former associate
of Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair - finances a major cocaine-dealing operation
in south Belfast. Although he is strictly 'hands off' the dealing, his
money supports a lucrative trade which operates out of a bar close to
Belfast city centre.

'I wouldn't mind if they (the UDA) were genuine in wanting to rid
their community of drugs,' one veteran loyalist said yesterday. 'But
they themselves are up to their eyeballs in drugs in the south of the
city. I know people from the east who come over to this power either
on Saturday night or early on Sunday morning to buy their coke. Maybe
the guy they claim is dealing was queering their pitch.' Nelson has
fled Northern Ireland for Scotland and is unlikely to return to
Taughmonagh.

Meanwhile all traces of the deed have been erased. The spot where he
was tarred and feathered has been hosed down and swept up. But the
cleaning-up operation was not an act of collective atonement,
motivated by shame over what had occurred. On Friday afternoon there
appeared to be wide support for this most primitive form of 'justice'.

On the surface Taughmonagh is a far cry from the sink estates of urban
England where, according to David Cameron, anarchy reigns. The area
borders the more affluent, increasingly Catholic upper-middle-class
Malone. Yet even Taughmonagh has little or no graffiti on its walls;
most gardens have neatly trimmed lawns and carefully tended flower
beds. Apart from the odd Union Jack and Red Hand of Ulster flag
flapping on street lights there is little evidence that this is a
loyalist stronghold, home to Jackie McDonald, the head of the UDA.

For those living on the estate, however, the fear of drugs taking hold
among young people is widely held. When the victim of the 'tar and
feather' attack was forced on to a main road, the placard placed
around his neck and his plight filmed by mobile phone, the locals
admitted there were cheers of support.

Yesterday what Deborah McKinstry, 27, had to say was typical of
Taughmonagh residents in their attitude to the incident. 'He was not
hurt. He was humiliated, and in a way he deserved it; people like that
deserve humiliation. Maybe it was not the right way to go about it,
but people are dealing drugs to kids and deserve to be made an example
of. There have been worse punishments in the area, OK?'

Another mother on the estate, Joanne Stewart, 46, showed little
sympathy. 'I know he was supposed to be dealing drugs to wee kids.
Generally I don't believe in punishment beatings or anything of a
violent nature, but I suppose it's a way of getting a message across.'

Amy Clarke, 27, also of Taughmonagh, said Nelson got off lightly. 'I
suppose he did deserve it, but was it a warning enough? It was a can
of tar, cold tar and feathers.'

'That guy was the lowest of the low,' said Peter Browne. 'Nothing is
being done. Kids are exposed to God knows what.'

No community leaders or, indeed, local UDA members were prepared to
comment. One local, who said that he was appalled by the attack,
added: 'I can't talk to you, as I have to live here.' One community
worker who spoke anonymously contrasted the estate with areas like
Croxteth in Liverpool where teenage gangland violence led to the death
of 11-year-old Rhys Jones last month.

'Why are these attacks so popular? Because working-class people over
here won't tolerate scumbags and hoods taking over their areas.
They've been used to paramilitaries keeping the hoods in check for
years. They don't want their areas to become like them estates in
England where you can't go out the door for fear of being set upon by
wee thugs and criminals.'

Even though places like Taughmonagh have endured 35 years in a state
of near civil war, the social problems on this estate are nowhere near
as grave as those in urban Britain or the Republic of Ireland. Unlike
Croxteth or gun-ridden estates such as those in Limerick, ordinary
criminals don't have the same access to firearms. Illegal weapons
remain under the tight control of paramilitaries, who until now have
resisted selling guns to local, non-political gangs. Nor are Belfast's
drug problems comparable to those of Merseyside or Dublin. There is
little or no market, for instance, for heroin or crack in Belfast.

One senior Police Service of Northern Ireland detective said: 'Nothing
moves in Taughmonagh, not even a dog, without the UDA knowing about
it.' The movement's political wing - the Ulster Political Research
Group - has issued vehement denials that the UDA was
responsible.

The MP for South Belfast, Alasdair McDonnell of the SDLP, was
sceptical of this claim. He described the attack as 'the work of
hypocritical criminals. No one is seriously suggesting a rival gang
can operate on the Taughmonagh estate without the UDA's knowledge or
blessing. I have no doubt the UDA had a hand in this. It deserves our
condemnation and nothing else.'

But there were few others putting themselves forward to condemn the
tarring and feathering. The incident had echoes of a similarly
publicly staged act of savagery carried out by the UDA nearby five
years ago. Less than a mile from Taughmonagh, the UDA on the Seymour
Hill estate captured and then 'crucified' on a wooden stile a
notorious convicted joyrider from west Belfast.

There is a feeling throughout republican and loyalist communities that
their areas are spinning out of control; that young criminals who were
fearful before the peace settlement of being beaten or shot by the IRA
or UDA or UVF believe that they can now do whatever they want. This
suspicion was realised last week in Ardoyne, a Sinn Fein stronghold in
north Belfast where the IRA operated its brutal street 'justice' for
decades.

Last Wednesday night, youths from Ardoyne carried out a mass,
unprovoked sortie into the nearby Protestant Twaddel Avenue. During
the attack they hurled petrol bombs at a house where an 18-day-old
baby was sleeping. The family have since fled the street. Sinn Fein
condemned the violence, but appeared powerless to stop it.

In recent years the IRA used its muscle to quell clashes on this
sectarian interface. But now, officially disbanded and decommissioned,
it is unable to act physically to prevent such incidents.

There have been further examples across Belfast this summer of
paramilitary 'law and order' losing its grip. On the night of 8
August, youths in the Markets area now loyal to the Continuity IRA
defied Sinn Fein and built a bonfire to commemorate the 36th
anniversary of internment. Emboldened by drink, mobs went on the
rampage and burnt posters of Sinn Fein election candidates on the pyre
alongside the Union Jack they set alight each year.

It was a message of defiance and an acknowledgment that the 'hoods'
know that the IRA's hands are politically tied when it comes to
'policing' their own communities.

The attack at Finwood Park last Sunday - deliberately filmed not only
for the Taughmonagh estate but also the world - took place in front of
a church, a community centre and a row of shops. The aim was as much
to reassert control of the estate as to put an alleged dealer out of
business.

On Friday evening a number of children were playing in thepark across
from where the horrific scene was acted out. One child came up to The
Observer and boasted that he had witnessed the attack. 'It was class.
We just stood around laughing at it, it's his own fault,' he said,
sniggering.