Alex Maskey – seachranaidhe1

Flash: Short Strand quiet amid talks with UVF ‘Beast of the East‘

>>>>>> Flash: Short Strand quiet amid talks with UVF ‘Beast of the East’
Despite crowds of over a thousand gathering in east Belfast, the Short
Strand experienced a tense but relatively trouble-free night last night.

The isolated Catholic enclave has been under siege for the past three
nights, but the level of direct violence sustained by the community has
lessened, with only sporadic outbreaks of missile throwing by
flag-waving loyalists.

As rain began to fall and amid a heavy presence of PSNI police and Sinn
Fein stewards, crowds dispersed from the area about 1am.

Talks involving the unionist paramilitary UVF, government officials and
community representatives are set to continue today in an effort to end
the clashes before a potentially difficult sectarian parade through the
area on Friday.

Sinn Fein Assembly member Alex Maskey said hopes were growing of an end
to violence.

“There have been intensive discussions ongoing and I would be hopeful
that they would bear fruit,” he said.

“As far as I have heard there’s a lot of good stuff going on and I have
been optimistic.”

The UVF leader in the area, known as the ‘Beast in the East’, is
believed to have orchestrated the violence in pursuit of a selfish
agenda.

The British government has also been accused of pandering to the UVF
murder gangs when its so-called ‘Independent Monitoring Commission‘
openly endorsed the organisation’s murder last year of Bobby Moffett.

Moffett, a former high-ranking loyalist who ran foul of the UVF
leadership, was executed in broad daylight on the Shankill Road in west
Belfast, but government and security officials opted to ignore the
murder.

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