A MEMORIAL dedicated to victims of the Sean Graham bookmakers atrocity on the Ormeau Road was defaced again overnight in the second such attack in recent weeks.
This latest attack comes six weeks to the day since paint was thrown at the memorial by two unknown individuals, and as a request has been submitted to the Parades Commission by Belfast Walker Club (Apprentice Boys of Derry) for Saturday, November 7, to parade along the Ormeau Road.
In this most recent attack, the five victims who were murdered have had their memorials defaced with black paint, with the five who were injured also having their memorials defaced.
Sinn Féin MLA for South Belfast Deirdre Hargey said that they are still waiting on forensics from police, and are trying to get CCTV from local businesses. She said that some CCTV appears to show people on bikes "coming in in the early hours of the morning".
Condemning the attack, she said that it concerned "tensions around the Garvaghy Road, where the Orange Order were insisting on marching through the community".
"This has also happened in the context of the Apprentice Boys trying to insist on marching through the heart of the Lower Ormeau Road community," she continued. "None of this is happening in a vacuum."
"This is a very personal attack on the families and on their loved ones who were killed and injured. This is also happening in the context of unionist rhetoric.
"The only violence I can see is that being perpetrated onto nationalist communities, and it's now the turn of the Lower Ormeau Road community and families that have already lost loved ones because of the conflict," said Ms Hargey.
"The police need to take robust action as quickly as possible. We need those who have perpetrated this heinous attack to be held to account as quickly as possible."
Tracey McNally's father was shot thirteen times in the Sean Graham atrocity.
"It's brought me back to the day it all happened. It's just very hurtful. I was four when it happened and then my mummy passed away a year later.
"She had cancer but couldn't go to treatment because she was looking after daddy."
Speaking about the ongoing tensions around parading, Ms Hargey said that she thinks attacks such as these "show the attempts by the Orange Order, the Apprentice Boys, by loyalism and unionism to try and drag us back to twenty-seven and twenty-eight years ago, when these issues were resolved".
"Communities have lived in peace, and we are now seeing attacks on those communities because they're standing up for their rights.
"They want to move forward. And because they want to move forward they're now being attacked directly through actions like this. That has been encouraged by political unionism who have been heightening the rhetoric around this."
Speaking about the Apprentice Boys' application to march, Ms Hargey said "they (residents) would be making submissions to the Parades Commission," and that from their point of view "there would be no march through the heart of this community."
"This attack on the memorial is a lesson in what happens when you raise tensions in trying to resurrect some of the deepest parading disputes."
Gerard Rice, from Lower Ormeau Concerned Community, said that perpetrators had a clear goal.
"The images that they damaged were five people who were injured and later died, and the five people who were killed," he said. "They're looking to strike at the heart of the families. They're looking to bring all of this back.
"Nobody thought we would be back here. We saw this coming in the summer but we thought people would see sense, but things have just deteriorated even more."
Mr Rice criticised the Parades Commission's decision regarding the Garvaghy Road, saying that it was "beyond belief for most people".
"This is just another attempt to escalate community tensions, cause hurt, cause fear and cause anxiety. None of us want to go back here, and there is no going back here."
Continuing, he said that "forcing things down other people's communities" used to be a "thing of the past," and that it is now clear that "police are no longer going to be used in a political way".
"From our point of view, this is a very clear attempt to cause further hurt to the families of Sean Graham's, escalate community tensions, and cause divisions."
Speaking about the Belfast Walker Club's application to parade along the Ormeau Road, Mr Rice said that there was "no expectation for that parade to come over the bridge".
"Their day is about marching into the town as part of the remembrance weekend, and we wish them well with that and wouldn't want anything to get in the way of that," he continued.
"Have your parade, do your service with the utmost respect and then just go on about your business. It's a long weekend, because it's Remembrance Sunday as well. No one wants to do anything that would interrupt that.
"The Loyal Order's assertions outside the High Court that this means we are returning to the days of old is very worrying."
