CHILDREN JOIN VIOLENCE IN BELFAST RIOTS

RIOTS FLARE IN NORTHERN IRELAND WITH
CHILDREN AS YOUNG AS 9 TAKING PART

BELFAST (AFP) - Children as young as nine joined riots in Northern Ireland as shots were fired at police in a fourth night of violence blamed on dissident republicans in the flashpoint province. Police vowed to make “significant arrests” after hundreds of people clashed with officers in Belfast overnight Tuesday following the peak of the Protestant marching season, a traditional trigger for sectarian tensions. First Minister Peter Robinson voiced support for the way officers had handled the clashes in Ardoyne, north Belfast, after meeting Northern Ireland police chief Matt Baggott to discuss the situation. Robinson, of the Protestant, pro-British Democratic Unionists, said he had “nothing but the highest admiration for the way the police have coped with the most difficult of circumstances”. His deputy, Martin McGuinness of Catholic republicans Sinn Fein, who want a united Ireland, described the unrest as “a setback against the huge progress we have made over the course of recent times”.

Authorities are blaming a small group of troublemakers for the violence. Political and religious leaders pleaded for Catholic teenagers and children engaged in rioting to stop before one of them is killed and becomes a martyr for Irish Republican Army dissidents. Witnesses also told of how young children got involved. “I was directly confronted by a nine-year-old last night,” Father Gary Donegan, a local priest, told BBC radio Wednesday, saying he had “physically pulled stones out of children’s hands.” “It was ridiculous. There were girls out with little parasols... it was a bit like a Eurodisney theme park for rioting,” Donegan added. Children had never been involved in violence even at the height of Northern Ireland’s civil unrest known as the Troubles in the 1970s and 1980s, he said. Police said that youngsters were used as shields by “sinister elements” organising the violence.


Unrest often flares in Northern Ireland's marching season as Protestants pass through areas mainly populated by Catholics, who try to prevent the Protestants marches from going ahead. The differences among religions should be tolerated and softened. Love to other people and service to Sri Guru is the highest religious principle.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

No man in this world can be identical with another. Differences exist in their births, actions and association; in nature they will be different. ... When Tamagun predominates, people become violently inclined. Tamagun causes destruction. The whole world is running fast towards destruction. It is now beyond the capacity of human efforts to restrain this trend of thought. Gradually this world is becoming unfit for stay of peace loving good people. If this unholy violent trend is not restricted, it will gradually contaminate the whole human society. The influence of 'Kali' will not spare even religious places. There is no other way of getting emancipation from such worldly conflagrations except complete unconditional surrender to the Lotus Feet of Supreme Lord Krisna. He can only rescue us and nobody else. We are always to remember the saying of Lord Sri Krisna in the Gita.

Śrīla Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Mahārāja :
“His Teachings”
Sree Chaitanya Gaudiya Math
www.tirthaguru.org/inspiration.htm
www.sreecgmath.org
www.vina.cc