THE deep sectarianism exposed during this summer's bitter marching season is still rife in Northern Ireland.
In recent days it was reflected an arson attack on the property a Protestant women's group who welcomed the President, Mrs Robinson, to Belfast, in the continuing Catholic boycott of Protestant businesses, the desecration of a monument to murdered Protestant workers and general petty mindedness.
Early yesterday, the Windsor Women's Centre in the loyalist Village area of south Belfast, which hosted a visit by the President on Thursday, sustained severe damage in an arson attack. The building was set alight when inflammable liquid was poured through the roof. Damage is estimated at costing over £20,000.
Mrs Robinson said she regretted the attack. Her spokeswoman said the purpose of the visit was to pay tribute to the women of the centre. "It was not a political occasion", she said. On Thursday a group of loyalist protesters demonstrated outside the centre when the President was there.
Ms Marie Mulholland, co ordinator of the Women's Support Network in Northern Ireland, said women were appalled at the arson attack. "We would support anybody's right to protest against something with which they disagree, but we don't see this as a protest but as a deliberate act of intimidation," she added.
In Co Tyrone, police are trying to establish who was responsible for demolishing the memorial at Teebane to eight Protestant workers who were murdered in a sectarian IRA bomb attack in 1992.
The monument erected in 1993 was smashed when a lorry was deliberately crashed into it, and then set alight. It was also vandalised in July after Drumcree.
Mr Tom French of the Workers Party said those responsible were "sickening sectarian ghouls". He added: "The sectarianism of nationalism and loyalism is sinking to a new sickening low when even the dead are now being targeted in this campaign of hate."
Meanwhile, the Catholic boycott of Protestant businesses is now focusing on Pomeroy, Co Tyrone. It was claimed yesterday that Protestant businesses in the town are being boycotted by local Catholics, in a campaign allegedly orchestrated by Sinn Fein.
Mr Victor Ramsey, an oil supplier, said that he has lost more than 60 per cent of his business as Catholics switch their allegiance to another supplier. He said that former customers had told him they had been "ordered" not to do business with him.
"Some people are so afraid that they won't even be seen coming in to pay outstanding bills," he told yesterday's News Letter He added that one elderly Catholic man, who refused to accept an order from local republicans to move his business, had his oil bank destroyed. "He's staying with us even though he's frightened because he doesn't support either boycotting or intimidation".
The Protestant businesses in Pomeroy are reportedly suffering a similar damaging boycott.
Mr Richard Reid, a farmer and member of the Royal Black Institution, claimed republicans were operating a "no Prods here" campaign in Pomeroy. Drumcree, he said, might have been the spark for the latest round of boycotts but he added that republicans had been trying to force Protestants but of the town for several years.
Sinn Fein has denied it is behind the boycotting or intimidation. Mr Gerry O hEara, a Sinn Fein spokesman in Derry, said he resented the implication that his party was behind a concerted campaign of boycotting and intimidation.
Nobody should try and make Sinn Fein scapegoats for the spontaneous anger within the nationalist community after Drumcree, he added. The influence Sinn Fein had exerted was directed against sectarian actions, Mr O hEara said.
In Ballymena, Co Antrim, the community and cultural committee of the local council has rejected a motion that the Castlebar Choral Group be invited to sing carols at the annual switch on of the Christmas lights in the town. There has been a long standing association between the two towns, with reciprocal visits involving each town's councillors and administrators.
The SDLP and Alliance parties in Ballymena deplored the decision, which has yet to be ratified by a full meeting of the council.
