A STAGE ON FROM SQUATTING Our Belfast correspondent writes:
BOMBAY STREET, situated between the Falls and the Shankhill, was almost totally destroyed by a combined RUC/ B Special/UVF attack on August 15th but year. It is at this moment being reNot that Belfast Corporation has been jolted by its housing problem into positive action of some kind. Bombay street is being rebuilt by its former residents without official assistance. The Corporation's contribution has been to obstruct the progress of reconstruction as far as Pegal position mast "tret be chartied", they have even threatened to demolish any building which deviates one inch from their own specifications for the site.
The builders of Bombay Street are mostly skilled tradesmen who have quit their jobs to carry out the work. They are being assisted by sympathetic architects, surveyors, and (indispensably) lawyers. At their disposal are the bulldozers, dumper trucks and tools of local builders lent or hired for the occasion. Most of the men are Republicans, and the rebuilding of Bombay ding of Bront of the Republicans since signifi August to concretely assert the duality of power which still very much exists in Belfast. Despite their claim of "normalisation", Storemont, the local parliament, has ne more than nominal authority in areas like the Falls. What authority it does have can only be asserted by military means.
The rebuilding of Bombay Street not only represents the determination of the ordinary working people of the locality to seek their own solution to the problem of their housing shortage; it also represents the latest addition to Ireland's already worthy innovations in the strug gle against the British State.
ALLS WALLS