World

Bradford Quiet After Riots

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

June 25, 2001 / 1:27 PM EDT / CBS

The British government on Monday blamed "thuggery" rather than right-wing politics for the unrest in Bradford over the weekend — the worst rioting in Britain in two decades, reports CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth.

Bradford, the fourth northern city to suffer racial unrest in recent weeks, was quiet Monday after two days of running battles between Asian and white youths that left 164 police officers injured and resulted in the arrests of 55 people.

Around five percent of Britain's 57 million population are from ethnic minorities. Some 15 percent of Bradford's 482,000 residents are of Bangladeshi or Pakistani origin. Many Asians live in northern cities where the once important textile industry has now all but vanished.

In those areas, frustration over the economy has mixed with racial distrust. "They seem to get more benefit than us; the law is always on their side," said one white resident. "It's as though they're taking over."

Asians, meanwhile, see self-defense as their only choice. "If they want trouble here we'll give 'em trouble," said one Asian man. "We've got to protect ourselves, ourselves and our families."

The clashes have some warning of widespread, continuous racial unrest.

"White people are being forced out of their homes by Asian racists and Asian people are being forced out of their homes by white racists," said Nick Griffin of the anti-immigration British National Party. "Unless they're moved peacefully to divide communities as the British state has done in Belfast, they're going to be moved by violence which nobody wants to see."

But the British government has treated the violence as a series of local problems, which a Blair spokesman describes as "thuggery."

"There may have been initially some provocation from the far right…but the evidence suggests that this is simply thuggery," the spokesman said. "Local people intent on having a go at police are destroying their own community. The priority is that order is restored."

The only national debate Monday is over what new equipment police should bring in to manage the next riot. The government said it was considering equipping police with water cannon to repel large, violent crowds.

Critics say that underscores a blind spot in Britain's public policy.

The violence erupted after the white supremacist National Front planned a rally in the city, some 200 miles north of London. Political marches in Bradford had been banned.

During nine hours of rioting by around 1,000 youths — mainly Bengalis and Pakistanis from the city's 70,000-strong Asian community — police came under attack from crossbows, flares, sledgehammers and petrol bombs.

Rioters armed with hammers and baseball bats threw bricks and petrol bombs at police equipped with riots shields and batons.

Cars were set on fire and shops looted. Police and local people said a hard core of around 150 rioters stole cars, drove them recklessly at police and members f the public and then torched them in the street.

An Indian restaurant, an Asian-owned petrol station and a white-owned bar were attacked overnight.

"About 10-15 white youths armed with baseball bats and bricks smashed windows and took the till," said the manager of the petrol station.