Peacekeeping isn't what it used to be

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 19, 2002 | by Stephen Goode

How times change! Tourists who want to visit the hot historic spots of Belfast in Northern Ireland now can do so in the safety of a Humbler Pig or a Saladin armored car. The 50-year-old vehicles were purchased by two businessmen who were eager to take advantage of a mini tourist boom thanks to a lull in violence following the 1998 Good Friday agreement, according to a dispatch from Reuters.

Belfast bus and taxi companies already have begun taking interested tourists to visit hard-core Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods, with stopovers made famous by the three decades of war between the two groups in which more than 3,000 have been killed.

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong the potential for violence climbed when officials announced that thousands of litterbug officers in the former British crown colony will be offered the opportunity to take martial-arts training. The announcement, also reported by Reuters, came following an attack on an antilitter enforcement officer after he attempted to fine a man for spitting in public. That incident was followed by attacks on six other officials who were injured when they tried to arrest two men in separate cases for littering.

Hong Kong now will offer a three-day course in Japanese akido. "We will be providing coaches, and we hope all our enforcement officers will be joining the classes," a spokesman said. There was no word, however, on whether Hong Kong will be buying some of the armored cars made available by a more peaceful Northern Ireland.