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Soul-Searching In Britain As Tension Erupts In Riots
OLDHAM, England, May 28 (News Agencies) - Britain was forced to face up to the simmering racial tension in its towns and cities on Monday after Asian and white youths clashed for a second night in Oldham, northwest England.
Despite the presence of 100 riot police on the streets of this former mill town, several properties were petrol bombed on Sunday night and 12 people - seven white and five Asian youths - were arrested, police said.
The trouble was mild compared to Saturday night, when at one point a mob of about 500 Asian youths fought a running battle with police, attacked pubs, shops and houses and torched cars.
Reacting for the first time to what has been termed the worst race disturbances in Britain for a decade, Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday what happened in Oldham was not typical.
"The first thing is to express our total and complete support of the police, because it is absolutely unacceptable that they are subject to this type of attack," Blair said on an election campaign stopover.
"But I do not think it is typical of the state of race relations in Britain today, where I think the vast majority of people want to live together in peace and harmony with one another."
However, as the clear-up operation began on Monday, questions were being asked about how racial tension in Oldham was allowed to boil over so dramatically, and whether similar violence could flare up elsewhere.
There were reports on Monday that in Aylesbury, southeast England, 60 Asians fought a pitched battle with a gang of skinheads overnight.
The precise cause of the weekend violence in Oldham was still not known, but it was clear that there was a combustible mix of poverty, racial intolerance, mistrust of the police and right-wing extremists fomenting hatred.
In Sunday night's disturbances, an Asian supermarket was set on fire, barricades were set alight and a petrol bomb was hurled through a plate glass window at the office of the local newspaper.
In another incident, a gang of Asian youths threw bricks at the Jolly Carter public house, where they believed far-right extremists were drinking.
Police managed to keep a lid on the violence and order was restored by about 4:00 a.m. (0300 GMT), a police spokeswoman said. No one was injured.
Speaking at a news conference on Monday, police Chief Superintendent Eric Hewitt blamed troublemakers from the anti-immigrant British National Party (BNP), who came to Oldham from outside the area, for inciting the violence.
Many community leaders are angry that Nick Griffin, national leader of the BNP, is standing in the June 7th election in an Oldham seat, and his party is contesting another in the city.
Yet local people have pointed out that there were tensions between Oldham's Asian and white communities before Griffin arrived there.
On the Glodwick estate, the focus of the rioting, and the nearby Westwood area of the town, some 90% of residents are either Pakistani or Bangladeshi.
Community leaders say there is growing determination among young Asian men to fight back against racist attacks, and anger that they are blamed by police for much of the crime there.
Hewitt said that last year, 140 people were arrested in Oldham for racial attacks, but where in past years most incidents involved whites antagonizing Asians, young Asian men in Oldham are becoming increasingly militant.
Police say that of the 572 racial crimes recorded last year in the Oldham area, the victims were white in 62% of the cases.
That trend hit the national headlines last month when 76-year-old Walter Chamberlain, a World War II veteran, was beaten by a group of Asian youths who reportedly told him to "get out of our area."
But many in the Asian community say poverty, not race, is the root of Oldham's problems. Youth unemployment there is at 40%.
"The problems of Oldham have never been a race issue for us. It is about social inclusion for both white and Asian youths," said Ashid Ali, chairman of the Oldham Bangladeshi Youth Association.
"That means a long-term investment in jobs, healthcare, housing and improving the community for everyone."
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