Posted by Jim on July 15, 2013
A desecrated statue of the Virgin Mary has come to symbolise the hatred displayed by loyalists this year in their intimidatory ‘Eleventh Night’ bonfires.
The face of the three-foot statue had been roughly hacked off in a deliberate insult which recalled the ancient persecution of Christians.
Amid an outcry, the statue was subsequently removed from the bonfire at the Lanark Way interface in west Belfast.
However, nationalist politicians were again burned in effigy, as well as other symbols of Irishness and Catholicism.
Death threats targeting nationalist politicians such as the SDLP’s John Dallat were placed on top of a loyalist bonfire in Garvagh, County Derry.
In Rathcoole, a figure was hung from a noose before a sign that read ‘Sinn Fein political policing’.
Irish flags and Palestinian flags were also burned on the bonfires, while graffiti reading ‘KAT’ — Kill All Taigs [Catholics] — was daubed on bonfires and elsewhere.
In Sandy Row near Belfast city centre, a Cliftonville football shirt had been attached to the bonfire, which also had a mannequin posed on top dressed in Papal-style clothing. A papal flag were also burned in a bonfire in east Belfast.
One of the largest bonfires in the north collapsed the day before it was to be set ablaze in the middle of a loyalist housing estate in Ballycraigy. The massive pyre, which includes hundreds of tyres and pallets, began subsiding on Monday and finally caved in on Wednesday.
Diggers were used to rebuild it before it was set ablaze on Thursday night.
Earlier this week, a man was doused in petrol and beaten with hammers and baseball bats after being lured to a bonfire site in Belfast, the High Court has heard.
Up to 15 men attacked him and tried to drag him out of a car which was then set alight, prosecutors said. The victim, who has not been named, managed to flee as the mob continued to reign blows on him.
Nevertheless, there were few reports of sectarian violence last night.
Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly said that it had been one of the quietest Eleventh nights in a number of years.
“So from a nationalist’s point of view, we’re off to a good start to the Twelfth,” he said.
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By Finian Cunningham
Today, such outrageous state backing of sectarian provocation and humiliation is no longer acceptable or countenanced. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 stipulated “equality” for all cultural traditions in Northern Ireland. The Police Service of Northern Ireland replaced the hated sectarian and death-squad-colluding Royal Ulster Constabulary, and a Parades Commission was set up to restrain the worst excesses of the Orange Order.”
To many people around the world, the violence in Northern Ireland this weekend may seem incomprehensible. After all, it is nearly 15 years since the political conflict in the British province of Ireland was officially declared over, with the signing of the.
That agreement was meant to signal the peaceful end of a nearly 30-year conflict that cost the lives of more than 3,000 people, which proportionate to the population of Northern Ireland represented a huge number of deaths.
Now it appears that street violence has once again returned with scenes over the weekend from the main city Belfast looking like a war zone. Dozens of policemen were injured in riots, properties and vehicles were set ablaze, family homes were targeted by petrol bombs and hundreds of police reserves had to be flown in from England, Scotland and Wales to back up the overstretched security forces.
Adding to the bewilderment of observers is that the rioting crowds are supporters of a seemingly arcane institution called the Orange Order. Their members dress with strange-looking orange-coloured sashes, wear quaint black bowler hats and carry swords and flags to commemorate a battle that occurred more than 320 years ago between rival Protestant and Catholic English kings on Irish soil.
The commemoration of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, in which Protestant King William of Orange defeated the Catholic King James, is held every year on the 12th July. The annual Orange marches are held by Protestant descendants of British settlers who invaded the North of Ireland as part of Britain’s colonial conquest and demographic engineering against the native, mainly Catholic Irish.
The truth is that every year these marches are accompanied by violence, even in recent years of so-called peace. Why? Because the Orange Order was from its inception nearly 200 years ago set up deliberately as a sectarian instrument of British colonial domination in Ireland. The Order was exclusively Protestant, pro-British and rabidly anti-Catholic. The British colonial authorities fomented the Order and its vicious sectarianism as a way of driving a wedge between the communities and in particular to subjugate the rebellious Irish.
British partition of Ireland in 1921 into a nominally independent southern state and a British-run northern province has always been a bone of contention for the northern pro-independence Irish. They have felt alienated within a British gerrymandered northern state, denied of their national rights and dominated by a false pro-British Protestant majority. For the maintenance of this injustice, successive British governments have relied on the sectarianism of the Orange Order to enforce their unlawful imperialist presence in Ireland.
Every year, the pro-British Orangemen would march through the mainly Catholic nationalist villages, towns and areas of Belfast in a demonstration of the second-class status that the native Irish were assigned by the British authorities. The Orange Order and its triumphal boorish marches were aimed at denigrating the Irish Catholics, to remind them that the British state bestowed its favor on the Protestant, pro-Unionist community. The marchers would be draped with British Union flags and the foulest insults would be chanted or sung while the processions passed by Catholic homes and churches.
One of the popular songs of hatred sung by the Orangemen is ‘The Sash’. With drums banging out the rhythm, the marchers would sing: “We’re up to our knees in Fenian [Catholic] blood.” Can you imagine the humiliation and terror that Catholic households must have felt during these grotesque carnivals of vilification conducted right outside their homes?
Here is another example of the depraved mentality of these Orange marches. In one mainly Catholic area of Belfast called the Lower Ormeau a group of five unarmed men in a sporting office was slaughtered by a British paramilitary death squad in 1992. In subsequent years when the Orange marchers would parade past the Catholic residents, the Orangemen would in unison raise their arms with five fingers pointed at the households and neighbors of the murdered men. That was meant as a sickening degradation of that community aimed to demonstrate British-state-sanctioned superiority of the Orangemen.
Typically, the 12th July marches – thousands of them all across the British territory of Northern Ireland – would proceed in the morning through the Catholic areas on the way to a designated gathering point for dozens of Orange lodges emanating from different directions. All day in the field, the Orangemen and their paramilitary supporters would listen to bloodcurdling speeches denouncing Catholics as “enemies of the British state”. Copious amounts of alcohol would be consumed to fire up the hatred.
Then in the evening, the Orange marchers would make their return procession through the same Catholic areas that they had debased earlier that day. That is when the violence would often ignite, mostly provoked by the Orange side. To compare the Orange Order to the Ku Klux Klan is a fair assessment. Can you imagine the KKK being allowed to march through an African-American district of New York, Los Angeles or Georgia? Maybe a few centuries ago such a supremacist provocation could have happened against African-Americans. But only a few years ago, in the heyday of the British Orange state of Northern Ireland with its state-sanctioned discrimination against Catholics, the Orange Order would be fully facilitated in its provocative marches by the mainly Protestant-manned police force; and all with British government tacit approval from London.
Today, such outrageous state backing of sectarian provocation and humiliation is no longer acceptable or countenanced. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 stipulated “equality” for all cultural traditions in Northern Ireland. The Police Service of Northern Ireland replaced the hated sectarian and death-squad-colluding Royal Ulster Constabulary, and a Parades Commission was set up to restrain the worst excesses of the Orange Order.
Nevertheless, it is still reprehensible that any Catholic community in Northern Ireland should have to endure any level of sectarian menace from the Orange Order and its paramilitary supporters. The latest violence in Northern Ireland has flared because the Parades Commission ruled that the Orangemen could not make their “traditional” return march through the Catholic North Belfast area of Ardoyne. During the decades of conflict, the community in Ardoyne saw hundreds of its people killed by British-state-sanctioned Protestant death squads. Yet, the same like-minded bigots in the Orange Order are aggrieved because their days of coat-trailing triumphalism through Catholic areas like the Ardoyne are now on the wane.
The Orange Order and its supporters make the absurd claim that such restrictions amount to “an erosion” of Pro-British Protestant culture. Of course, British media and politicians in London are wringing their hands over the latest upsurge in Orange violence.
London-appointed Northern Ireland minister Theresa Villiers said of the mayhem this weekend: “This sort of behavior does nothing to promote ‘Britishness’ or the pro-Union cause.”
Ms Villiers and her London government are woefully ignorant of history or are feigning ignorance. For it is precisely British colonial policy in Northern Ireland that instigated and fomented the sectarian psychosis of the Orange Order and its followers over many centuries and until recently. Every year, Irish people, both Catholic as well as many decent Protestants, have to endure the hate-filled legacy of British misrule in Ireland. The only viable long-term solution to Ireland’s ongoing political problem is for the British government to remove its unlawful imperialist presence in Northern Ireland, give way to long-denied Irish self-determination, and for the British misrulers to take their poisonous sectarianism with them.
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Abortion is to become available in the 26 Counties in strictly limited circumstances following a final vote on highly contentious legislation early this morning.
The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill will allow abortion where the life of the mother is threatened, either through ill-health or through the possibility of suicide.
After a fractious and chaotic two-day debate, which saw allegations of drunkenness and lewd behaviour levelled at legislators, the government won the final vote by 127 votes to 31.
Fine Gael’s Lucinda Creighton voted against the government on the bill and immediately submitted her letter of resignation as Minister of State for European Affairs to the Taoiseach.
The legislation was drafted to bring legal certainty to the 1992 Supreme Court ‘X case’ ruling that abortion can take place to save the life of the mother. Its introduction followed the death in a Galway hospital of Savita Halappanavar, who died while miscarrying her pregnancy after failing to receive a potentially life-saving termination.
But the inclusion in the legislation of a mechanism for women to obtain abortion if they become suicidal as a result of pregnancy provoked a giant protest of 35,000 to take to the streets in Dublin last weekend, and a further protest is planned for this weekend.
Even the requirement that a panel of three doctors certify the mental ill-health and suicidal tendencies of the mother before a termination is permitted failed to avert the controversy.
The debate caused sharp political divisions within the main political parties, with both Fine Gael and Sinn Fein announcing a crackdown on party TDs opposed to the measure.
As a result of a declared purge by Taoiseach Enda Kenny of Fine Gael’s rebels, Lucinda Creighton and four other FG backbenchers — Brian Walsh (Galway West), Peter Mathews (Dublin South), Billy Timmins (Wicklow) and Terence Flanagan (Dublin North-East) — will lose their nomination as party candidates at the next election, which could spell the end of their political careers.
One Sinn Fein TD (Meath East TD Peader Toibin) also voted against, and was immediately expelled from the party for six months for a “serious breach” of party rules.
Fianna Fail uniquely allowed its legislators to vote according to their conscience. Fourteen voted against the bill, while five supported it.
Eleven independents also voted against for various reasons, including five who did so because they believed the legislation did not go far enough in providing for a woman’s right to choose.
Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore and three other TDs were absent, while three TDs abstained from the vote.
There was a round of applause after the vote was passed, and pro-abortion supporters outside Leinster House cheered at the result.
Speaking to reporters on the plinth of Leinster House tonight, Ms Creighton said she felt very sad as she had been a member of Fine Gael since she was 18.
“At the same time I am relieved because this is a huge issue that has been weighing on everybody’s mind for months,” she said.
The prominent Dublin South-East TD became the third Minister of State to quit the current government. She said she had been left no option after standing by Fine Gael’s pre-election commitment not to legislate for abortion.
“It’s no exaggeration to say that a lot of people have really struggled on which way they would vote in this legislation and now obviously five members of the Dail from my parliamentary party [will not support it],”
she said.
She said she had been asked to resign as a Minister by the party leader, Taoiseach Enda Kenny. She said it was a “big shock” to find herself outside the party.
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams welcomed this morning’s vote.
“It has taken 21 years to secure the passing of this legislation,” he said.
“It is long overdue. Sinn Fein had concerns about aspects of this bill but we considered it very carefully [in light of the legal obligations on the state].
“We also took the view that we have a duty and responsibility to legislate for citizens – in this case pregnant women whose lives are at risk – and to ensure that there is clarity for medical practitioners.”
Posted by Jim on July 10, 2013
Confidential interviews with senior IRA figure Dolours Price have been handed over to British security forces, it has been confirmed. The PSNI police in the north of Ireland said two detectives had e travelled to Boston to take possession of materials authorised by the United States Supreme Court. “The officers will return to Northern Ireland to assess the material and continue with their inquiries,” a spokesman added. It is thought the interviews may contain information which might be used by the PSNI against a number of republicans, including senior Sinn Fein figures. Dolours was a former republican hunger-striker who became a bitter critic of Sinn Fein when the party encouraged the IRA to give up its weapons and joined a local devolved administration under British rule. She clashed with party leader Gerry Adams in recent years over his denials that he had never been a member of the IRA. The 62-year-old consistently had claimed that Mr Adams, now a Louth TD, had played a significant role in IRA actions, including the controversial killing of alleged informer Jean McConville. She who died in January amid a trans-Atlantic legal battle over her interviews and after a long battle with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. The allegations are among those believed to be contained in an interview with Irish ‘researchers’ Anthony McIntyre and Ed Moloney, who were hired for the purpose by the American university. The recordings were started in 2001 and were made on the condition that confidentiality would be guaranteed until after the death of the republicans and loyalists who took part. McIntyre and Moloney failed to block the release of the tapes after the PSNI launched a high profile legal challenge to obtain the testimony. However, they said the eleven interviews which were ordered to be released to the PSNI are of limited value, and significantly reduced from a previous demand for 85 interviews. The PSNI’s move to take possession of the tapes this weekend appeared designed to pre-empt a new legal challenge based on an internal British police report which found bias in the handling of historical cases by the PSNI’s Historical Enquiries Team (HET). The Policing Board in the North has said it has no confidence in the leadership of the HET Team on foot of the damning report, which found British soldiers had received preferential treatment from investigators. In a statement on Saturday, Moloney and McIntyre urged the Dublin and London governments “to suspend all criminal and non-criminal inquiries into the past until agreement has been reached by all parties on a credible way forward and a mechanism to deal with the past has been created in such a way that it commands widespread confidence and support”.
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A decision by the Parades Commission that a return parade by the Orange Order should not pass the Ardoyne shop fronts in north Belfast on the Twelfth of July has been widely welcomed. The Parades Commission issued its determination in the absence of any agreement between the Orange Order and local nationalist residents. The less contentious morning (‘outward’) feeder parade will be allowed to proceed, although with restrictions. Hundreds of marches are set to take place on Friday on the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, an event long marked by Protestants in the north of Ireland with large displays of sectarian triumphalism. The Parades Commission was set up in 1998 to adjudicate on the routes and other aspects of sectarian parades. The annual evening feeder parade through a number of nationalist areas in north Belfast has caused intense violence and hundreds of arrests in recent years. Unlike other restrictions, such as those placed on the number of marchers or their permitted behaviour in nationalist areas, decisions on routes are normally enforced by the police. Following its breakthrough determination last night, unionists immediately demanded its abolition. On Tuesday night, the Parades Commission said it was time to move beyond the “pain and blame cycle that has dogged parading disputes”. It was also revealed on Tuesday that 630 police from Britain who were used for the G8 Summit have been retained for this year’s marching season. Last minute talks this year between a small Sinn Fein group CARA (Crumlin and Ardoyne Residents Association) and the Orange Order had failed to make any progress. Local Sinn Fein Assembly member Gerry Kelly welcomed the decision by the Parades Commission. “It has created the space for talking to continue,” he said. “That decision to begin the talks was a brave one by both the residents group CARA and the Orange Order. Both have agreed to resume the talks and that is to be welcomed. “A peaceful 12th will give those talks a good foundation in which a local resolution can be found to this parading issue.” North Belfast DUP politicians Nigel Dodds and Nelson McCausland called for the removal of the Parades Commission. “This ruling has placed the Ligoniel Orange Lodges in an impossible position,” they said in a joint statement. “They are being denied the right to return home peacefully and with dignity along the main road they have traversed for decades. “The only answer is the removal of the Parades Commission. This relic of direct rule is outdated and out of control. It is unaccountable and has no democratic basis or mandate.” The Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective (GARC), a more hardline Ardoyne nationalist residents’ association which was not invited to hold parade talks, said the decision was overdue. Earlier on Tuesday, it held a whiteline protest in opposition to Friday’s parade, which it said was a “hate-filled display of sectarian coat-trailing bigotry”. “The constant pressure by GARC and the community of Ardoyne has forced the Parades Commission to capitulate from their position of facilitating unwanted outdated provocative acts of sectarian triumphalism,” they said. They described CARA as “an unrepresentative micro-group with a discredited agenda” and expressed satisfaction at the collapse of talks which they said amounted to “a facilitation process”. “The residents of Ardoyne will only except one genuine settlement, which is that all Loyal Order marches through our area must cease forthwith and our community be allowed to live in peace free from unwanted sectarian parades. “The people of Ardoyne have shown by their resilience that they will not be beaten or brutalised into submission as our proud community has shown it can defend its self against any adversity.”