Posted by Jim on July 20, 2013
Violence in Northern Ireland damaging investment, tourism and economy
By Irish Central staff writers
Recent images of violent confrontations linked to Orange Order parades have prompted the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Theresa Villiers, to warn they are damaging all attempts to attract jobs and investment there.
Villiers made her remarks after the Orange Order was again denied permission to walk along a predominantly nationalist stretch of the Crumlin Road in north Belfast, the scene of recent rioting.
According to the BBC, Orangemen are expected to parade right to the police lines on Saturday, which many fear could lead to a repetition of the violence that erupted on July 12.
Conscious of the dangers Villiers has appealed for calm.
‘I understand that many people strongly disagree with recent Parades Commission determinations,’ she said. ‘But however they feel, there can be no justification for lawless behavior.
‘People who break the law should be in no doubt that there will be arrests and prosecutions. And those who are convicted risk prison. It also has a serious impact on the reputation of Northern Ireland as we try and compete in the global race for investment and jobs.’
Eager to appeal to calmer heads, Villiers appealed to the Orange Order leadership.
‘The violent protests must stop. I once again call on all those with influence, including the Orange Order, community leaders and politicians, to help defuse tensions and ensure this weekend is peaceful.’
But few believe her appeal will be heard. There were five nights of intense rioting following the original decision to prevent three lodges from walking along the predominantly nationalist stretch of the Crumlin Road in north Belfast that separates loyalist and nationalist communities on 12 July. Many expect a new confrontation to erupt tonight.
For the nationalist community the site and sounds of the parade offer an annual provocation, since they loudly celebrate historic nationalist losses and the massive security operations that accompany them effectively keep them confined within their own streets and homes for hours until the parades pass.
Rather than accept any compromise the Orange Order have instead proposed a new march on Saturday along the same predominantly nationalist route.
The Orders decision to march came after the Parades Commission, the independent body that adjudicates on contentious parades in the North, ruled on Thursday that the proposed parade would not be allowed.
The Commission added it was disappointed that no unionist politicians or Orange Order leaders made any representations to it.
Critics claim that the failure of unionist politicians and Orange Order leaders to engage with the commission robs of its legitimacy in loyalist circles, which means it effectively removes any need to negociate with nationalists on any march route anywhere in the North.
On Friday afternoon, the County Grand Orange Lodge of Belfast issued a leaflet on behalf of the three lodges that faced the ban on July 12 that lead to violence.
Rather than step back from the brink, the County Grand Orange Lodge of Belfast states that the march is about showing ‘we have not and will not go away,’ and it calls on supporters to stop at the Woodvale Road at the line of Orange marshalls.
‘After a period the National Anthem will be played and we will all disperse,’ the leaflet says.
It is not believed by many that the marchers and their supporters will go away however. On July 12 Orange Order marchers, some brandishing ceremonial swords, attacked the police officers that were preventing them from marching. The confrontations which also included hooded loyalist rioters were captured by international media crews and broadcast worldwide.
‘No matter what the provocation, violence is not the answer. Any violence will play into the hands of republicans,’ wrote the County Grand Orange Lodge of Belfast, who are nonetheless promoting the standoff.
The leaflet adds that the organizers’ campaign will continue over coming months, certain to add to the cross community tensions after the traditional marching season ends.
Meanwhile a PSNI officer whose head was engulfed in flames after being hit with a petrol bomb in Belfast told the Belfast Telegraph he feared his whole body was on fire.
The 50-year-old sergeant was holding the line against loyalist rioters at the flashpoint area in the north of the city when he was struck by the bottle.
‘All I could see was a sheet of flames in front of me so, I couldn’t really determine how much of me was alight,’ he said.
‘I couldn’t feel the fire at first but the longer the flames were there I could feel myself burn. I was quite confident that the flames would be put out – it was just a case of making sure that we starved the flames of oxygen to put it out.’
Police have been hit with bricks, bottles, heavy masonry and over 100 petrol bombs during five consecutive nights of disorder along the contested stretch of road in Ardoyne which separates loyalist and nationalist communities.
There have been over 60 reported arrests of people aged between 12 and 52 years old.
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Former US peace envoy Richard Haass has returned to the north of Ireland to constitute a new discussion group on parades and flags from the main parties at the Stormont Assembly.
Dr Haass will meet political leaders and the Orange Order to agree the work plan and terms of reference for the talks, which are scheduled to begin in September.
Haass will be assisted in his role by former US government adviser Dr Megan O’Sullivan and international researcher Charles Landow.
He stressed the role of dialogue and healthy debate in resolving outstanding contentious issues.
“This has got to be done politically and within the parameters of legitimate political discourse,” he said.
“Disagreements are fine, disagreements are to be expected, but again disagreements are to be dealt with verbally and done within a legitimate and accepted political process.”
Dr Haass acknowledged his task was challenging but said he was optimistic.
“We have got an ambitious mandate… we will do everything possible and I am confident that we can meet that mandate.”
He also welcomed a statement by the Orange Order that it would “willingly and actively participate” with his all-party group.
The US diplomat described the statement as “very good news indeed”.
Dr Haass stressed the primacy of “legitimate political discourse”.
During his brief visit, the peace envoy said his group aims to deliver a report before the end of the year.
Peter Robinson, leader of the DUP, the largest unionist party in the North, claimed Dr Haass’s group could provide an “alternative” to the Parades Commission.
During a visit to the Short Strand this week, Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness said he was “disappointed” with the approach of unionists to the riots, accusing the DUP of jumping “into bed with the Orange Order”.
“For me that’s the most disappointing aspect of all of this. It appeared to me that in terms of representing unionism the Orange Order was in the driving seat and not the politicians and on that issue I think they made a huge mistake,” he said.
He also criticised Orange Order Chaplain Mervyn Gibson.
“If the pro-British unionist tradition in the north of Ireland is being led by the Rev Mervyn Gibson God help all of us,” he said. “I mean that very, very sincerely indeed.”
Last Friday, Orange leaders called for the abolition of the Parades Commission, which currently adjudicates on sectarian parades. They expressly linked the violence to the Belfast City Council Union flag dispute, which saw months of loyalist disturbances over a decision by the council to reduce the flying of the British flag over the building.
“I believe the flag protesters did this generation a great service by waking us from our slumber,” said Rev Gibson last week.
“Apathy, pessimism and defeatism were walking us into a united Ireland.
“Rather than waking up to fight each other, we need to concentrate yet again on defeating republicanism, this time in the certain cultural war.
“Let this generation not be found wanting. Do not fight the war on yesterday’s battle-field. Fight the war on today’s battleground as we unite to get rid of the Parades Commission.”
At another Twelfth event, ‘Grand Master’ of Belfast George Chittick expressed contempt for the nationalist residents’ groups aligned with Sinn Fein who continue to oppose sectarian parades.
“Sinn Fein-inspired community groups are feeding off our carcass, our culture, just like vultures,” he said. “We have to get rid of the Parades Commission.
“Are you willing to take the step on behalf of your Protestant heritage?” he asked. “That’s the question you have to answer. My answer is: No surrender.”
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By Brian Feeney (for Irish News)
Thomas Babington Macaulay was a 19th century English historian, politician and writer. In the 1840s he was MP for Edinburgh. In 1847, after he had made a speech supporting an increase in the annual grant to Maynooth, the Tories whipped up Orangemen into a campaign of sectarian hatred against him and he lost his seat. The campaign degenerated into violence against Catholics fleeing the Famine to Scotland. The Tories washed their hands of it.
Plus ca change.
Macaulay said: “The natural consequences follow. All those fierce spirits, whom you hallooed on to harass us, now turn round and begin to worry you. The Orangeman raises his war-whoop… But what did you expect? Did you think, when, to serve your turn, you called the Devil up, that it was as easy to lay him as to raise him? Did you think, when you went on flattering all the worse passions of those whom you knew to be in the wrong, that the day of reckoning would never come?”
The day of reckoning has certainly come for the Orange Order. They have been exposed as never before after the inflammatory speeches of their leaders threatening days of demonstrations and “fighting the war on today’s battleground” blew up in their faces. They were isolated as the thugs their emotive language unleashed proceeded to wreck the gardens, walls and fences of neat houses on the Woodvale Road. To add to their disgrace semi-naked men and women full of cheap drink performed acts of debauchery in public. Men wearing Orange Order collarettes and uniformed bandsmen tried to kill police with swords, ball-bearings fired from hunting catapults and petrol bombs. Orange culture on fulldisplay for the world’s media.
Like Macauley’s Tories the cowardly unionist politicians who only days before had signed an appeal calling for decisionsof the Parades Commission to be obeyedran for cover after immediately attacking any decision they didn’t like whether at Carrick Hill or Ardoyne, Besashed Nigel Dodds and his little Sir Echo, nodding dog McCausland, tried on Friday morning to persuade the police to breach the ruling that only 100 blue-bag yahoos be permitted past Ardoyne. Rather than starting the day with a riot the police agreed to the raucous jeers of said blue-bag brigade.
You’d think that even the ancient dopes who lead the Orange Order must realise the game is up. They don’t. When Richard Haass arrives to try to square the circle he will need to realise that the only way to bring them to heel is to hit them where ithurts – in their pockets.
If you were to try to organise a public function ina park or square you would need to acquire public liability insurance. Every Orange march declared contentious should be required to lodge a bond of 10,000 pounds and provide an insurance certificate for 10 million pounds. The Orange Order should be required to pay for policing justas football clubs do.
ACC Will Kerr has said the cost of the weekend disturbances is already into “multiple millions”. We all have to pay for that in money diverted from schools, hospitals and roads. That’s outrageous. The people who cause the damage should be liable and that’s the Orange Order.
Just as the Football Association penalises clubs that transgress so the order should be made to fine lodges who hire paramilitaries masquerading as bands and who breach Parades Commission rulings.
The executive will never agree to any of this. However, the Public Processions Act 1998 is Westminster legislation that Westminster can amend overnight. It’s long past time to stop concentrating efforts to regulate Orange marches on criminal sanctions for policing their routes and behaviour. The only way to proceed is to cripple the order financially if theyrefuse to behave decently and lawfully. Hurting the clubs was the only way football thuggery was brought to heel.
For a start there should be a review of conditions for all government grants and certainly of any EU money promised to the Orange Order. They cannot continue to receive public money yet tell their members to disobey the law, encourage them onto the streets and then collect the next tranche of cash after their antics have cost millions of pounds.
Posted by Jim on
After a week of the most intense loyalist violence, a decision by the Parades Commission to reroute another planned march by the anti-Catholic Orange Order has been welcomed as good news.
Orangemen have said they will attempt to march through the republican Ardoyne and surrounding areas of north Belfast this Saturday, July 20th, to ‘complete’ their July 12th parade.
For several nights this week, Orangemen and their loyalist supporters have engaged in heavy rioting — wielding swords, bricks, masonry, petrol bombs, blast bombs, fireworks and other missiles — in their determination to march down the Crumlin Road and into a series of nationalist communities.
Rioting quickly spread to loyalist east Belfast, and roadblocks and barricades created disturbances across the North.
But while the violence was at its most intense on Friday night, it continued in a more localised manner every night since with diminishing intensity.
Widely blamed for encouraging the riots with militaristic speeches and statements, the Protestant masonic order initially appeared to back down before announcing this weekend’s parade plan.
Their stated reason is to “escort our fellow brethren home to their Orange Hall and therefore complete the Twelfth of July parade”.
Tomorrow’s march – involving 500 participants, three bands and an undisclosed number of supporters – will again be blocked at the junction of Woodvale Road and Woodvale Parade and banned from passing through the Ardoyne area.
It is expected that the Orangemen will now stage weekly ‘Drumcree-style’ parades to the north Belfast flashpoint, recalling the prolonged loyalist siege of the nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown in the late nineties.
MEDIEVAL-STYLE BATTLE
On Friday, and for three successive days, the intersection saw serious confrontations between sword-wielding Orangemen and the shield-bearing PSNI riot police.
Each side had its reinforcements: the Orangemen enjoyed the support of over a thousand loyalist supporters, many intoxicated by the alcohol and heat. The PSNI fought back with the support of over a thousand riot police, hundreds specially drafted in from London and other British cities.
While an Orange Order spokesman appealed today for calm, it is widely feared that Saturday’s stand-off will see the full venom of the loyalist battle gangs directed against Ardoyne with the growing involvement of the murder gangs of the unionist paramilitary UVF.
At the eye of the Orange storm on Friday, Sinn Fein Assembly member Gerry Kelly was among those who helped to ensure republican Ardoyne remained peaceful, addressing a crowd from his favourite position, the hood of a PSNI Landrover.
Today, he denounced the plan for a new parade.
“Whoever in the Orange Order thought this was a good move needs to reflect on how it has increased tensions and done absolutely nothing to point towards a resolution of the situation,” he said.
A spokesman for the Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective said: “This has been the most peaceful July in Ardoyne for many years, confirming what GARC has being saying for a long time now – that it is these unwanted coat trailing exercises that were the basis of trouble that plagued our community for generations.”
It said it would not hold a protest on Saturday in a bid to lower tension in the area, but added that “all attempts by the Orange Order to provoke our community will fail and are futile.”
SWORDS AND SHIELDS
The cost of the disorder has yet to be measured, but the PSNI has said 72 of its members had been injured. Riot police fired 49 plastic bullets.
It was also revealed British Army Land Rovers are back on the streets to cope with the increased involvement of the UVF and UDA. So-called ‘snatch’ vehicles have also been spotted outside nationalist estates across the city in recent days.
The PSNI admitted 140 British Army Land Rovers ‘loaned’ to them for the G8 have been ‘retained’. Repainted the same white as PSNI Land Rovers, the British Army vehicles have had the word ‘police’ roughly painted on their sides.
A significant feature of the current wave of violence is the involvement of a broad cross-section of unionist society, including older man and women and the middle classes.
Elderly men have been seen to attack police lines with everything they can lay their hands on, and cheering as the PSNI suffered injuries. Some appeared so drunk that they could barely stand, while others strutted around in a state of undress or performed lewd actions for the entertainment of the baying mob.
Orangemen in sashes and bowler hats were often to the fore, swiping viciously at the PSNI with their ‘commemorative’ Battle of the Boyne swords. They were assisted by loyalist bandsmen, some wearing official Royal Navy ‘Help for Heroes’ T-shirts, as well as masked and hooded youths-
By Tuesday, the small nationalist Short Strand enclave had once again become the main focus of loyalist violence — as it had been at the start of the year.
EASY TARGETS
Although initially overshadowed by the scenes in Woodvale, the rioters in east Belfast also swaggered around drunkenly before the cameras between launching themselves wildly at riot police, feeling protected by the domination of the area by the UVF.
Seventy-eight-year old Short Strand resident Tommy McNulty, whose home was targeted several times in recent days, says he felt let down by those political leaders who had come to reassure him before. The attacks have forced Mr McNulty’s 81-year-old wife Kathleen to leave their home.
“We have lost count of how many times our house has been attacked,” he said.
“I have had [British Direct Ruler] Theresa Villiers sitting on my couch.
I have met TDs and politicians and nothing has been done.”
As the week wore on, the rioting appears to have become more centred in the areas controlled by UVF murder gangs.
Violence spread to strongholds such as Mount Vernon in north Belfast and the Village area of west Belfast. There were also disturbances in Portadown, County Armagh, and in Newtownabbey, County Antrim.
But nationalist communities were living in fear across the North. A Catholic woman in Coleraine escaped injury after flammable liquid was poured through her letterbox on the Twelfth night – the third attack on her home in a week. The woman, who is ill and awaiting major surgery, lives alone in a predominantly loyalist area of Coleraine. Although she was not hurt in the attack, she has been left badly shaken.
Last week, she was treated for an injury to her eye after a brick was thrown though her kitchen window. Bricks were thrown into her back garden in a separate attack.
SUICIDE MOCKED
But the trouble began, as every year, with the sectarian bonfires of the ‘Eleventh Night’, the eve of the Twelfth parades.
While a statue of the Virgin Mary placed on once bonfire caused, an effigy placed on another also caused considerable anger. It was intended to depict a popular west Belfast priest who died by suicide last month, it has emerged.
Fr Matt Wallace, originally from Templetown in Co Wexford, was dubbed “the people’s priest” after having served communities in west Belfast for almost four decades. The parish priest of Holy Trinity Church in Turf Lodge was found dead in the parochial house.
For some the burning of the effigy brought back memories of their own tragedies.
Margaret McCartney said she was horrified when she was shown a picture of the bonfire in Rathcoole, Newtownabbey.
“My little nephew is 11 years dead and he [killed] himself,” she said.
“It’s very, very sick. Honestly, when these people do die, they will have to meet their maker knowing they did this.”
Posted by admin on July 17, 2013
Loyalists rioted for a fifth evening in a row last night over the failure to permit a sectarian march through the nationalist Ardoyne area on north Belfast.
Petrol bombs and other missiles were thrown at the PSNI police on lower Newtownards Road, and four cars were hijacked and burned out.
A French press photographer was assaulted by rioters and had his camera stolen.
The violence also reached to North Queen Street, Woodvale Road and Mount Vernon in north Belfast.
Fires were lit on North Queen Street and on Woodvale Road, where the anti-Catholic Orange Order and their loyalist supporters continue to seek to march down the Crumlin Road into nationalist and republican estates. The Orangemen consider the area to be a key part of their “traditional” anti-Catholic march.
For the first time this week, the PSNI deployed water cannon to the nearby Mount Vernon area, where UVF paramilitary figures have been blamed for orchestrating riots.
There were also disturbances in the past 48 hours in Portadown, County Armagh; Newtownabbey, County Antrim; and in PittPark, close to the nationalist Short Strand in east Belfast, where a blast bomb was thrown.
Loyalist paramilitary leaders continue to be blamed for organising the disorder. The same areas were assiduously targeted by the same organisations earlier this year during the ‘flag protests’, in an attempt to overturn a Belfast council decision to reduce the flying of the British Union Jack flag over City Hall.
The PSNI also said that on Monday night, a device was thrown at one of their Landrovers from the nationalist Brompton Park in north Belfast, drawing strong condemnation from nationalist politicians.
STORMONT BACKS ORANGEMEN
On Tuesday the Six-County Assembly in Belfast backed a unionist motion in support of the protests and condemning the decision by the Parades Commission to reroute the Orange march away from Ardoyne.
DUP leader and the Six-County First Minister Peter Robinson said a new Stormont group chaired by returned US envoy Richard Haass offered an “alternative”.
He indicated that the Orange Order could now support proposals to replace the Parades Commisssion, such as a two-tier adjudication system on parades to facilitate his own involvement in parade decisions alongside Sinn Fein’s Deputy Firat Minister, Martin McGuinness.
“I put it to the Orange institution,as I do to every party in the House, that there is now an all-party groupset up with the purpose of agreeing an alternative to the Parades Commission,” he said.
Supporting the DUP, Ulster Unionist leader MikeNesbitt said that “Proddies lie down” would not work, and that ‘mutual respect’ was needed
— paraphrasing the usual anti-Catholic phrase, ‘Croppies liedown’.
In an unusual departure, Basil McCrea, leader of the tiny new breakaway unionist NI21 party, openly criticised the Orange Order. It was the first time the leader of any Unionist party, however small, has criticised the quasi-religious body.
McCrea, who defected from the Ulster Unionist Party earlier this year, described the events of recent days as a “PR disaster” for Orangeism.
“It was sickening, it was disgusting and it was not in my name,” he said, resulting in strong condemnation from loyalist extremists.
Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness told the same debate that sectarian parades were no longer a problem in his own home town, the overwhelmingly nationalist city of Derry.
“Last weekend was a tale of two cities — in the city that I come from, we had a totally peaceful weekend,” he said.
“That came about as a result of a recognition many years ago by all the stakeholders in the city of Derry, including the loyal orders, of the importance of resolving the contention around parades.”
His appeal for talks between parade organisers and nationalist residents was narrowly rejected, however, and the Sinn Fein amendment fell three votes short of a majority.