The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.30           September 2, 1996 
 
 
Irish Fighters Push Back Loyalists  

BY ANNE HOWIE

DERRY, Ireland - "Orange rule has ended," Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams told thousands at the end of a demonstration in Belfast August 11. Adams was referring to the achievements of nationalist protesters that weekend in Derry and several villages in Northern Ireland. The nationalists stood up to loyalists and forced them to reroute their marches away from predominantly Catholic areas - signaling that British rule of the six counties of Northern Ireland is now facing a mounting challenge in the streets.

The initial focus of attention was Derry, where the main Apprentice Boys march of the year was scheduled for August 10. The rightist demonstration ostensibly commemorates the closing of the gates of the city walls by 13 Protestant Apprentice Boys against the Catholic army of James II in 1689. Unionist leaders and the pro-British press portray the Apprentice Boys and other loyalist demonstrations as representing one of two traditions in Northern Ireland, defending their right to march wherever they want.

But the loyalist actions are aimed at preserving the caste- type system through which Protestants are treated preferentially to Catholics. This system is the keystone to British rule.

Residents of the mainly Catholic Bogside area of Derry today vividly recount their experiences when the Apprentice Boys marched around the city walls before the British Army closed them off in 1969. As the march came to the section of the walls overlooking the Bogside, the loyalists would hurl insults and pennies to the "poor" Catholics in the ghetto below. Many Catholic families would leave town for the weekend, to avoid the intimidation and humiliation that accompanied the march. "These parades are sectarian and represent the domination of one community by another," said Donncha MacNeillis spokesperson for the Bogside residents.

Following the May 1994 cease-fire between the Irish Republican Army and the British occupiers, the walls were re- opened. Last year nationalists attempted to block the march by sitting on the walls, until they were dragged off by the Royal Ulster Constabulary police (RUC). After that experience the Bogside Residents Group was set up and sought negotiations with the Apprentice Boys over this year's action.

Revulsion against July 12 assaults
The Bogside residents' fight gained a boost from the widespread revulsion to the vicious assaults on Catholic protesters by rightist street gangs with the complicity of British armed forces on July 12. At that time the RUC escorted Orange Order parades through Catholic areas at Garvaghy Road in Portadown and Lower Ormeau Road in Belfast, sparking staunch resistance by residents. The media beamed graphic images around the world of the RUC beating nationalists and showering them with plastic bullets.

In response, demonstrations took place throughout Northern Ireland - the largest actions since the 1981 hunger strikes by Irish political prisoners. Significantly in Derry and several other towns the Social Democratic and Labour parties joined the protests. In villages and towns threatened by loyalist marches, residents groups have mushroomed bringing in a new generation of activists.

The Bogside Residents Group (BRG) presented a joint negotiating platform with the residents groups from Lower Ormeau, Belfast, and Garvaghy Rd., Portadown. Their aim was to reach an agreement that would apply to all Apprentice Boys marches in Northern Ireland in areas they were unwelcome. After a year of refusing to talk, Apprentice Boys leader Alistair Simpson agreed to meet Bogside residents July 26. In the end, no agreement was reached.

The Bogside residents responded by organizing a mass demonstration for the evening of August 9, prior to the Apprentice Boys march the next day, with the goal of entering the city walls.

To counter the possibility of this action forcing the re- routing of the Apprentice Boys march, Northern Ireland Secretary Patrick Mayhew ordered a part of the walls sealed from August 7 till the end of the month. The British Army moved in and erected barbed and razor wire and concrete bollards around the section of the walls that overlooks the Bogside, thus preventing the loyalists from marching the entire city walls. The Bogside residents said they'd rather resolve the issue by negotiation with the Apprentice Boys than the intervention of the Army.

Resistance pushes back loyalists
Some 10,000 people turned out for the Bogside residents march on the night of August 9 from several Catholic areas to the centre of Derry. "We are here to assert our right to national equality and assert that we are not second class citizens," said Maeve McLaughlin.

Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness told the rally, "We have never enjoyed the parades, we have never enjoyed the Orange triumphalism and we have never accepted second class citizenship. We say to the Orange Order and the British government - enough is enough. It's got to stop." The RUC blocked a small loyalist counter-demonstration coming from the predominantly Protestant Fountain estate.

Another rally called for the day of the Apprentice Boys parade was canceled when it became clear that loyalists had failed to march through any of the disputed routes on the way to Derry. Before coming here every year, Apprentice Boys march a short way through their local town prior to mounting buses to Derry.

In Dunloy, for example, a 95 percent Catholic village where various loyalist groups attempt to march 16 times a year, Apprentice Boys got off their buses, paraded a short distance on the edge of the village, and got back on the buses. In Newtownbutler, members of the Royal Black Perceptory - another Orange organization - marched out of their hall, away from the village, played God Save the Queen, and left. In the Lower Ormeau, Belfast, the RUC had banned the loyalist parade. Similar agreements were reached in a number of villages, some brokered by residents groups, some by the RUC.

Some 15,000 loyalists arrived in Derry for the main parade, which passed off relatively peacefully. The rightists made no attempt to march through the sealed- off section of the city walls overlooking the Bogside.

After the Apprentice Boys finished their parade, Donncha MacNiallais summed up the outcome. "The issue is obviously not resolved. But it is now clear that they can no longer march where they want, when they want. Their days of lording it over people are gone for good."

As the evening went on, news began to come through of nationalist resistance to loyalist marchers returning from Derry. In Dunloy, 400 residents sealed off their village. According to the Irish Times, "residents armed with hurley sticks [a large wooden club used in the Irish sport Hurling] and plastic tubing barricaded roads in the village with burning skips and felled trees." When 30 coaches of loyalists returning from Derry converged on the area, the RUC prevented them reaching the sealed-off village in a four-hour stand off. In Bellaghy, a major confrontation developed (see article on page 16).

Back in Derry, word got around about the stand taken by nationalists in Bellaghy and the RUC violence against them. A mostly young crowd began to gather in the streets. Sporadic scuffles with the RUC continued through the night. According to BBC news, the police fired 20 rounds of plastic bullets. People began discussing the possibility of getting help to Bellaghy. Deirdre McDaid a leader of the Bogside Residents Group and also a member of Sinn Fein Youth commented, "No longer are small isolated communities going to remain alone to face the RUC and Orange Order." The Irish News reported that residents groups in a number of villages concluded that now they would not consent to any loyalist marches next year.

Thousands march in Belfast
While the resistance at Bellaghy continued through August 11, 10,000 nationalists marched in Belfast on the 25th anniversary of the re-introduction of internment in the north. During the four years it was in force, from 1971 to 1975, over 2,000 people, in their vast majority nationalists, were arrested and held in jails or special camps, without trial. Some were held a few months, others for years. All were beaten and many tortured.

The marchers converged on City Hall in Belfast, despite last- minute attempts by loyalist politicians to get the action banned from the center of the city. This was only the third such anti- internment march to have won the right to go downtown. Speakers from Britain, the United States, and the Basque country addressed the rally. Gerry Adams congratulated the people of the Lower Ormeau and Garvaghy Rd. for their determined defense of their communities, and called for solidarity with the villagers in Fermanagh and Antrim who were taking a stand against loyalist marchers. He said the issue that weekend was not marching but "triumphalism, trampling over other peoples' rights."

Dodie McGuinness of Sinn Fein, elected for West Belfast in the May elections, told the rally, "This problem of triumphalist parades is a symptom of a greater problem; Britain's involvement in Ireland and the creation of the six-county state for Unionists. We should never forget that those responsible for all our problems are the British government and John Major. That we still face this annual crisis is a measure of the failure to find a negotiated solution." She said the cease-fire had collapsed "under the weight of British intransigence." McGuinness also pointed to the failure of the Irish government in Dublin, which has "a constitutional and moral duty to ensure the rights of all citizens of the island are upheld."

"Sinn Fein stands shoulder to shoulder with you in demanding equality of treatment, in demanding parity of esteem, in demanding our democratic and national rights in demanding that the British government leave the people of the island in peace," she told the demonstrators.

The next series of marches in the north will take place the last weekend of August, when another loyalist group, the Royal Black Preceptory, will stage parades in a number of towns and villages.

The resistance to the loyalist marches has overshadowed discussion of the "peace talks," which are currently in recess until September, and showed that the crisis of British rule over Northern Ireland has intensified. Most people Militant reporters interviewed said there will be no progress in any negotiations if Sinn Fein continues to be excluded from the talks. As Dodie McGuinness told demonstrators in Belfast, "There can be no return to the failed policies of the past. The croppies [nationalists] are off their knees."

Anne Howie is a member of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union in Manchester, England. Caroline Bellamy and Pete Clifford contributed to this article.  
 
 
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