BY JACK WILLEY AND ANNE HOWIE
BELFAST, Northern Ireland - More than 400 local residents of the Garvaghy Road area of Portadown, Northern Ireland, turned out May 30 to protest a triumphalist march through their neighborhood by the rightist Orange Order. In response, they were fired on by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) with more than 40 plastic bullets.

The Orange Order is a rightist organization that supports the continued British rule in Northern Ireland. The RUC, a pro-British police force, protected the supremacist marchers, who organize parades through predominantly Catholic areas every summer through the fall in Northern Ireland, commonly referred to as "the marching season."

Early in the morning of May 30, the RUC and British army troops moved into Garvaghy Road to secure the route for the rightists' march. The first parade by the Young Portadown Orange Lodge was countered by a small nationalist protest but passed by peacefully. Nationalists are those who are fighting for a united Ireland.

By the afternoon, as the junior Orange Order members were preparing their return march, larger numbers of nationalists began to gather along the route. The RUC halted the returning parade as it neared the Garvaghy Road, coming under attack from the parade supporters. The cops then began clearing the residents away from their homes, batoning them and firing plastic bullets. Following closely behind the RUC, and backed up by the British Army, loyalists tore down Irish flags from lampposts and vandalized property. The parade was eventually forced through behind the RUC lines.

Nationalists responded to the RUC assault with rocks, bottles, and petrol bombs. The RUC and British army continued to attack residents until they withdrew at 9:00 p.m.

While Ronald Flanagan, Chief Constable of the RUC, claimed the cops had "acted with tremendous restraint and in the most measured manner," and attempted to blame the local nationalists for the trouble, residents told another story. Breandan MacCionnaith, a local councillor and member of the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition, pointed to a journalist injured by the cops, saying, "The fact that a cameraman was hit by a plastic bullet less than 15 yards from police lines shows how indiscriminate they were."

The Irish News also reported the description by a local resident of a man who was shot with a plastic bullet after leaving a store. "I saw him going down and there was blood coming out of his mouth. I thought he had been shot. He wasn't rioting, he just walked into the middle of it."

The same article quoted a local youth who described how the RUC "shot a boy from about 10 yards away and hit him in the chest." He was treated in intensive care. The RUC said 15 cops were injured.

Provocative role of the RUC
The Irish News reported that RUC and British soldiers stationed in the People's Park taunted local people as they made their way towards the town center. Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness called the RUC's role "provocative." Sinn Fein is the political party leading the fight for a united Ireland and the end of colonial rule in the North

The May 30 parade route had been agreed to by the Parades Commission, a body set up last year by the British government supposedly to judge on contentious parade routes. MacCionnaith pointed out that this was "despite the fact that this parade has caused problems over the last few years."

In a statement by Sinn Fein, Gerry Kelly described the Commission's decision as "just incomprehensible, especially considering the present climate." He added that the RUC actions highlighted the "brutal and sectarian nature of the force."

The assault by the RUC comes just more than a week after the recent agreement between the British and Irish governments and nationalist and Unionist forces, known as the Good Friday Agreement, gained a majority in referendums in the North and South of Ireland. In reference to the agreement MacCionnaith explained, "This makes you wonder about the agreement which we thought we had. I would say 90 percent of people in this area voted for that agreement. They voted for change. They voted for an end to provocative marches, they voted for equality and justice and they certainly didn't get any here."

A long hot summer?
The residents committees, made up of those who live in the areas where the rightist marches occur and who organize to protest them, have called on the Orange Order to discuss the parades. So far, the loyalists have refused. Many people here told these reporters that the residents committees were gearing up for a long hot summer, ready to protest the triumphalist marches.

This year the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition has voted to extend their protest to people from other areas. Several nationalists told the Militant that although they weren't there last year when the RUC attacked the residents, they are planning to go to Garvaghy Road for the upcoming Drumcree Orange parade this year.

Besides the RUC and British army action in Portadown, nationalists report a general increase in the level of cop and military activity. Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams raised the issue in a May 29 meeting with U.S. president William Clinton. He described to reporters afterward how the British army was making house raids in Belfast, besieging one house for three hours and abusing a Sinn Fein representative who went to investigate the situation. Sinn Fein Youth have also reported several incidents of harassment by the RUC.

The Drumcree Orange parade on Garvaghy Road is due to take place in July. But that parade will attempt to march the entire length of the Garvaghy Road as opposed to the May 30 parade, which passed on only the lower part of it. This is one of the most contentious events of the "marching season" and the scene of major RUC and British army violence over the last two years.  
 
 
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