Preparations for Sunday's Drumcree Orange march

(6 Jul 2002)

1. British Army at Drumcree
2. Church
3. Army digger
4. SOUNDBITE: (English) Assistant Chief Constable Stephen Little, Police Service of Northern Ireland: "Clearly there are evil men who have evil intent and we see that from time to time in Northern Ireland but right what I can say in relationship to Portadown, in relation to the Drumcree Church, and the protest and march that is associated with, there is nothing to indicate at this stage that there are any plans to disrupt life here."
5. Building metal fence to stop Orange order march down the Garvaghy Road
6. Soldiers bolt fence
7. Fence
8. Loyalist flags
9. SOUNDBITE: (English) David Jones, Portadown Orange Order: "We believe that if there is going to be mutual respect, then people should have free passage along any road as long as they do so peacefully. We saw the terrible scenes down in Belfast at the Holy Cross, whenever the children were, young girls were prevent from going into their school and the police and the police enabled them to go into their school. We feel that we are in a similar position, there's no reason that we should be prevented from going along the road as long as we do peacefully. That's what we have always done and that's what we intend to do when we get along it."
10. Nationalist/Catholic Garvaghy Road
11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Brendan Mckenna, Garvaghy Road Residents Association: "I thing it's fair to say that there's a far less degree of tension around Portadown, not just at the present time, but there has been over the last 12 months, a fairly peaceful atmosphere in the town, unlike previous years we haven't had continuos violent protest, blockades of the areas, and that's contribute to a hope that Drumcree will relatively peacefully and fairly quickly this yearn and hopefully will all be over by tomorrow afternoon instead of dragging on fro several days.
12. Fence

STORYLINE:

British army engineers erected lines of concrete and barbed wire on Saturday to prevent a clash between Protestant marchers and hostile Catholic residents in the bitterly divided town of Drumcree in Northern Ireland.

Massive numbers of police and soldiers will be involved in the security operation surrounding the march.

Thousands Protestants are expected to converge on Portadown, County Armagh, where the bitterly disputed parade has been banned from the marching down Catholic Garvaghy Road for a fifth year.

Protestant fury at the block on them returning from a church service at Drumcree along the Garvaghy Road has led to fierce clashes in the past.

Up to 1,000 police officers, four Army battalions and water cannon are on standby to combat any disorder at this year's event.

The Northern Ireland's Parades Commission has blocked the march every year since 1998.

The ban has provoked mobs into attacking police and soldiers stationed behind a huge wall - brought in to block the protesters' path.

Trouble has also spread to other parts of the province as loyalists gear up for the Twelfth of July celebrations.

But with numbers down at last year's stand-off, hopes are high that major violence can be avoided this time.

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