UK: N.IRELAND: DRUMCREE: VIOLENCE

(3 Jul 2000) Natural Sound
XFA
Loyalist youths damaged several British army vehicles during a violent stand-off near Drumcree in the early hours of Monday morning.

Police and military personnel blocked a bridge to prevent Orangemen and supporters parading past a Catholic church during their annual Portadown march.

Hundreds of youths threw stones at the military blockade before riot police moved in and pushed them back.

Around 150 youths hurled ball bearings and firecrackers at police lines in the early hours of Monday morning, continuing a Drumcree protest which had begun several hours before.

Earlier on Sunday, more than two-thousand members and supporters of the Orange Order marched to Drumcree where British security forces - for the past two years - have prevented the Protestant group from parading past a nearby Catholic neighborhood.

Drumcree is an Anglican church near Portadown.

While the Orange Order is able to march to the church, they are prevented from taking their desired route past Catholic homes.

Despite this, leaders of Northern Ireland's major Protestant group vowed on Sunday that they would somehow march past Roman Catholic homes in this bitterly polarised town.

British soldiers in armored personnel carriers blocked the Orange men's intended route which was a narrow country lane between the church and Garvaghy Road.

Rows of riot police in helmets and flame-retardant uniforms stood ready.

A British army helicopter and police observation plane monitored the scene as Orange leaders handed police commanders a formal protest letter.

A few dozen men, some of them members of outlawed anti-Catholic gangs based in Portadown, scuffled with police and threw stones, but no injuries were reported.

It was after dark that sporadic violence resumed.

The youths continued to pummel military vehicles until officers determined the violence had gone beyond what they were prepared to accept.

The army deployed electric generators and spotlights to pinpoint rioters but made no immediate arrests.

Riot police arranged themselves into two lines and slowly pushed the protestors back - away from the bridge and back up a hill.

The Orange Order is a hard-line fraternal group which was founded near Portadown in the 1790s and is still influential today.

Tens of thousands of Orangemen march each July, often to celebrate 17th-century military victories over Catholics.

The Portadown march commemorates the losses suffered by Protestants during World War I's Battle of the Somme.

Traditionally, it has gone past the Catholics living on Portadown's Garvaghy Road but police have blocked the route since 1998 because of the violence it caused.

In 1996 and 1997, police violently forced anti-Orange protesters off the road and this provoked riots in many Catholic areas.

This year, with the parade route blocked once again, Orange Order leader Gracey said he hoped to see hundreds of thousands of Protestants rally on Northern Ireland's streets in the coming week to support their demands.

Gracey has maintained a 726-day vigil at the church to protest the 1998 parade route ban, and he has refused to negotiate directly with Catholic protest leaders.

Gracey said he expects 6,000 to 10,000 Protestants to turn out for a bigger Orange attempt to march down Garvaghy Road next Sunday.

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