Mowlam and the marches
Peadar Whelan looks back at the marching issue in 1997
IF BRITISH DIRECT RULER MARJORIE MOWLAM lived in Dublin she would
I'm sure be familiar with the word slibhín - as bearla it means a
sly person.
d after her disgraceful treatment of the people of the Garvaghy
Road on 6 July, during round three of the Drumcree saga, the
description of Mowlam as a slibhín fits.
When New Labour was elected and the touchy, feely Mowlam was sent
over to the North as ``Northern Secretary'' her reputation as a
listener, as someone who had shown concern for the plight of
nationalist communities such as the Ormeau Road and Garvaghy Road
in particular, went before her.
Hadn't she met representatives of these groups when in
opposition?
Then in the aftermath of New Labour's massive electoral victory,
in the run up to Drumcree 3, Mowlam undertook a series of
whirlwind visits to Derry where she met Apprentice Boys and the
Bogside Residents, to Dunloy and Bellaghy, then to the Ormeau
Road where in a media-friendly meet-the-people exercise she shook
hands, kissed babies and hugged whoever was huggable.
All through this honeymoon period Mowlam's body language hinted
that any solution to the marching crisis would favour those
beleagured nationalist communities through which the Orange Order
demanded the ``right'' to march.
Then the test came in July. As the Drumcree march loomed and the
Orangemen from Portadown refused to talk or negotiate with the
Garvaghy Road residents, all eyes turned to Stormont.
Mowlam told the residents that whatever decision was made about
the 6 July parade it would be communicated to them before the
march.
However, as a massive military force descended on the small
nationalist enclave on Friday 4 July there was still no
information from Stormont and the Garvaghy residents were still
in the dark.
Five different British army regiments, including paratroopers,
were drafted into the area and threw up a ring of steel.
Residents going about their business were stopped at every access
road into Garvaghy Road.
Right through Saturday the air of expectancy on Garvaghy Road
hung like a dark cloud; an expectancy deriving from Mowlam's
promise that she would contact Garvaghy Road residents'
spokesperson Breandain MacCionnaith to inform him of her
decision.
That call never came. Then as we moved from Saturday into Sunday
British army engineers built a barrier on the Drumcree Road where
in previous years they built the barrier and blocked the
Orangemen.
The trap was baited, residents believed Mowlam had delivered. She
had, in fact, delivered a hopeful, trusting community to
Orangemen whose refusal to treat Garvaghy residents with any
respect was again rewarded.
Thousands of crown forces beat residents off their streets in a
rerun of 1996. The Orangemen walked triumpantly and nationalist
anger was unleashed. In the following days of rioting thousands
of plastic bullets were fired and countless nationalists injured
as a gleeful RUC again took an opportunity to vent their
secatarianism.
However, what the events surrounding Garvaghy Three also
unleashed was a nationalist anger that brought thousands on to
the streets of Belfast and Derry and elsewhere.
British policy and Unionist tactics were in dissaray in the face
of this nationalist anger and the clear message, as we moved into
the Twelfth, was that if the British government wanted to force
Orange marches through the Ormeau Road, Derry, Newry, Bellaghy,
Newtownbutler and other nationalist areas then it was over the
bodies of nationalists.
That expression of anger and the refusal to be intimidated has
left the British and Unionists eyeball to eyeball with
nationalists and the events in Derry last weekend show that the
stand-off has the potential for chaos. Where it leads to next
summer is anybody's guess but the British and Unionists now know
in a way they never knew before that the price of Orange
triumhpalism is high. How high will be answered next year.
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