Republican News · Thursday 22 January 1998

[An Phoblacht]

Parades crisis still looms

MEMBERS OF THE Lower Ormeau Concerned Community (LOCC) have accused the Parades Commission of failing to ``meet the criteria for independence and impartiality'' needed to resolve the contentious parades issue.

The LOCC presented Alistair Graham with a detailed factual submission at last Thursday's fact-gathering meeting, but called his claims that they were unable to enter into dialogue ``disingenuous and defensive''.

Despite serious misgivings in dealing with Graham (who described himself as a unionist in a Belfast Telegraph interview) the LOCC showed a commitment to finding a solution to the parades issue by meeting him but they found that Graham had ``done nothing to allay their fears that yet again the rights of nationalists would be trampled over in the coming marching season''.

In their submission the LOCC said ``the parades issue was not about balancing the right to march and the right to protest, but the right of a sectarian organisation - which refuses membership to anyone married to a Catholic or who has had a Catholic parent - and the rights of residents not to be intimidated or abused by organisations whose purpose in marching is to reinforce the inequalities.''

  • Meanwhile, Harold Gracey District Master in Portadown is threatening a `Drumcree 4', belligerently saying he will not seek permission from anyone to march down Garvaghy Road. Despite the fact that he shared a platform with mass murderer Billy Wright in 1996, he says he won't ``sit down with the likes of Breandan MacCionnaith or Joe Duffy'', as MacCionnaith has a previous conviction.

    This puts into perspective the hope of the Newtownbutler and Area Residents Association after its 12 January meeting with the Parades Commission. They said that problems remained but that, ``the best way to find a solution [was] direct face-to-face talks [with the loyal orders] without any preconditions.''

    All this is happening against a background of a `clear the air' meeting between Orange Order head Robert Saulters and Joel Patton of the Spirit of Drumcree faction after last month's siege of the Grand Lodge meeting at their Belfast HQ.

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