A strange Orange outrage
by Laura Friel
``Come on you Fenian bastard, I'll fix you now,'' says an Orangeman
removing his sash as he confronts a nationalist resident. ``It's
payback time, you Fenian bastards,'' shouts a riot-clad RUC
officer. In 1996 during the ``Tour of the North'' parade two
thousand riot-clad RUC dragged, batoned and kicked several
hundred nationalist residents off their own streets to facilitate
an Orange march through nationalist areas of North Belfast.
In the wake of the `Tour', a young nationalist, Gareth Parker
died after a sectarian attack by a loyalist mob drinking in a bar
after attending the parade. RUC officers returning to their
barracks after the `Tour' launched an unprovoked attack on
nationalist residents walking home after a charity church social
in the Short Strand. ``We'll get those Fenian bastards now,''
yelled one RUC officer as 27-year-old Sean Lavery was batoned
unconscious, dragged behind a Land Rover, repeatedly kicked and
attacked by an RUC Alsatian dog.
In the immediate aftermath of the `Tour' over 40 Catholic
families were forced to flee from their North Belfast homes by
loyalist mobs wielding petrol bombs and bricks. The `Tour of the
North' is organised on a two yearly basis, it is scheduled to
take place again this Friday. Since the last `Tour' the Orange
Order has refused to engage in any dialogue with nationalist
residents. Instead they have insisted on the primacy of
Orangemen's `Right to March' while demonising residents as
`extremists' and `troublemakers'.
When the Parades Commission announced the decision to re-route
this year's `Tour' away from nationalist areas, spokesperson for
the Orange Order, Fraser Agnew accused the Commission of
`rewarding violence'. ``The right to walk is a right that is
universally recognised...it is not dependent on negotiation.
Orangemen should not have to obtain the consent of republican
agitators,'' says Agnew.
In the tunnel vision of the Loyal Orders, it is not sectarian to
force a triumphalist parade through a nationalist area, local
residents who object have simply been brainwashed by republican
agitators. To Orangeism, the deployment of thousands of riot-clad
RUC officers to curfew, corral and confront nationalist
residents, is not the armed wing of unionism facilitating an
Orange agenda, it is simply a law and order issue. Through the
looking glass logic of the Orange Order, Orangemen insisting on
marching through nationalist areas, are not sectarian
supremacists intent on asserting their authority, they are decent
citizens exercising their democratic rights.
In the words of the `Tour of the North' organiser Billy Murdie,
responding to the Commission's decision to re route the parade,
``The rule of mob law has again succeeded with the threat of
Imported Republican `rent-a-mobs' by the bus load, coming into
North Belfast. Loyal citizens have been, as before, denied their
lawful right to walk on the roads of this province.''
Just a few hours earlier, three thirteen-year-old school girls
from North Belfast's Ardoyne were confronted by a loyalist mob as
they made their way to Our Lady of Mercy secondary school. Around
a dozen women, describing themselves as ``Orange women'' grabbed
the children by the arm and threatened ``If we can't walk down our
streets on Friday, youse can't walk down these streets.''
In last month's referenda, over 70% of people in the North and
over 90% in the South voted for change. Without doubt all of
those unionists who voted for the Good Friday Agreement were
voting for the future. ``They know that there is an honoured and
honourable place for unionism in the new Ireland,'' says Gerry
Adams, ``Tribal unionism and the No camp are against change but
they have to face up to the fact that change is coming.'' The Good
Friday document very specifically states that people have the
``right to freedom from sectarian harassment''. The British
government has the primary responsibility for ensuring this but
so also has David Trimble, says Adams. ``The Ulster Unionist Party
is inextricably linked to the Orange Order. David Trimble should
use his influence to persuade the Orange Order to talk to
nationalist residents and he should speak to his constituents on
the Garvaghy Road,'' says Adams.
Meanwhile the RUC have served court summonses on seven Garvaghy
Road residents, including the younger brother of Robert Hamill, a
Catholic murdered by a loyalist mob in Portadown last year.
Residents Coalition spokesperson Breandan MacCionnaith said that
after the Drumcree crisis of 1996 twenty residents were charged
by the RUC and all were subsequently acquitted apart from two
minor convictions. ``It now appears the RUC are intent on going
through the whole process yet again.'' The Hamill family, who are
currently taking a civil action against the RUC for dereliction
of duty, have been targeted for particular harassment. The case
arose after RUC officers failed to intervene when Robert Hamill
was beaten to death by loyalists. Martin Hamill is currently
facing three serious charges in connection with disturbances in
the aftermath of the Orange parade down Garvaghy Road. ``He will
be strenuously denying any crime,'' says his solicitor Rosemary
Nelson. Two weeks ago a key witness to the Hamill murder, was
singled out during a protest against an Orange march and shot
with a plastic bullet by the RUC.
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