Republican News · Thursday 15 August 2002

The Ardoyne double standard

BY FERN LANE

It is not clear exactly what principle was being defended between 8.30am and 8.45am on Saturday morning by the Parades Commission, the RUC, the British Army and, most importantly, the British government, as they conspired to ensure that the Ligoniel Walkers Club got to march, unwanted, through Ardoyne to the beat of a drum decorated with UVF insignia. They then climbed aboard a coach to take them to Derry where, as part of the Apprentice Boys' march and the celebration of centuries of anti-Catholicism, they could also enjoy the abuse of nationalists and the glorification of sectarian murder promoted by the UDA bands who were also there.

Whatever principle it was, it was a very expensive and certainly wasn't that everyone has the right to live free from sectarian harassment. Hundreds of RUC officers, hundreds more British Army soldiers and many dozens of armoured vehicles of various types invaded Ardoyne from the early hours of Saturday morning, effectively sealing off the area and containing its residents so that two dozen Orangemen could persuade themselves that they still enjoy some kind of supremacy.

Around 200 loyalists had made their way up to the junction of Twaddell Avenue to encourage the Walkers on their way, although some got confused as they tried to clap and cheer the marchers while simultaneously making obscene gestures to the nationalist residents of Ardoyne. The subsequent claim by Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan that the loyalists were pushed back into Twaddell Avenue was simply not true. They remained right at the top of the junction until they were ready to leave.

The fact was that there was no one there to push them back. Positioned in front of them were exactly six Scots Guards, while on the other side of the road in front of the Ardoyne shops, every space between the endless line of closely parked armoured Land Rovers was solidly packed with heavily armed soldiers and RUC/PSNI officers, some with dogs, in full riot gear, all facing the nationalist residents gathered to protest.

A Catholic teenager suffered a broken leg after he was batoned by a police officer.

Throughout the rest of Saturday, loyalists mounted attacks on the Alliance Avenue area of Ardoyne from positions in Glenbryn. The most serious came in the afternoon with two separate bursts of gunfire and a blast bomb. On Sunday afternoon, two small boys found a hoax device that had been dropped in the road towards the top end of Alliance Avenue.

Between 9.30pm on Monday evening and 1.30am the following morning, there were five shooting incidents and a blast bomb attack on Alliance Avenue.

Sinn Féin Councillor Margaret McClenaghan said that "the RUC, who were in a Land Rover not three feet away, heard and saw everything but did nothing. They didn't even get out of the vehicle. When the blast bomb went off, they just drove past and sat at bottom of the street.

"The whole attitude of the RUC on Monday night and last night has been very threatening and aggressive towards residents," she continued. Some 30 RUC officers in full riot gear threatened to remove by force residents who had gathered in Alliance Avenue to protect their homes from possible incursion by loyalists, 150 of whom had gathered at Glenbryn and stayed there throughout the night.