Irish Republican News · July 23, 2004

Kelly blames securocrats for Ardoyne riot

Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly has said it is time to “name and shame” pro-unionist elements in the British government’s civil service and the PSNI police who are actively working to undermine the peace process.

Mr Kelly has urged Dublin foreign minister Brian Cowan to make representations to the British government over the recent Orange march through Ardoyne, north Belfast.

On the 12th of July a determination of the Parades Commission was ignored by the PSNI, who forced a mob of unionist paramilitaries and Orange Order supporters through nationalist areas of north Belfast.

Local residents were penned in behind a steel wall amid a heavy deployment of the notorious British Parachute Regiment and the PSNI. The provocative and coat-trailing march resulted in riots, with Sinn Féin members intervening to defend some British troops who had became isolated.

Speaking in a recfent interview, Mr Kelly claimed that only these actions prevented a massacre on the scale of Bloody Sunday. He said the blame for the disorder rested with the British Government.

“Clearly, the British Secretary of State, Paul Murphy, is still listening to the securocrats who have been manipulating the system here for the last 30 years and indeed, many years before that. The securocrats are still operating to a pro-unionist, anti-nationalist agenda and are attempting to hold onto the old ways of the discredited Orange state.

“The NIO securocrats are a malign influence over this entire process. The process will not succeed if they are not reined in, because what we are talking about here is the same ethos, the same objectives and in many cases the same people who forced the Orange Order march down Garvaghy Road in 1997.”

He said the names of some of these individuals were in the public domain, and said they should be held to account.

“What we are dealing with is a pro-unionist element of people in the civil service and the Police Service of Northern Ireland actively running against the peace process.

“They have been there for considerable time; they fought against the policing reforms and human rights changes. Some of these are hidden faces. Maybe it is time they were named and shamed.”

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