Though the IRA may have hung up the rifle, bloodshed in Norther Ireland is sadly far from over. This was painfully illustrated today when a protest gone awry left Belfast, once again, a city of violence. Rioters threw home-made petrol bombs and fired upon police after an Orange Order protest march turned ugly.
Bullets struck a number of armoured police cars, forcing officers to shelter behind them, while other rioters hijacked cars and set a bus alight. One civilians was also taken to hospital with a gunshot wound to the shoulder.
Officers responded to the attacks with water cannon and non-lethal plastic bullet rounds. Security forces also fired some live ammunition, a police source said.
The annual Whiterock parade is one of a series of processions held in Northern Ireland every year during the so-called "marching season" by members of the Protestant Orange Order.
The order, which takes its name from Protestant King William of Orange, who defeated James II's Catholics in Ireland in 1690, represents hardline opinion in the Northern Ireland's Protestant, or loyalist, community, which wants to keep British rule.
Marchers were angered by a decision by Northern Ireland's Parades Commission to reroute the Whiterock march to keep it out of areas dominated by Catholics, who generally favour a united Ireland.
The Orange Order called on Protestants to take to the streets to protest at the decision.
The Orange order has blamed foul tempered Catholics. The Catholics claim protestants sought them out. The reality is likely simpler, that idiot hotheads from each side hold a share in the blame for the days violence.
Catholic activists and marchers taunted each other as the march passed near the sectarian divide, before demonstrators clashed with police.
A spokesman for the Orange Order claimed nationalist Catholics attacked marchers in east and west Belfast, calling the police response "scandalous and pathetic".
But Chief Constable Orde said the decision to protest at the march being rerouted had directly caused the violence.
"They (Orange Order leaders) publicly called people onto the streets. I think if you do that you cannot abdicate responsibility. That is simply not good enough," he said.
A local councillor for Sinn Féin, Northern Ireland's biggest Catholic party, said the trouble was caused by 500 marchers who managed to evade police blockades and get into Catholic neighbourhoods.
In the hunt for silver lining, it seems that no one has yet died as a result of todays foolishness. That's not really the point, though, is it?
The mistaken pride of these people is unbelievable. The segregation that exists is a pool of petrol just waiting to be ignited by the continuos stupidy of needing to march up and down streets where normally you'd never go and that mean nothing in the real world, except of course... trouble!
4
Cash
USA
OLD SKOOL
SEP 10, 2005 02:51 PM
Why can't they march in their own neighborhoods and be happy with that? Does their march mean any less to them if they don't get to give the Catholics the middle finger?
The idea that the problems in the Six Counties would end when the IRA hung it up is nonsense, and always was. Personally I suspect they did it partly to embarrass the more rabid Unionists. Seems to be working.
Cash said:
Why can't they march in their own neighborhoods and be happy with that? Does their march mean any less to them if they don't get to give the Catholics the middle finger?
Exactly that. It was always about intimidation, so far as I can tell.
having a very good friend who lives in belfast, i think i understand the situation better than the average person. and what this all boils down to is the worst case of childishness ever seen in the world, and the desperate attempts to become The Most Oppressed People In The World Ever, Even More Oppressed Than Teenage Goths.
you will never see anyone accept responsibility for anything, it's always the other side's fault. and like children, they want to parade themselves to prove their superiority over the other side.
as for paisley saying the police were heavy handed etc, anywhere else in the world, such rioting would result in people being shot dead on sight. in NI, the police have strong instructions to only shoot if it's going to spread to other neighbourhoods, as the only thing that truly unites both sides of the community is blaming everything on the police, when they're not blaming it on each other.
imho, the situation will never be resolved, everyone concerned is far too involved trying not to let themselves be beaten down by the others (or what they perceive that as being) instead of geuninely finding an end to it all. they're the most childish people going and they bloody well deserve each other. it's just a pity that other people who don't give a shit about it all have to be caught up in the middle.
these riots are an attempt by some secions of the Unionist population to provoke catholics into violence so they can call for a re-militariastion of the north and end the peace process.
Akrasia said:
these riots are an attempt by some secions of the Unionist population to provoke catholics into violence so they can call for a re-militariastion of the north and end the peace process.
_Elichrusos
Australia
November 2004
SEP 10, 2005 02:19 PM