February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The IPEC, which provides observers on request to residents’ groups at contentious parades in Northern Ireland, held a press conference in Belfast on Monday to publish the conclusions of their summer of 2002 report.
The photographs show Orange marchers and supporters actually carrying loyalist regalia, or parading in close proximity to UVF, UDA and LVF regalia in East, North and West Belfast, where MP Nigel Dodds of the DUP and the Orange Order’s grand master, Robert Saulters, led the parade.
The report also described loyalist attacks against nationalist homes in Ardoyne and the shouting loyalist slogans at Catholics in the same area on July 12.
The IPEC report calls into question the massive military and police shows of force to get parades through nationalist neighborhoods where they are unwanted.
The report shows this results in annoyance and inconvenience to local nationalists and, in effect, limits their ability to protest against the parades in their own areas.
The report also criticizes British, Irish and international media organizations for the way they report parades and protests against them. In particular, it draws attention to the July 12th parade in Ardoyne.
Here, the report finds, the press unhesitatingly carried uncorroborated police claims that republicans were being “bussed” into the area to stage protests, although there was no evidence to back the accounts up.
It also covers the police claim that large metal spiked devices had been stockpiled by nationalists on top of shop roofs along the march route for the purpose of attacking Orangemen.
In fact an IPEC member had herself filmed British soldiers examining the spikes earlier that morning where they had been in situ, for some years, as a security device to prevent thieves breaking through flat roofs.
“The papers presented the police story without speaking to the community. Their depiction of the situation — that republicans were bussing in people to riot and that weapons were being stockpiled — did not appear to be accurate and yet was widely reported” said IPEC member Dorothy Bukantz.
On the issue of closed-circuit television cameras located in several flashpoint areas, the IPEC report found local people were concerned and inclined to resist them to the point of trying to destroy them.
This was because the police did not place the cameras on community Protestant-Catholic interfaces but instead chose to put them within the nationalist community.
This led local people to believe the cameras were intended for surveillance only and not for protection. Over a number of incidents, where loyalists have attacked, the police have said the cameras were not working.
“This has led local people to conclude that the cameras are not effective for their protection,” Bukantz said. “We watched as police showed more concern with protecting cameras instead of the community they are intended to serve.”