By Anne Cadwallader
PORTADOWN, Co. Armagh — Violence flared for three consecutive nights close to Catholic homes on the Garvaghy Road last week with clashes between loyalist mobs and the RUC, as tension rises leading up to the Drumcree Orange parade.
Nationalists were also involved in stone-throwing attacks on loyalists. One 9-year-old bandsman was slightly cut in the face.
Nine RUC officers were injured and eight people were arrested during the three nights of violence. Stones, petrol bombs and fireworks were thrown at police in loyalist areas.
One RUC landrover was overturned and its occupants narrowly escaped serious injury as rioters swarmed over it. They backed off when a British Army vehicle approached. One elderly woman was struck by a RUC landrover.
Sections of wood studded with nails were thrown in the path of RUC vehicles in an effort to puncture tires and immobilize them. Locals also reported hearing a number of gunshots fired overnight.
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The violence does not bode well for next Saturday’s Junior Orangemen’s Parade along part of the Garvaghy Road — which the Parades Commission has allowed to proceed without any restrictions. Last year, violence broke out at this event.
The Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition said it was appalled at the Commission’s decision and is urgently seeking legal advice to ascertain if a court challenge can be mounted.
Last week’s violence followed crisis talks with members of the Parades Commission and the nationalist spokesman for Garvaghy Road residents, Breandan Mac Cionnaith, who demanded to know if the RUC intends enforcing guidelines on marches.
After talks in Belfast with members of the Commission, Mac Cionnaith said: "We have asked them to reassess their position. The Orange Order should admit their responsibility for the threats and the violence that are going on.
"People have to bear in mind that families along one stretch of the road have been subject to attacks, have been intimidated from their homes and have been the target of regular abuse from loyalists."
Residents raised with the commission the marchers’ non-compliance with conditions imposed on recent parades. They said a meeting has been requested with the Northern Ireland Security Minister, Adam Ingram, to discuss recent disturbances.
David Jones, spokesman for the Portadown Orangemen, said: "It shows that a law-breaker’s charter was brought in with the Parades Commission and now Breandán Mac Cionnaith is using this charter to his own ends."
In a separate development, the UDA is being blamed for two attacks on nationalist targets last Thursday and Friday nights. In the first, four people were treated for minor injuries after being caught in a bomb blast in west Belfast.
The device exploded at 12:25 a.m. at the junction of Broadway and Falls Road after a security guard barred the loyalist bomber’s path into the Red Devils bar, named after the Manchester United supporters club.
Windows in the Red Devils bar and the nearby Caffreys Bar were smashed and three people were taken to hospital with shrapnel injuries from flying glass and fragments of the bomb.
In the second attack, loyalists shot at a Catholic cross-community worker on the Shankill Road. He was dropping a 14-year-old Protestant girl off at her home after a horse-riding event for young people of both communities. One shot hit the man’s car, while six others hit a bar, narrowly missing people inside.
Also, Alex Attwood of the SDLP said there was a general belief among nationalists that the UDA cease-fire has been broken more than once. Individuals or elements in mainstream loyalist groups, supposedly on cease-fire, are involved in some attacks, at the minimum, he said, asking for a British government response. There has been an average of one loyalist attack every four days since the beginning of 1999.
However, early this week Gary McMichael, a leader of the UDA-linked Ulster Democratic Party, denied that the group had ended its cease-fire.
May 26-June 1, 1999