Ahead of Saturday's controversial Suffolk parade international observers have released a report denouncing the continued loyalist paramilitary presence at 2004 Orange parades.
In the report, released yesterday (Wednesday), the US-based Brehon Law Society and the Irish Parades Emergency Committee (IPEC) found fault on the part of the PSNI and the Parades Commission for failing to enforce determinations, and on the part of organisers for carrying out "systematic violations" of parade regulations.
Entitled Law and Lawlessness: Orange Parades in Northern Ireland, the report is the fourth to be issued by the international observers.
Systematic violations described in the report include:
- A sash-wearing Orangeman at last year's July 12 march through Ardoyne waving a Ulster Defence Association (UDA) bannerette.
- William Borland, a leading member of the UDA, and hundreds of other rowdy hangers-on marching through Ardoyne on July 12 for the second year in a row, escorted by as many as 1,500 police and soldiers in riot gear.
- Displays of unfurled Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) flags and emblems at several parades past the Short Strand neighbourhood in June and July 2004.
- Displays of furled UVF flags at the Whiterock parade through the Springfield Road community on June 26, 2004.
Loyalist paramilitary displays have been repeatedly documented at contested parades in Ardoyne, Springfield Road and Short Strand for the past several years.
Members of the 2004 Brehon and IPEC delegation, which included observers from the US, Italy and France, criticised the "hypocrisy" of mainstream unionists and Orangemen for participating in the North and West Belfast Parades Forum while refusing to serve in government with Sinn Féin.
The observer report also faulted the massive military and police deployments throughout Belfast in June and July, particularly the decision to deploy a paratrooper unit inside Ardoyne on July 12, 2004.
This deployment, said the report, "reflected either gross negligence or an intention to trigger violent confrontation".
Spokesperson for the Brehon Law Society, Sean Cahill, commented: "We are disappointed that the Orange Order, the Parades Commission, and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) failed to prevent the promotion of loyalist paramilitaries in parades through communities that have borne the brunt of their sectarian attacks."
Another international observer, Stephen McCabe, explained: "We have been observing contested Orange marches since 1996. While we have seen many improvements in policing and regulation of contested parades, such as in Derry, Portadown and Belfast's Lower Ormeau Road, we are saddened that the policing of other parades in Belfast seems to be going from bad to worse.
"Security forces should not be forcing loyalist paramilitary leaders through Catholic neighbourhoods.
"If an Orangeman waves an Ulster Defence Association bannerette, as one did last summer in Ardoyne, there should be consequences."
IPEC was formed in 1997 as an independent human rights monitoring organisation in response to the increasing violence surrounding Orange and other loyal order parades in nationalist communities around the North of Ireland.
