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CNN Sunday Morning

Orange Order Marchers At Stand-Off Before March in Drumcree

Aired July 08, 2001 - 08:09   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Riot handed troops or riot hardened troops, rather, are on the streets of Northern Ireland as thousands of Protestants begin their annual march of the Orange Order. Police barricades are in place, an effort to hold down the violence that usually erupts. CNN's Fionnula Sweeney is in Drumcree and joins us now for this update -- hi, Fionnula.

FIONNUALA SWEENEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, the Orange Order have been marching as part of their march, annual marching season throughout Northern Ireland for several weeks now. But this parade, the Drumcree parade where we are, some 20 miles outside Belfast, is perhaps the most contentious parade of them all.

Every year there has been a stand-off for the past several years between the Catholic nationalist Garbaghy Road residents, who live some distance this way by the Orange Order paraders, who you may be able to see behind me. They are trying to march down, as they have tried to do in previous years, down the nationalist Garbaghy Road. This has been protested by the Catholic residents, who object to that march, saying it is triumphalist and sectarian.

So what you're seeing now is the Orange Order having come out of Sunday service at the Church of Ireland, the church behind you there, prevented from marching down past this road past where we're standing by a huge green, steel barrier which has been erected by the police and army. They have been here in huge numbers over the last couple of days trying to prevent any trouble, such as trouble which has arisen over the last number of years.

Now, this stand-off you're seeing here could continue for some time. It's been underway now for about 40 minutes and it really all depends on what the Orange Order paraders decide to do. They're expected to hand in a letter of protest to the parades commission, who have banned them from marching down the Garbaghy Road. But it really now all depends on whether they choose to remain there and for how long they choose to do so and whether they may disperse.

This is all very important, of course, because Northern Ireland is particularly tense at the moment because the first minister, David Trimble, who's the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, resigned a week ago in protest at the IRA's refusal to disarm its weapons, as he sees it, under the Good Friday agreement. Political talks beginning with the British and Irish prime ministers in England on Monday in a hope to solve this political impasse, which really has the Good Friday agreement under serious political threat -- Kyra?

PHILLIPS: All right, Fionnuala Sweeney in Drumcree, thank you so much.

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