International observers denounce “pervasive” loyalist paramilitary presence at 2003 Orange Order parades

The Irish Parades Emergency Committee (IPEC) was formed in 1997 as an independent human rights monitoring organization in response to the increasing violence surrounding Orange Order parades in nationalist neighborhoods of Northern Ireland. The committee has, for the past seven years, trained and coordinated international observers to serve as independent witnesses. IPEC is based in New York City but observer teams have included people from England, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Guatemala, and the Republic of Ireland as well as the United States.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ipec@ipecobservers.org

New York City – On the eve of the 2004 Orange marching season in Northern Ireland, two U.S.-based international observer groups blasted what they described as the “pervasive” presence of loyalist paramilitaries at several contested Orange Order parades in June and July 2003.

Marching and Disorder, the report on last year’s marching season released today by the Irish Parades Emergency Committee and the Brehon Law Society, provides photographic evidence that the North Belfast commander of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) marched at the front of the July 12th, 2003 Orange parade through Ardoyne. The report also documents the promotion of loyalist paramilitaries at other parades and the impact of intense militarization and sectarian violence on communities.

Marching and Disorder is now available at www.ipecobservers.org

Copies of the report are being provided to key members of the U.S., British and Irish governments, as well as to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Parades Commission, the Police Ombudsman, and political parties.

William John Borland^*) and other supporters of the UDA led off the evening march in Ardoyne, many chanting “U-F-F!”—the initials of the Ulster Freedom Fighters, a cover name for the UDA. (Videotapes and photographs are available upon request.)

British soldiers and police in riot gear escorted Borland and his supporters through the nationalist, mostly Catholic community, which had been sealed off and shut down for several hours in anticipation of the march. These UFF supporters also sang the Sash, a song proscribed by Parades Commission guidelines for marches through nationalist/Catholic areas due to its sectarian nature.

Marching and Disorder also documents the promotion of outlawed loyalist paramilitary groups by bands and Orangemen marching in parades in Springfield Road, Short Strand, and elsewhere in Belfast.

“Last July 12th, hundreds of British soldiers and police in riot gear escorted the head of the North Belfast UDA through Ardoyne, with the help of dogs, water cannons and machine guns, past hundreds of residents who had been under military lockdown for hours,” said Sean Cahill, a spokesperson for the international observers who has traveled to the north every summer since 1996 as a human rights observer.

“This is deeply disturbing, particularly because in the days and weeks leading up to the two marches through Ardoyne on July 12th, loyalist paramilitaries made repeated death threats against Catholics and against individual residents of Ardoyne. The British security forces’ actions last July 12th certainly violated the Good Friday Agreement’s promise of freedom from sectarian harassment.”

For the eighth year in a row, Irish Parades Emergency Committee and Brehon Law Society observers will again observe contested Orange marches in Northern Ireland this summer. A report on the 2002 marching season, Parading Paramilitarism, also documents paramilitary participation in Orange marches through nationalist communities.

“Loyalist paramilitary presence was pervasive at several parades last summer in Short Strand, Ardoyne and Springfield Road,” Cahill said. “This violates Parades Commission guidelines, public order legislation, and both the spirit and letter of the Good Friday Agreement.”

“The impact of intense militarization in order to facilitate Orange Order parades has an incalculable negative effect on the residents of these communities,” Cahill said. “Such deployments disrupt the life of the community—in Ardoyne people were unable to attend Mass, shops were closed, and movement was restricted. A 12-foot-high mobile wall erected on the back of army trucks through a large stretch of Ardoyne effectively silenced any attempted nonviolent protest by nationalist residents against the sectarian and paramilitary march through their neighborhood,” Cahill continued.

“Such massive military and police deployments reinforce the belief that an abnormally large and intimidating military and police presence is needed to protect the parade participants from their nationalist neighbors,” Cahill concluded. “The use of excessive military force stigmatizes the nationalist community. Both the unionist and nationalist communities are pushed further away from dialogue and mediation and the consensus needed if there is to be demilitarization of society as a whole.”

^*) Borland, who was convicted and served time in jail for his role in a UDA extortion plot, was publicly revealed to be the leader of the North Belfast UDA in September 2003. See Ciaran McGuigan, “Brigadier Bonzer Exposed,” Sunday Life, September 7, 2003. Andre Shoukri is said to have regained control of the group after his release from prison in March 2004. See Joe Oliver, “Shoukri is seeing psychics,” The People, June 6, 2004.

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