Northern Ireland: turning the corner?
Jim Kingdon
season, even if it took the deaths of 3 non-combattants to do it. The
Ormeau Road march went through and the Drumcree protest is fizzling
(with many Orange types calling for an end to it). In both cases the
decision of the Parades Commission was upheld (one decision in favor
of an Orange march through a Catholic neighborhood, one against).
A few sources:
http://www.independent.co.uk/ - good paper out of London
http://www.irish-times.com/ - has been covering Northern Ireland situation
http://www.hrw.org/hrw/campaigns/nireland98/ - Human Rights Watch page
on the Marching Season.
http://www55.pair.com/iowc/ - Orange Watch
Also focused on the Marching Season.
You can find the full text of the Parades Commission decisions,
various reports from people involved, and more.
r...@greenend.org.uk
> Well, it seems like Northern Ireland has made it through parade
> season, even if it took the deaths of 3 non-combattants to do it.
The Irish Sunday Independent[1] reports all sorts of rumours flying
around about that firebombing and the motives behind it. Obviously
it's impossible to tell at the moment whether those rumours are based
in fact or are just spin.
[1] which I don't usually read; I bought a paper this evening
without looking too closely at what it was!
> The Ormeau Road march went through and the Drumcree protest is
> fizzling (with many Orange types calling for an end to it). In both
> cases the decision of the Parades Commission was upheld (one
> decision in favor of an Orange march through a Catholic
> neighborhood, one against).
I think there's going to be quite a few unhappy unionists around for a
while yet, especially if there's no progress on decomissioning
weapons. From a certain point of view, everything in the last few
months has massively favoured the nationalists, and the people that
hold that point of view are going to be feeling pretty isolated right
now.
From my (outside!) point of view, things look pretty optimistic. But
it'd be wrong to believe everybody there is pulling in the same
direction.
Jim Kingdon
> it. Obviously it's impossible to tell at the moment whether those
> rumours are based in fact or are just spin.
Well, there are a lot of people with an ideology or an agenda, so I
would expect some pretty whacked out theories to float around about
how various people staged the thing for motive <x> or motive <y>, but
the most obvious explanation seems like the most likely to me - that
it was just like so many other firebombings that we've seen during
this parade season, because the victims are not ethnically pure enough
for the perpetrators. Just as in Bosnia, those who intermarried
between faiths often have the toughest time.
And lest it seem like I'm just picking on the unionists, if memory
serves there have been some bombs discovered lately, apparently in the
hands of splinter nationalist groups. There are extremists on both
sides who would like to try to derail this thing (as with any peace
settlement).
> I think there's going to be quite a few unhappy unionists around for a
> while yet, especially if there's no progress on decomissioning
> weapons.
Oh, yes. There are definitely plenty of tough issues coming up
(decomissioning is one of the most obvious, but whether the assembly
can actually govern in any reasonable manner given a structure which
makes paralysis very easy is another). I'm hoping that a corner has
been turned, but even if that is so it doesn't mean that things will
be easy now.