Polis di Belfast melepaskan
tembakan meriam air pada belia Katolik, rusuhan meletus selepas perarakan
Protestan. Remaja membaling batu bata dan bola snuker pada pihak berkuasa,
manakala beberapa penunjuk perasaan merampas dan membakar kereta berdekatan.
Penunjuk perasaan membaling koktel Molotov pada polis, yang bertindak balas
dengan melepaskan tembakan peluru plastik. 9 pegawai pihak berkuasa cedera dan 2
rioters telah ditangkap semasa pertempuran. Rusuhan telah tercetus oleh
perbarisan yang berlaku setiap tahun pada 12 Julai. Dihoskan oleh Orange Order
Brotherhood - kumpulan Protestan pro-British - perarakan untuk memperingati
kemenangan tentera ke atas kuasa Katolik abad ke-17. Walau bagaimanapun,
perbarisan itu dilihat sebagai paparan keunggulan Protestan oleh nasionalis
Ireland yang mahu menjadi sebahagian daripada Ireland bersatu. Polis cuba untuk
mengelakkan keganasan yang tidak dapat dielakkan antara kedua-dua kumpulan
agama dengan memberi peserta jadual dan laluan tertentu. Walau bagaimanapun,
usaha-usaha terbukti sia-sia apabila perarakan melalui daerah bandar Katolik.
Masalahnya bermula selepas 15
ahli Perintah Orange berjalan dalam senyap melepasi deretan kedai-kedai di
kawasan yang sebahagian besarnya nasionalis. Sekumpulan kecil penduduk Katolik
berdiri di atas kedua-dua belah jalan yang memegang sepanduk yang berkata,
"hak-hak Penduduk dipijak". Tidak lama lagi, bilangan penganut
Katolik marah di jalan melambung kepada lebih daripada 1,000 orang. Dalam usaha
untuk meredakan ketegangan, polis membenarkan penduduk Katolik untuk mengadakan
perarakan mereka sendiri - walaupun ia akan lulus berbahaya dekat dengan orang
ramai terhadap orang Protestan. Ia segera bertukar menjadi standoff antara
kedua-dua kumpulan, dengan kedua-dua belah pihak berdagang penderaan lisan
antara satu sama lain. Katolik dilambung botol dan batu-batu di Protestan, yang
kemudiannya membalas. Bola golf dan papan kayu telah digunakan sebagai senjata
sementara, dan dicampakkan ke atas kepala polis rusuhan. Pihak berkuasa
kemudian tepu kawasan tersebut, menghalang kedua-dua belah pihak daripada
mendapat rapat antara satu sama lain.
Nasionalis ini hanya terus
menimbulkan kemarahan, yang memutuskan untuk berhadapan dengan polis. Katolik
menimbulkan pegawai di jalan dan mereka memecahkan kereta BMW yang berada di situ.
Isu-isu mazhab Ireland Utara unarguably kompleks, tetapi tidak semua orang
percaya Katolik Ireland adalah punca masalah ini. Gerry Adams, pemimpin nasionalis
Ireland parti Sinn Fein, berkata masalah itu adalah keengganan Orangemens
'untuk berunding secara terus dengan kumpulan anti-Orange dari kawasan
kejiranan Katolik. "Orange (Perintah) harus mempunyai hari-hari mereka,
tetapi orang-orang dalam masyarakat tuan rumah mempunyai hak untuk berbincang
dengan," Adams memberitahu AP.
Pengkritik berkata perarakan
tahunan nampaknya sia-sia, sejak kerajaan Ireland Utara kebanyakannya diketuai
oleh Orangemen dan Sinn Fein, yang bercakap dan bekerja bersama-sama, walaupun
terdapat perbezaan pendapat yang serius. Belfast telah dibelenggu oleh 3 dekad
keganasan antara penyokong setia Protestan yang ingin Ireland Utara kekal
sebahagian daripada United Kingdom dan Ireland nasionalis terutamanya Katolik -
yang mahu menjadi sebahagian daripada Ireland bersatu. Satu perjanjian damai
1998 yang membawa kepada sebuah kerajaan perkongsian kuasa kedua-dua penyokong
setia dan nasionalis. Walaupun keganasan telah reda, polis mengatakan ancaman
daripada kumpulan-kumpulan yang menentang perjanjian itu kini lebih tinggi
berbanding pada bila-bila masa kerana ia telah ditandatangani.
Police in Belfast fired water
cannon at Catholic youths, after rioting erupted following a Protestant march.
Teens threw bricks and snooker balls at officers, while several protesters hijacked
and burned nearby cars. Demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails at police, who
responded by firing plastic bullets. Nine officers were wounded and two rioters
were arrested during the clashes. The
riot was sparked by a parade which takes place every year on July 12. Hosted by
the Orange Order Brotherhood – a group of pro-British Protestants – the march
is to commemorate a 17th-century military victory over Catholic forces. However,
the parade is seen as a display of Protestant superiority by Irish nationalists
who want to be part of a united Ireland. Police tried to avoid the inevitable
violence between the two religious groups by giving participants a timetable
and specified route. However, the efforts proved futile when the march passed
through a Catholic district of the city.
The trouble began after 15
members of the Orange Order walked in silence past a row of shops in a largely
nationalist area. A small group of Catholic residents stood on either side of
the road holding banners which said, “Residents’ rights are being trampled”. Soon,
the number of angry Catholics on the street swelled to more than 1,000 people. In a bid to defuse tensions, police allowed
Catholic residents to stage their own march – even though it would pass
dangerously close to the crowd of Protestants. It quickly turned into a
standoff between the two groups, with both sides trading verbal abuse with one
another. Catholics tossed bottles and stones at Protestants, who then
retaliated. Golf balls and planks of wood were used as makeshift weapons, and
thrown over the heads of riot police. Officers then saturated the area,
preventing the two sides from getting close to each other.
Critics say the annual
march seems pointless, since Northern Ireland’s government is led mostly by
Orangemen and Sinn Fein, who talk and work together, despite serious
differences of opinion. Belfast has been plagued by three decades of violence
between Protestant loyalists who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the
United Kingdom and Irish nationalists – mainly Catholics – who want it to be
part of a united Ireland. A 1998 peace agreement led to a power-sharing
government of both loyalists and nationalists. Although violence has subsided,
police say the threat from groups opposed to the deal is now higher than at any
time since it was signed.
'Aware Yourself 2012' Signs Of the End Of the
WORLD . . .
UK News ‘Belfast Catholics
riot after token Orange march’
BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP)
- Irish Catholic militants attacked riot police Thursday in a divided corner of
Belfast as the most polarizing day on Northern Ireland's calendar reached a
typically ugly end - and yet managed, amid the smoke and chaos, to take a few
tentative steps toward compromise.
Many hours of violence in the
hardline Catholic Ardoyne district marked the fourth straight year that the
area has descended into anarchy following the annual passage of Protestant
marchers from the Orange Order brotherhood.
Massive Orange parades across
Northern Ireland each July 12 - an official holiday that commemorates the
Protestant side's victory in 17th-century religious warfare - often stoke
conflict with Catholics, who despise the annual marches as a Protestant show of
superiority.
But in recent years, as British
authorities have restricted the Protestants' march routes, a drab stretch of
road that passes a row of Ardoyne shops has become the focal point for
province-wide animosity. There, the decades-old battle for supremacy between
the British Protestant majority and Irish Catholic minority wages a yearly test
of wills, with heavily armored police stuck in the middle.
A British government-appointed
Parades Commission sought to defuse the Ardoyne conflict this year by ordering
the Orangemen to march along Crumlin Road by 4 p.m. local time, three hours
sooner than normal. Protestant leaders grudgingly accepted the deadline rather
than mount a later standoff, and all sides agreed this gesture kept a bad
situation from turning even worse.
The Parades Commission and
police also permitted Ardoyne residents for the first time to stage their own
march on the road a few hours later in a bid to balance competing rights.
Protracted violence by masked Ardoyne youths followed that second gesture.
As the rioting headed toward
midnight, police said nine officers had been wounded and two rioters arrested.
They said rioters had hijacked and burned three cars and were tossing
occasional Molotov cocktails at police lines. Officers responded by firing a
half-dozen plastic bullets, blunt-nosed cylinders designed to knock down the
target without penetrating the skin.
The sectarian showdown on
Crumlin Road demonstrated how, despite a two-decade peace process and five
years of a joint Catholic-Protestant government, Northern Ireland at
grass-roots level still faces a long, uncertain journey to achieve
reconciliation.
Indeed, Protestant officials of
the unity government took part in the Orange parade, while some of their
Catholic counterparts stood with the Ardoyne protesters. And yet both sides'
leaders said the dispute would do nothing to derail their continued cooperation
the rest of the year.
Orangemen, unable to reach
Ardoyne on foot by the Parades Commission's 4 p.m. deadline, considered
standing their ground with police in a bid to force their march through in the
evening. Their leaders insisted they had to defend their right to freedom of
assembly, fearing that once banned from a particular stretch of road they would
never be permitted to return.
But aware that a standoff would
inevitably end in violent clashes between Protestants and police, Orange
leaders decided to observe the deadline and compromise - while still
maintaining a symbolic claim to the road.
They sent a token group of two
dozen members by bus to march along that short stretch of road past the Ardoyne
shops. Police girded in flame-retardant boiler suits, helmets, shatter-proof
visors and shields flanked the tiny Orange procession as several hundred
Protestants, many waving Union Jacks, cheered the scene from one side of the
thoroughfare.
On the other side, masked
Catholic youths were already stockpiling makeshift weapons for the night's
fight ahead. Denied a decent Orange provocation, the Irish side appeared
hell-bent on confronting the police regardless.
Several youths smashed their
way into a parked silver BMW, pushed it toward police lines and set it on fire.
A police armored car rammed the vehicle into a sidewalk, then a mobile water
cannon doused the flames and turned its jets on the growing crowd of rioters.
Soon the Ardoyne crowd, fueled
by militants from other hardline Catholic parts of Belfast, swelled to more
than 1,000 on two narrow side streets. In a bid to defuse the tensions, police
permitted the Catholic Ardoyne residents to stage their own march on Crumlin
Road - even though the unruly procession passed dangerously close to an angry
crowd of a few hundred Protestants. The Catholics bore a banner at the front
that read "Ardoyne residents have rights too."
Both sides traded vulgar verbal
abuse. Masked, hooded youths within the much larger Catholic group tossed
bottles and stones at the Protestants, who retaliated in kind. Soon salvos of
bricks, golf balls and even planks of wood were flying back and forth over the
helmeted heads of the police, who saturated the area to ensure that the two
sides could not get within punching distance of the other.
Before the confrontation, Gerry
Adams, leader of the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party, said the crux of the
problem was the Orangemen's longstanding refusal to negotiate directly with
anti-Orange groups from Catholic districts.
"The Orange (Order) should
have their day, but the people in the host community have a right to be talked
to," Adams said. Commentators agree that the Orange Order's boycott on
direct contact with the enemy appears anachronistic given that Northern
Ireland's government is led chiefly by Orangemen and Sinn Fein, who do talk and
work together.
But the Ardoyne conflict also
defies easy resolution because of the tight confines of Belfast geography. The
starting point and final destination for the local Orangemen marching Thursday
was their lodge, and Crumlin Road is the only direct link between it and the
day's main Orange parade. That means any Orange march in the area must pass the
Ardoyne shops.
Online: Orange Order, http://bit.ly/reQKqQ
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