Nationalist
youth across the Six Counties fought street battles
against both the British Army and the Police Service
of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in response to the Loyalist
summer marching season. Sinn Fein was forced into
policing its own community. The peace process was
already in crisis because of the refusal of Unionism
to share devolved power with nationalists. In June
Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party,
stated that the days of the Belfast Agreement
are over. Now the refusal of nationalists to
have their rights trampled on by loyalist bigots threatens
to destabilise the fragile political process completely.
Prime Minister Tony Blair has had to admit that the
British government may now have to look for a solution
beyond the Good Friday Agreement.
On
12 July over 100,000 Orangemen, women and children
marched across the north of Ireland. Trouble flared
in the nationalist Ardoyne when, despite a Parades
Commission ruling that only the Orange Orders could
march past nationalist shops, hundreds of loyalist
supporters were permitted to walk up the road singing
the Orange anthem, protected by 2,000 British soldiers.
Barricaded behind steel fences, nationalists turned
on riot police with bottles, rocks, bricks and trees
uprooted from gardens. Tensions run high in this
area of Belfast where loyalist death squads have
carried out hundreds of terror attacks against Catholics.
North Belfast is also the area where three years
ago loyalist mobs besieged the Catholic Holy Cross
School terrorising children on their way to school.
The
British army and PSNI used water cannon to disperse
the nationalist protests, which continued for hours.
One local man suffered a heart attack and died at
the scene. The ambulance had been prevented from
going beyond the PSNI lines.
Local
Sinn Fein representatives attempted to prevent conflict.
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams explained his partys
role by saying: Despite the efforts of republican
and nationalist stewards, the deep-rooted anger
which
had been building for sometime within republicanism
and nationalism, exploded. In one incident
senior Republicans intervened to save 15 British
soldiers from a group of nationalist youth using
baseball bats and bricks. The PSNI stated that 25
police officers received injuries, as did British
soldiers. Many more local residents were rushed
from the scene covered in blood, the result of PSNI/
British Army baton round attacks. Sinn Feins
Gerry Kelly suffered a broken wrist from a baton
attack as he attempted to restore order.
Vested
in the Good Friday Agreement are the hopes of the
middle class who seek an impartial police force
to govern a normalised Six Counties. However impartiality
is not an option for the rebadged RUC, the PSNI,
whose role is to defend British imperialist interests
in the north of Ireland. This means defending the
rights of the Unionists and hence the subjugation
of the Catholic community. It is this supremacist
tradition that the Orange marches represent.
The
Republican Movement has been manoeuvred into a position
of political weakness, resulting in several acts
of decommissioning by the IRA. This process of demilitarisation,
enshrined within the Good Friday Agreement, is supposed
to work in tandem with the political process
and the withdrawal of British troops. Yet British
troop levels have remained static since January
2002 at 13,500 soldiers. This compares to 8,500
deployed in the occupation of Iraq. Britain maintains
a greater military presence in Ireland than in Afghanistan,
Bosnia, Gibraltar, Kosovo and Iraq combined. According
to the British Ministry of Defence there will
always be a British military garrison in Northern
Ireland even if so-called normalisation
is achieved.
In
reaching out to a progressive side of
Unionism, Sinn Fein risks alienating its support
base within the nationalist working class. Leading
up to the marching season, the Sinn Fein newspaper
AP/RN (8 July 2004) suggested that dialogue,
respect and accommodation are challenges facing
the Orange Order today. The Unionist response
came almost immediately on the streets of Springfield
and Ardoyne. In Lisburn council, Unionists for the
second year running voted themselves on to all the
key chair 2 vice-chair committee posts.
On
13 July nationalist youths responded to another
loyalist march in Lurgan by attacking the police
station with petrol bombs and bricks. The British
army also came under attack.
The
mass street protests nationalists are a legitimate
expression of anger and frustration at the lack
of any political progress. The recent election of
two Sinn Fein members to the European Parliament
will change nothing. While loyalist attacks continue
and nationalists rights are trampled on, resistance
from the nationalist youth is inevitable. Sinn Fein
is boycotting the police boards, but it might just
as well be them given the role it played assisting
the British military in calming the
Ardoyne protest. On 13 July, Ardoyne residents vented
their frustration at the role played by Republican
leaders, including Adams and Kelly, in a meeting
AP/RN described as frank and occasionally
heated.
With
the Republican Movement increasingly depend upon
a political process that discriminates against nationalists,
such tension and the emergence of new forces of
resistance are inevitable. The street battles in
Ardoyne may be the beginning of such a trend with
nationalist working class sick of bigotry and discrimination.
For
more information on the RCG and FRFI visit the website
www.revolutionarycommunist.com