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April 29, 2008

Garvaghy & Lower Ormeau Press Release

Lower Ormeau Concerned Community
97, Balfour Avenue
Belfast
County Antrim, Ireland

Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition
3, Ashgrove Road
Portadown
County Armagh, Ireland

PRESS RELEASE

As the Strategic Review Body on Parading formally launches its consultative report, two key
residents’ groups - the Lower Ormeau Concerned Community in Belfast and the Garvaghy Road
Residents Coalition in Portadown – whose communities were at the very heart of the turmoil
and conflict over contentious marches in the 1990’s have jointly published their views and
concerns.

In summary, these two key residents’ associations state that they believe the Report to be
unnecessary and largely unhelpful.

They are concerned that the Strategic Review Body’s recommendations will politicise, rather
than de-politicise, the marching issue.

The Review Body itself has linked the marching issue to outstanding and unresolved political
matters. It links the marching issue to locally elected political institutions, including
local councils – a number of which have proven track records of discrimination.

The two residents’ bodies say the Review Body has opened a doorway for those who wish to
turn the marching issue into a major political football - where political expediency will
take precedence over valid human rights concerns.

Both LOCC and GRRC do not believe that this Report has brought forward any suitable or
viable alternative to the concept of an independent Parades Commission.

Instead, they see only potential for political interference and manipulation within each of
the various strands of bureaucracy it proposes and they fear that the majority of proposals
will lead to a pre-1998 situation, re-ignite past tensions and create future inter-communal
unrest during the “marching season”.

For further information contact:

LOCC - Gerard Rice - 028 90 312377 or 077 422 839 06
(grice@lorag.org)

OR

GRRC - Breandán Mac Cionnaith – 078 178 685 91
(breandanmac@hotmail.co.uk)

Since the 1990s, both the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition and the Lower Ormeau
Concerned Community have campaigned for change in the way contentious marches are
governed.

It is our view that the creation of the Strategic Review Body on Parading was not motivated
by any genuine desire to improve the effectiveness of the Parades Commission or current
processes for dealing with contentious parades. Instead, its genesis in 2006 was as a
political concession to unionist parties opposed to any restrictions on the relatively small
number of contentious loyal order marches.

We are very mindful of the injustices inflicted upon our communities as a result of parades,
particularly during the 1990s.

All that our communities had sought was the re-routing of a small number of contentious
marches. We had argued for the right to live in peace without the deep sense of fear,
outrage and humiliation that consistently marked these sectarian parades through our
neighbourhoods.

Instead, due to political expediency, unwanted sectarian marches were imposed upon our
communities through the use of threats and violence by unionism and force from both the
police and the British Army. The indiscriminate use of plastic bullets, brutal assaults upon
residents, illegal curfews and massive restrictions on the movement of people within our
communities were a harsh reality.

We welcomed the Independent Review on Parades and Marches (the North Review) established
in 1996 in response to events in Portadown and the Ormeau Road. We expressed some
scepticism about the need for a Parades Commission. It was our belief that Government was
abdicating its responsibility to protect minority communities from fear and the threat of
violence.

Nevertheless, in our view, the Parades Commission concept did succeed in introducing a
degree of autonomy into decisions about contentious parades that was noticeably absent when
such decisions were previously taken by the police, politicians or the courts. While we
have not agreed with all determinations on contentious marches, there is no doubt that the
first and second Parades Commissions did eventually succeed in changing the climate around
such contentious marches.

Since the start of this millennium, the re-routing of sectarian marches away from the
Garvaghy and Ormeau Roads by the Commission has meant that our communities – and the wider
community – have enjoyed successive peaceful summers.

The clouds of fear, tension and violence, and the physical sieges of our two communities
that accompanied those sectarian marches, have also disappeared. Residents in our
neighbourhoods now enjoy family and community life in relative peace and tranquillity.

It is against this background that we believe this present Report to be unnecessary and
largely unhelpful.

We are concerned that the Strategic Review Body’s recommendations will politicise, rather
than de-politicise, the marching issue.

The Review Body itself has linked the marching issue to outstanding and unresolved political
matters.

It links the marching issue to locally elected political institutions, including local
councils – a number of which have proven track records of discrimination.

By making these linkages, the Review Body has opened a doorway for those who wish to turn
the marching issue into a major political football - where political expediency will take
precedence over valid human rights concerns.

There is also concern at the Review Body’s attempt to downgrade “the right to freedom from
sectarian harassment”.

We do not believe that this Report has brought forward any suitable or viable alternative to
the concept of an independent Parades Commission.

Instead, we see only potential for political interference and manipulation within each of
the various strands of bureaucracy it proposes.

We fear that the majority of proposals will lead to a pre-1998 situation, re-ignite past
tensions and create future inter-communal unrest during the “marching season”.

As for the current Parades Commission (which is the third such body), it is obvious that
political manipulation lies at the core of its present difficulties. The corruption by Peter
Hain and the NIO of the appointments process led to a two-year legal battle which culminated
in the House of Lords earlier this year upholding the residents’ case that those
appointments were indeed biased and unlawful.

Questions still remain over the integrity of this Commission’s own internal processes which
for two years failed to recognise or properly handle the resultant major conflicts of
interests.

Leaving those facts aside, we wish to make it clear that we fully support the concept of a
Parades Commission – but it must be a Commission which is completely independent and free
from political interference at all levels, commencing with the appointments process itself;
one that is open and transparent in its dealings with everyone; and one which does not
second its staff from government departments, including the NIO.

Obviously, this Review did not start from the same premise of seeking to enhance the
Commission’s independence, to free it from political manipulation or improve its
effectiveness.

Seven years ago, the Quigley Review of parades was created following a side-deal at Weston
Park between the British government and unionists opposed to restrictions on loyal order
marches. The report and recommendations from that Review now gather dust on some shelf
within the NIO.

The report from this Strategic Review Body should be consigned to a similar fate without
delay.
Posted by: Unknown / 8:53 AM
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