NORTHERN IRELAND: PROTESTANT AND POLICE STAND OFF CONTINUES

Описание: (10 Jul 1996) English/Nat

Police and Protestant groups continued their standoff at Drumcree near Portadown in Northern Ireland on Wednesday.

Amid the jeers of the crowd soldiers worked on strengthening their lines to prevent members of the Orange Order marching along a route through a Catholic area.

Trouble across Northern Ireland was sparked three days ago when police stopped marchers of the Protestant group from following their traditional path.

Over 100 Orange Order demonstrators are keeping their position at the County Armagh village of Drumcree.

For four days it has been the focal point of a standoff with the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

More Orange Order supporters are expected to converge on the village during the day in a continuing endorsement of the order's demands to be allowed to march through a nearby republican area.

They have even brought in their own bulldozer to help break through the barbed wire barricades that are springing up all over the province.

More British troops have been called in to the area and they have been reinforcing their positions.

More barbed wire was unrolled and hammered into place under a constant barrage of abuse by the Orangemen.

The Protestant or loyalist Orangemen are in a face to face dispute with the police and British soldiers over an R-U-C (Royal Ulster Constabulary) ban on a marching route used by the Orange Order.

Drumcree's tiny church marks the beginning of the return route the Orange Order wish to use, but it was banned as it passes through a predominantly Catholic area.

The Orange Order has more than 80-thousand members and is named after William of Orange, a Protestant prince of Holland who defeated the Catholic King James to take over the British throne in the 17th century.

July 12 is the height of the so-called Marching Season which commemorates the victories, and security forces are aware that the height of violence may not yet have been reached in the troubled province.

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