Basis for Garvaghy march decision disquieting

IT was the basis for the decision, rather than the decision itself, to permit Orangemen to parade through Garvaghy Road on Sunday that is the most disquieting.

The RUC Chief Constable, Mr Ronnie Flanagan, said on Sunday morning that he had to make a decision in terms of which of "these evils" whether to ban the march or not was likely to bring about less violence. I was left with a stark choice: how much life was liable to be lost".

Dr Mo Mowlam, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, echoed these remarks. She said, also on Sunday morning: "The judgment of the Chief Constable is that the public safety of all people in Northern Ireland is better protected by this decision."

It meant that the policy decision of whether or not to permit the march was based on a calculation of from which side the greatest violence would ensue. The decision had nothing to do, apparently, with considerations of fairness or justice. Merely the crude calculation of which decision would result in the least violence.

An impulse to minimise harm and loss of life is not ignoble but it is a bad basis for public authorities to take decisions, for it encourages those disposed to violence to threaten more violence than the other side to get its way.

Could there be a fair adjudication between the rival arguments on contentious parades in the future, if decisions on them are to be taken on the basis of who poses the greatest security threat? Indeed could there be a fair or democratic adjudication of any issue that arises, if conflicts are to be resolved on that basis?

What better encouragement could there be to the IRA to continue and intensify its "armed struggle"? If it can show that it can engender a greater threat of violence than can the other side if decisions do not favour nationalists, then surely it, too, can get its way? Indeed, if the IRA fails to generate a sufficient countervailing threat, would it not be ceding the political ground entirely to unionists?

Paragraph 20 of the Mitchell Commission on decommissioning outlined "principles of democracy and non-violence" which, it recommended, all parties to talks should agree to at the outset of such talks.

Parties would be required to commit themselves to (inter alia) "democratic and exclusively peaceful means of resolving political issues" and to "renounce for themselves and to oppose any effort by others to use force or threaten to use force to influence the course or the outcome of all-party negotiations".

In the decision on the Drumcree march, the Chief Constable and the Secretary of State were acknowledging that considerations that conflict with the Mitchell "principles of democracy and non-violence" could determine political issues. Indeed a year ago, Mr David Trimble, in his use of a loyalist paramilitary threat as a device to overturn the decision to ban the Drumcree march, was himself in breach of those principles but, of course, he faced no consequences for that in his subsequent participation in the talks.

The decision itself was more problematic than the stated basis upon which it was taken.

THE Orangemen argue that they have paraded to and from Drumcree church via Garvaghy Road since 1809; that when the parades began, there were no nationalist estates along the way, only fields; that even today the houses on Garvaghy Road are well back from the route of the parade; that the parade is a church parade, at which only hymns are played; that it takes only 15 minutes for the parade to pass. They further argued this year that they were prepared to compromise by limiting the number of marchers that would pass through Garvaghy Road, and by passing through silently. In contrast, they insisted, the Garvaghy Road residents offered no compromise.

The Garvaghy Road residents pointed out that there were other routes from Drumcree church back into Portadown that were not contentious and that the Orange Order's insistence on marching through its area was itself a symbol of domination; that they had previously shown their willingness to compromise in 1995; that the Orange Order had displayed contempt for the residents by refusing to negotiate on the bogus grounds that one of its representatives, Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith, had a conviction for a terrorist offence (the Orange Order displays no such squeamishness in permitting loyalists with similar convictions from taking part in parades); since the centre of Portadown is effectively a "no-go" area for nationalists (as was demonstrated recently by the kicking to death of Mr Robert Hamill, a Catholic) why should the Orange Order be permitted to march through Garvaghy Road while refusing even to discuss a compromise with the residents?

The unwillingness of Orangemen to seek an accommodation over the march is underlined by the following. The editors of the two morning newspapers in Northern Ireland, the unionist News Letter and the nationalist Irish News, published a joint appeal for compromise on the march. The residents of Garvaghy Road met both editors to discuss their proposals, but the Orange leaders in Portadown refused to meet the editor of the Irish News.

And side by side with these considerations is the "right" to peaceful assembly and demonstration and the "right" to equal respect.

It is difficult for outsiders to appreciate why it is so important for Orangemen to parade through an area where they are not wanted or why it is so offensive for the residents to permit a march through their area that would take no more than 15 minutes a year. But on such flimsy foundations are issues of identity fought out.

Both sides feel alienated. The unionists perceive the tide of history to be flowing against them since the abolition of Stormont, the "imposition" of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and, more recently, the Downing Street Declaration and the Framework Document.

Nationalists perceive the state to be essentially the preserve of unionists, disrespectful of their identity and repressive of their rights and interests.

Above all there is a chasm of incomprehension. Again and again outside agencies remark that if only the two communities would talk to each other as they do individually to outside agencies, Northern Ireland's problems would be far less intractable. The Mitchell Commission, for instance, observed in its concluding remarks: "To the outsider both (communities) are warm and generous. Between themselves they are fearful and antagonistic."

Isn't it extraordinary that we have failed, in the media and otherwise, to find a means to permit the two communities to talk to each other or, even as a preliminary, "at" each other?