A senior RUC officer said yesterday that the weekend violence on the streets of Derry was planned in advance, directed and co-ordinated. Supt Paul Leighton, sub-divisional commander in Derry, said the violence which followed Saturday's Apprentice Boys parade was orchestrated and unjustified.
"We knew in advance of Saturday that a small extreme group was planning provocation, confrontation and violence," he said. "We therefore mounted an operation to prevent direct confrontation between marchers and counter-demonstrators in an effort to allow both to hold peaceful and dignified events.
"Yet with less than two weeks to go to Christmas an 11-year-old boy lies ill in hospital, believed to have been hit by a stone. Well over 1,000 petrol bombs were thrown, showing the planning and preparation which went into the rioting.
"Hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage has been done, millions of pounds worth of trade has been lost and the international reputation of the city has been tarnished. The orchestration of such violence cannot be justified by anyone, for any reason," he said.
However, Mr Donnacha Mac Niallais, spokesman for the Bogside Residents' Group, which was denied access to the Diamond area of the city-centre by the police during the parade, claimed the Apprentice Boys and the RUC were mainly responsible for the violence.
"The RUC, for their part, acted as they did in 1969, when they facilitated a sectarian parade through the city-centre by banning Derry people from their own citycentre. The result of this was that people were baton-charged and police dogs were used to terrorise shoppers while loyalists were allowed to roam freely around the Diamond."
Shoppers who fled Derry in their thousands as the violence erupted returned yesterday to the city-centre. Many were clearly shocked at the extent of the damage caused during 12 hours of sporadic city-centre clashes between nationalist youths and the RUC.