Tension rises as protesters converge on blockade

A MAJOR security operation was in place last night at the increasingly tense stand off at Drumcree. Intensive efforts to bring about a resolution continued as the confrontation entered its fourth night after three nights of violence.

British army reinforcements were called to support the RUC as thousands more Orangemen began to arrive from Belfast, Tyrone and other areas.

The Garvaghy Residents Association met officials from the Northern Ireland Office for the second time yesterday and continued their own discussions late into the evening.

But the situation grew dangerously tense as the arriving Orangemen left Portadown town centre to head for Drumcree church shortly before 9 p.m.

Last evening Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith, the spokesman for the Garvaghy Association, reiterated that he was not a member of Sinn Fein and that he was prepared to meet the Orange Order at any time up to Friday, the Twelfth of July.

The local community was very angry at the Orange Order's refusal to meet them and at claims that their association was led by Sinn Fein and the IRA, he said.

An association member, Ms Laura Boyle, said the association had written three times to the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, but he had not replied.

Proposals to resolve the issue were being considered late last night by the residents' association. Among them is the possibility of a written guarantee by the Orange Order that there would be no triumphalism if a parade went ahead.

Another proposal is thought to include the drawing up of a declaration which would state that civil and religious rights were indivisible and both sides shared those rights equally. The declaration would create a set of principles about the right to march.

The residents' association recognised there were members of the Orange Order who wanted to reach an accommodation.

Earlier yesterday, the SDLP Upper Bann Representative, Ms Brid Rodgers, said the only possible way forward was through discussions between the Orange Order and the Garvaghy residents.

It was not helpful, she said, "to turn it into an Alamo and work it into a nationalist unionist confrontation". Although "it has implications for the whole of Northern Ireland, it is basically a problem that has to be sorted out by the local people".

She criticised unionist politicians for maligning the residents. "It has been said that they were led by the nose and that it's a Sinn Fein/IRA plot. That is outrageous talk. The community in Garvaghy are not fools," she said.

The residents' association has pointed out that some of its members are part time community workers.

One resident, Ms Eileen O'Donnell, said people were very angry that the Orange Order made allegations that "we were bullied and intimidated or IRA orientated. "People are very angry about that. We all have our own minds here. We make our own decisions."