THE US Administration has been asked by a Congressional committee to send human rights monitors to observe the Apprentice Boys march in Derry on August 10th.
In an unprecedented action the House Committee on International Relations has requested the State Department to assign monitors from its Human Rights Bureau to cover the march.
In a letter to the Secretary of State, Mr Warren Christopher the Chairman of the Committee on International Relations, Mr Ben Gilman, drew attention to the Department's recent report on human rights in Northern Ireland which referred to calls for an independent inquiry into "alleged collusion between the security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries".
Mr Gilman wrote that Derry had "long been a flash point for violence and the sort of human rights issues in Northern Ireland" mentioned in the report. He called for Mr Christopher's assistance "to ensure that human rights are respected and that order and respect for the Catholic minority is observed" during the planned march.
The letter asked Mr Christopher to "promptly assign monitors" as we need your personnel on site to observe, report on, and help bring to bear some understanding and acknowledgment from the local authorities and the security forces on the need for the respect of human rights and the dignity of the people in the nationalist community who must face these offensive parades".