Even at the eleventh hour, there is hope for a compromise agreement on tomorrow's Drumcree Orange parade, as negotiations continue and fresh initiatives are promised for today. But the outlook is bleak, as the Taoiseach Mr Ahern said in the Dail yesterday. No basis has been found to bring the local Orange leaders together with the residents' representatives who object to what they say is a provocative march along the Garvaghy road. Unless they reach an agreement, the Parades Commission ruling that the march be rerouted must stand. It has the force of law, reflects the balance of rights involved and should be defended by the security forces.
In the perspective of the Belfast Agreement, the Drumcree case was always seen as the most difficult issue to face a fledgling new cross-community executive. This is one reason why it has been so contested. Many of those who reject the basis of mutual recognition of rights on which that agreement was reached, find at Drumcree a timely excuse to subvert it in practice. Against the ghastly background of church burnings this week, it is not surprising that such forces should have been emboldened; but despite the eloquent denunciations of these barbarities from all quarters of the Northern Ireland political spectrum, there is precious little sign that it has encouraged a culture of compromise to emerge about Drumcree.
This requires dialogue based on mutual respect and recognition of the legitimacy of the different cultural identities involved. One of the most heartening features of the Belfast Agreement is that it entrenches such an approach constitutionally and goes a long way to provide institutions through which it can be expressed and put into practice. But unless it is possible to do so at local level, the agreement will be seen as hollow and incapable of implementation.
A crucial barrier to local dialogue in Drumcree remains the refusal of the local Orange lodge to enter into negotiation with the Garvaghy Road residents, whom they say are led by Breandan Mac Cionnaith, a man convicted of terrorist offences and associated with Sinn Fein. But the same people who make this case have themselves associated in the past with Billy Wright, a man responsible for much more serious crimes before he was murdered in jail last year. It is clear that compromise would only become possible through recognition of a mutual right to representation. In its absence, the Garvaghy residents expect the British government to enforce the Parades Commission ruling.
In the difficult balance of rights involved, it should be seen that the residents have the more convincing case if a mutual compromise is not reached today. They perceive the Orange march as triumphalist and provocative - a rejection of the recognition, dialogue and consent built into the Belfast Agreement, which demands compromises from all concerned. Their right to live peacefully and securely in their houses without harassment and provocation, as they see it, must take precedence over the holding of a march. By the same logic, the British government must defend the Parades Commission ruling that the march should be rerouted. To do otherwise, to fail to enforce its legitimacy, would mock the moral and legal basis on which the Belfast Agreement was reached.