N.Ireland rioting no surprise, says Protestant leader

By Anne Cadwallader

BELFAST (Reuters) – The Protestant group blamed for
instigating riots in Belfast at the weekend warned on Wednesday
that Northern Ireland’s pro-British community was resorting to
violence because it felt sidelined by the government.

The head of the Orange Order said the province’s worst
riots in decades reflected insecurity among Protestants who
feel Britain is appeasing Irish Republican guerrillas who have
made a show of peace moves but have yet to give up their guns.

“For years we have seen nationalists achieve what they want
by violence and the threat of violence. In these circumstances,
when frustrated and with no other option, we should not be
surprised that some individuals resort to violence,” Robert
Saulters, head of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, said.

“I am deeply concerned at the attempt to demonize the
institution (the Orange Order), to make us the scapegoats for
what happened on Saturday. We may have put the lance in place
to lance the boil, but the boil already existed and it was not
of our making,” he told reporters.

The Orange Order, a religious organization whose origins
lie in the victory of Protestant William of Orange over
Catholic King James more than 300 years ago, says it aims to
celebrate and defend the rights and culture of Northern Irish
Protestants.

Police blame the Orange Order for stoking unrest when their
parade was diverted from a Catholic area on Saturday. Saulters
countered heavy-handed policing sparked the violence, in which
mobs hurled petrol bombs, set fire to cars and shot at police.

POLITICAL DEAL SOME WAY OFF

His comments will do little to ease tensions in Northern
Ireland. The province’s majority Protestant population, which
wants British rule there to continue, is unhappy Britain has
started to scale back its security presence before Irish
nationalist guerrillas have proved they have given up weapons.

Hopes were high the Irish Republican Army would act swiftly
to destroy its arsenal, but seven weeks after the group’s
formal end to armed struggle it has yet to show any sign of
disarming.

“These are early days,” Secretary of State Peter Hain said,
adding the government was awaiting reports from a ceasefire
monitoring body to test whether the IRA had met its
commitments.

“We await the IMC (Independent Monitoring Commission)
report in October and the further one early next year. The
second one will be more important and significant because it
will cover a longer period, to see if this is bedding down in
the way the IRA promised,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

Guerrilla groups on both sides of the conflict declared
ceasefires last decade, paving the way for a 1998 peace deal
that attempted to forge a political settlement acceptable to
Irish nationalists and those supporting British rule.

Although the sectarian violence that killed 3,600 people
over three decades has subsided since the Good Friday
Agreement, outbreaks of fighting and accusations of broken
promises mean parties have been unable to make local government
stick.

The main pro-British party, the Democratic Unionists,
refuses even to discuss restoring a Belfast-based assembly, set
up under the 1998 accord and in which Protestants and Catholics
together ran Northern Irish affairs, until the IRA proves it
has given up arms for good. The assembly has been on ice since
2002.

Gerry Adams, president of Northern Ireland’s main Catholic
party and the IRA’s political ally, will meet U.S. officials on
Thursday to brief them on the latest violence and other recent
developments, raising speculation an IRA move may be imminent.