British army fans out in Belfast to check rioting

British army fans out in Belfast to check rioting
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

BELFAST, JULY 6: British army troops were patrolling the streets of Belfast for the first time in almost two years on Thursday, as security forces sought to contain spiralling violence in Northern Ireland that raises fresh questions about peace in the province.

Army units were deployed in several towns to help police deal with the worst unrest since 1998, triggered by a decision to ban a week-end Protestant parade from passing through a Catholic district of Portadown, a town south-west of Belfast.

Angry Protestants have gone on the rampage in Northern Ireland for four successive nights, hijacking and torching cars, blocking roads and hurling firecrackers, bricks and acid at police. Security forces responded by throwing up a wall of steel, topped with barbed wire, just outside Portadown to buttress their position and face down the protestors.

Despite the security measures, Northern Ireland police chief Sir Ronnie Flanagan warned that extremists on the Protestant loyalist side of the sectarian divide were plotting to use the occasion to use guns and bombs on his officers.

The violent scenes this week have been the ugliest to hit Northern Ireland and its delicate peace process since similar confrontation during the explosive summer marching season in 1998. The Portadown parade has over the past few years turned into a dangerous powder keg because Protestant Orange Order marchers insist on their right to celebrate their historic victories over Catholicism by marching down the Garvaghy Road -- a Roman Catholic neighbourhood.

For Catholic residents, the marchs are antagonistic, militaristic and out of date in a supposedly inclusive new era of power-sharing. An independent parades Commission ruled on Sunday that the marchers would have to bypass the road, fearing sectarian violence if the parade went ahead undiverted. That decision brought furious Protestants on to the streets to vent their anger.

Police in Portadown responded on Tuesday with their first use of water cannons in Northern Ireland in 30 years. The violence has thrown another big question-mark over the Northern Ireland peace process just weeks after a power-sharing government between Protestant Unionists and Catholic Republicans and Nationalists was resurrected.

Officials are already wondering what the knock-on effect of four days of ugly scenes in Northern Ireland will be on tourism and business, which had anticipated a boom due to peace process hopes.