UK: N.IRELAND: RUC CHIEF CONSTABLE RONNIE FLANAGAN

(8 Jul 2000) English/Nat
XFA
The head of Northern Ireland's police force has expressed his hopes that Sunday's Orange Order march to Drumcree will be peaceful.

R-U-C chief Sir Ronnie Flanagan told A-P-T-N that he recognised that there was a faction of "evil intent" amongst the nationalists taking part in the march.

And he said that his officers had taken what he called "dreadful measures" to stop them causing trouble on Sunday.

Flanagan chairs a committee of senior police officers from Britain and around the world, whose members were invited to Drumcree on Saturday to inspect police measures to quell the violence.

But despite the barriers and barbed wire, Flanagan said he had not stopped hoping for the best and called for Northern Ireland's political and religious leaders to condemn the violence of recent days.

Protestant clergymen have since appealed to hard-line marchers to turn away from conflict on Sunday when police and soldiers block them from marching through a Catholic neighbourhood.

The appeals from all sides for an end to the violence come after two schools - two Catholic, the other designed specifically to teach Catholic and Protestant children together - were damaged early on Saturday by arsonists in Protestant suburbs of Belfast.

The dispute centres on the Garvaghy Road district on the route of the parade.

Since 1995, Catholic hard-liners in the area have tried to block the parade as it returns to town through their area.

The Orangemen, protesting that the Garvaghy residents are being coerced by supporters of the Irish Republican Army, have refused to go home through Protestant areas or to negotiate directly with the Catholics.

That position, along with intense Catholic rioting in 1997, has compelled British authorities to bar Orangemen from Garvaghy Road since 1998.

A standoff between Orange crowds and police that year ended only when three young Catholic brothers died in an arson attack in another town.

Last year Orangemen and their supporters remained largely peaceful.

But this year, notorious Protestant terrorists recently paroled from prison under terms of Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord have been prominent at the Portadown standoff.

To the exasperation of many Protestants, including Orangemen outside Portadown, the town's Orange leaders have welcomed their attendance.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"I think everybody should condemn the violence that we have seen thus far. Look at the dreadful measures we have put in place. We have put them in place in order to afford protection. Protection for my officers, protection for the residents. Protection for those who want to protest legitimately. But these are dreadful steps. We, of course, have had to plan for the worst. But we hope for the best."
SUPER CAPTION: Sir Ronnie Flanagan, RUC Chief Constable

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"I have concerns that there are people of evil intent. We have seen what they have done over the past days. And my concern is that those people will seek to come into play again, perhaps tomorrow and the days that follow tomorrow (Sunday). Those are my concerns. But it needn't happen. And if people who have seen this position keep constantly isolating those of malevolent intent, then we can get through these days, which will be difficult, but we can get through them."
SUPER CAPTION: Sir Ronnie Flanagan, RUC Chief Constable

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