UK: NORTHERN IRELAND DRUMCREE DEMONSTRATIONS

(1 Jul 2000) English/Nat
Police arrested a Catholic community leader on Saturday as tensions flared in advance of a
controversial Orange Order march in Northern Ireland.
Police confirmed two arrests in Portadown, in recent years the scene of massive standoffs between security forces and Protestant marchers who insist on their right to parade through a Catholic neighborhood.
The Drumcree march has become an almost ritualized test of strength between Protestants and Catholics.
Recent years have seemed the most tense of all the hundreds of summer Orange marches.
Some two thousand soldiers have been deployed in the town and around the rural Drumcree parish church.
Brendan McKenna (Irish spelling: Breandan Mac Cionnaith), a leader in blocking an Orange march on the Garvaghy Road, was detained for more than two hours.
He said he was charged with assaulting a police officer, disorderly conduct and obstructing police by refusing to consent to fingerprinting and a DNA sample.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
" I think that R-U-C (Royal Ulster Constabulary) have again shown where their loyalties lie. We still have an Orange police force, quite clearly there are not satisfied with the decisions they are going to have to implement over the next weekend. It is a serious question mark over the ability of this force to act impartially"
SUPER CAPTION: Brendan McKenna, Spokesman of the Garvaghy Residents
Steven McDonald, former U-S police officer here on a peace mission, he was shot in 1986 in the line of duty in New York and was paralysed from the neck down.
He has to have help to breathe in order to stay alive.
His ancestors are Irish.
He's over here to lead peace delegation which will be walking throughout northern Ireland until July 4 carrying their message of forgiveness.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
" And it hurts ...I mean everyone that is with me hurts. Gods children are at odds here and were hoping that our story of forgiveness will help heal the people of this beautiful corner of the world."
SUPER CAPTION: Steven McDonald, former New York police officer
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