'No comment' on lodge action

Last year's march in Portadown passed off peacefully

The Protestant Orange Order has declined to comment on reports that its governing body wants to discipline a County Armagh branch for its contacts with the Parades Commission.

Senior officers from Portadown District held talks with commission officials in South Africa in February and again in Craigavon two weeks ago.

The Orange Order has instructed its members not to talk to the Parades Commission.

The commission has banned the Drumcree parade from the nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown again this year.

The Drumcree dispute surrounds the desire of Orangemen to march along the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road on their way back from a church service, against residents' wishes.

On Sunday, the commission issued its determination on the march, which is due to take place next weekend.

We feel that we have taken enormous strides to try and ensure that our parade can take place David Jones Portadown Orange Lodge spokesman

Last year's march passed off peacefully, but over the years, there has been serious violence directed against the police and Army at Drumcree.

Although the commission has again banned the Orangemen from marching along the Garvaghy Road, it praised Orange leaders in Portadown for their "thoughtful and creative leadership" this year.

It said its meeting in South Africa in February had "served its purpose in building understanding among the groups that attended, and in particular between the district officers and the commission itself".

However, it appears that Portadown District's contacts with the commission have put it at odds with the Grand Lodge, the order's supreme governing body.

Reports suggest Grand Lodge decided last Thursday to sanction Portadown District for meeting the commission.

Reversal

At the same time, the North and West Belfast Parades Forum, which includes Orange Order representatives, was meeting the commission for talks that would see the reversal of the ban on the Whiterock Parade.

This has confused the Portadown District officers.

Portadown Orange Lodge spokesman David Jones said the meetings took place because of a need to explain their side of the dispute.

He said that as they had taken this initiative, there was "considerable disappointment" that the return parade had again been banned.

"We feel that we have taken enormous strides to try and ensure that our parade can take place," he said.

"We feel now that the Parades Commission should be able to see that the people who are really preventing things from moving forward in the area are the Garvaghy Road Residents Group."

The lodge's annual parade and church service commemorates the anniversary of the battle of the Somme and traditionally takes place on the first Sunday of July.

Orangemen last walked down the Garvaghy Road in 1997.

In subsequent years, their homeward route has been blocked by the security forces.

DUP leader Ian Paisley condemned the decision to ban the Drumcree parade.

"The government has over and over again bowed the knee to the threat of violence in order to ban and re-route traditional parades," he said.

The Parades Commission was set up in 1997 to make decisions on whether controversial parades should be restricted.