Orange Order criticises Drumcree security opeartion

Orange Order leaders tonight criticised the security operation launched by the RUC and British army ahead of tomorrow's contentious Drumcree parade.

A spokesman for the Portadown Orange Order, Mr David Burrows said use of razor wire at barricades near Drumcree bridge, erected by security forces to prevent local Orangemen from marching down the nationalist Garvaghy Road, was excessive.

"Its deployment the created the possibility of people being injured," he said.

Mr Burrows told ireland.comhe had accompanied chief commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, Prof Brice Dickson, on a tour of the fortifications around Drumcree this evening.

He said Mr Dickson agreed with his concerns.

More than 1,000 RUC officers and 1,000 British soldiers have been brought into Portadown in £6 million sterling operation to handle any trouble connected with the Drumcree protest.

A massive steel barricades was erected today across the road leading from the Drumcree Chuch to the Garvaghy Road.

Razor wire has been placed in the field beside the barricades and the British army was this evening filling a moat with water. A number of fields in front of the wire have been ploughed to make access to the barricades more difficult.

This evening there is an understated security presence in and around Portadown with further steel barriers at the entrances to the Craigwell and Obinstown Estates.

Two large water cannons, borrowed from the Belgium police force, are on stand-by.

Mr Burrows said he hoped calls by religious and political leaders for calm over the next 48 hours would be heeded.

The RUC officer in charge of the operation, Assistant Chief Constable Stephen White, said: "We are preparing for the worst and hoping for the best."

The RUC said they are confident they are taking appropriate action ahead of tomorrow's march.

Unlike previous years there was no Orange Order press conference at its the Carleton Street Orange Hall in Portadown - which seems to indicate that the Portadown Orange Order are taking a low key approach to this year's Battle of the Somme commemoration at Drumcree.

Tonight a handful of loyalists gathered near the huge concrete and steel barrier erected to block Orangemen surveying the scene. But the atmosphere was described as quiet.

The second phase of the security operation will begin at 9 a.m. during the protection of the outward route of the Portadown Loyalist Orange Lodge 1 to Drumcree church.