THOUSANDS of Orangemen, many accompanied by their wives and children, streamed into Portadown last night to rally behind local Orangemen, whom police had barred from marching through the nationalist Garvaghy Road. One estimate put the number of Orangemen in the town at 5,000.
As the tense stand-off continued at Drumcree late last night the Orange Order was focusing its protest on Portadown and also on mobilising its members for a chain of supporting demonstrations across Northern Ireland.
After the RUC, backed up by the British army, yesterday prevented about 1,000 Orangemen from parading along Garvaghy Road, Orange Order members in several parts of the North staged disruptive protests. Roads were blocked and traffic disrupted in areas such as Ballymena, Bangor, Newtownards, Maghera, Moira, Dromore and Carrickfergus.
Upwards of 2,000 RUC officers were drafted into Portadown to hold the police line at Drumcree as the numbers of Orangemen and loyalist supporters continued to swell.
British troops were being deployed near nationalist areas of the town last night to prevent loyalist backlash attacks against Catholics.
Mr David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and a member of the Portadown Orange District, insisted that, unlike the violence during last year's three day stand off, the protests this time would be peaceful. But he conceded that there were risks attendant on such a confrontation. This, he said, was the responsibility of the RUC Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Annesley, who had ordered the rerouting of the parade.
Mr Trimble, who led an Orange delegation from Lurgan into Portadown last night, said that the stand off threatened the loyalist ceasefire and expressed the fear that the IRA would exploit the confrontation to escalate its own campaign of violence. He maintained that there would have been no "serious disorder" if the RUC had policed the Orange march along Garvaghy Road.
Mr David Ervine, of the loyalist Progressive Unionist Party, which is linked to the LVF, agreed with Mr Trimble that the stand off was putting strains on the loyalist ceasefire. Mr Gary McMichael, of the Ulster Democratic Party, political wing of the UDA, described such speculation as "unhelpful".
The Rev Martin Smyth MP, Grand Master of the Orange Order, said that Orangemen would remain at Drumcree until they were permitted to march along Garvaghy Road even if that meant staying there until after the Twelfth of July.
The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, predicted that the standoff would turn into a long struggle. This isn't just the siege of Drumcree, this is a siege of the province, this is a siege of the whole of the United Kingdom he said.
The president of Sinn Fein, Mr Gerry Adams, yesterday appealed for "calm, restraint and common sense to prevail" in the face of what he described as the "call to confrontation by David Trimble and Martin Smyth".
Late last night, the RUC deputy chief constable, Mr Ronnie Flanagan, following further talks with Mr Trimble, said no agreement to the deadlock over the proposed route was in sight. However, he and Mr Trimble had agreed on the need to keep things calm.
I appreciate that there are a lot of people there trying to keep things calm," he said. "But there is an unruly element there. It is important that they are not allowed to hold sway.
Early this morning, a press photographer reported seeing a masked man with a machine gun at a loyalist checkpoint on the edge of Portadown.
At the invitation of the Garvaghy Residents' Association, four members of the Oireachtas TDs Mr Joe Costello and Mr Declan Bree and Senator Sean Maloney, all of Labour, and Mr Eamon O Cuiv TD, of Fianna Fail travelled to Portadown to observe the parade.
