OT Sign of things to come

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Thats how riot control is done. How many steel fences did the Gov. ordered?. Any takers to research?

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BELFAST (Reuters) - A huge steel gate erected by police on a Belfast bridge blocked Protestant marchers Monday from reaching a Catholic flashpoint as controversial pro-British parades got under way across Northern Ireland.

A symbolic Orange Order chapter of about 200 marchers heading for the Catholic Ormeau Road were stopped by the barrier. They handed police a protest letter and held a prayer service before leaving.

Police and troops were on alert for one of the most decisive days in the province's turbulent history as Protestants took to streets in a show of strength while wrangling continued over a peace deal with minority Catholics.

The British province's ``Orangemen'' gathered at scores of parade sites across the province after a trouble-free night of traditional bonfire burning raised hopes the marches would not set back peace.

On a day of hectic activity in what British Prime Minister Tony Blair has described as the best chance in a generation to end centuries-old violence, key meetings and telephone calls were planned in London, Dublin and Washington.

Authoritative sources said Blair, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and President Clinton planned to be in regular contact over the next days to work through the maze of Northern Ireland policies that must be negotiated for a peace deal.

The main potential flashpoint was in Belfast where 30,000 Protestants planned a rally in a park near a Catholic enclave close to a bridge spanning the River Lagan at Ormeau Road.

Troops erected concrete barriers topped with barbed wire on the road to ensure the rally did not spill into the enclave.

Before the main procession's arrival, 200 marchers paraded peacefully to the bridge which police and troops had earlier sealed off.

One of the chapter's leaders handed police a protest letter as a flute band played a Protestant anthem and banners fluttered in the breeze.

A ban last week on the chapter parading along Ormeau Road led to the rest of the city's Orangemen deciding to switch a venue for a planned rally to the parkland near the enclave.

The 200 Orangemen held a prayer service at the steel gate, and clergyman William Hoey said the 25 foot high security barrier was ``an insult added to injury.''

The British and Irish governments have set a Thursday deadline for establishing a power-sharing executive of Protestants and Catholics to rule the province under the much heralded but haltingly implemented Good Friday peace accord.

Blair planned to publish legislation Monday which is key to the creation of the executive for the province's 1.6 million people -- divided 60-40 between mutually suspicious Protestants and Catholics.

The sticking point is whether Sinn Fein, political wing of the Catholic Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrilla movement, should be allowed to take up seats in the executive before the IRA hands over its weapons.

Protestants say they have no guarantee the IRA will disarm and want the legislation to include safeguards to throw Sinn Fein out of the executive if there is no disarmament.

If the pro-British Protestant 'unionist' parties do not back the plan, Britain and Ireland face the prospect of a major review of the accord that could take them back to square one.

-- justme (justme@justme.net), July 12, 1999

Answers

The Irish love to fight. If it wasn't over religion it would be something else.

But just imagine if they really had something to fight over...

-- peace is (nowhere@in.sight), July 12, 1999.


must be something in the air... ==============

Police And Students Clash Again In Iran

Click on our sponsors! Updated 11:25 AM ET July 12, 1999

full image Tehran University Students Holds up Bloody T-Shirt (Reuters)

By Ali Raiss-Tousi

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Fresh violence erupted in Iran Monday as club-wielding police clashed with several hundred pro-democracy student protesters in a Tehran square, witnesses said. They said many people were injured in the clashes and shop windows were smashed. Some wounded students received help from the personnel of a blood transfusion truck parked in the Vali Asr square in north Tehran.

The clashes, several kilometers (miles) from a large protest at the city's university, came as moderate President Mohammad Khatami, whom the demonstrators support, appealed for restraint.

The official news agency IRNA said demonstrators attacked police with sticks and stones at Vali Asr square. One police car was set on fire, it said.

Witnesses at the scene said police were rounding up students and taking them away in mini-buses as helicopters flew overhead. The police moved in after Iran's highest security body warned students late Sunday against holding any assemblies or marches without first obtaining a permit.

The clashes came on the fifth day of protests which started Thursday after police and hard-line vigilantes attacked a peaceful student rally demanding greater press freedom. At least one person was killed and dozens injured in the attack.

Khatami Monday praised the restraint of most of the demonstrators but called for law and order.

"The bulk of the students have shown restraint and prevented (the rallies) from turning into a difficult national question, and they have pushed for demands in a logical way," Khatami said at a meeting with higher education ministry officials.

"Now, students should cooperate with the government and allow law and order to be established in society," he said in remarks carried by IRNA.

"You should not commit illegal acts, so that in a calm situation we can make a firm decision in the interests of the system," said Khatami, elected in a reformist landslide in 1997 with strong backing from students, intellectuals and women.

Thousands of students rallied Monday at a mosque on the Tehran University campus, chanting increasingly radical slogans against elements of Iran's Islamic system.

Witnesses said a shot was fired outside the mosque, sending thousands of demonstrators spilling on to the campus.

They said the shot came from a motorcycle, the favored vehicle of members of the hard-line Ansar-e Hezbollah group, held responsible by students for Thursday's attack.

IRNA, however, said the sound came from a firecracker.

Many of the demonstrators said they would not back down until Khatami appeared to address the crowds. "Khatami, where are you? Your students have been killed," they said.

But Khatami, struggling to keep up with his increasingly impatient supporters, told his aides it was important to channel the rising public outrage, which has united many elements of society.

"The important thing is to use this nation's unity for more fundamental goals...within the rule of law to provide for the rights of the people, freedom and security, and for advancing society and strengthening the pillars of the system," he said.

At the university, angry students shouted down attempts to read a message of condolence from Iran's supreme clerical leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for the death of the demonstrator last week.

"Cannon, tanks and machine guns no longer have any effect," the crowd chanted. "Students choose to die before they yield."

The student protests have provoked a crisis that has shaken the Islamic republic and put pressure on Khatami to accelerate his promised reforms in the face of consistent challenges from the powerful clerical establishment.

In a statement carried by IRNA, Khamenei denounced last week's attack on students by police and hard-line thugs, calling it "unacceptable in the Islamic Republic of Iran."

The leader, generally above public criticism, has been under intense pressure to curb the hard-line groups and their shadowy supporters within the Iranian establishment.

"The youth of this country, whether students or not, are my children and for me anything that causes anxiety and sorrow is very difficult to bear," he said, adding that those responsible, including any poli

-- trying to help (forum regular@yourdon.com), July 12, 1999.


I think fighting over religious beliefs is ridiculous. A simplie solution would be for those fighting in the Northern Ireland just to arm themselves to the teeth and duke it out; same thing with the Mideast adversaries; same thing in Yugoslavia; same thing Bosnia. End it once and for all among themselves.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), July 13, 1999.

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