New N. Ireland Assembly Chooses Protestant Leader

The Northern Ireland Assembly met for the first time Wednesday and chose a moderate Protestant Unionist who supports the peace agreement to become the province’s new leader.

David Trimble, head of the Ulster Unionist Party, became first minister with 69.3% support. The job of deputy first minister went to Catholic nationalist Seamus Mallon, deputy head of the Socialist and Democratic Labor Party.

Trimble and Mallon took their oaths of office at the Castle Buildings, home of the Assembly, committing themselves to “serve all the people of Northern Ireland equally and to act in accordance with the general obligations on government to promote equality and prevent discrimination.”

Both men promised to solve their province’s problems without violence. “For the first time ever, the people of Northern Ireland can claim shared ownership of a democratically elected parliamentary chamber, representative of all the main traditions within the community,” said Irish Foreign Minister David Andrews in a message of congratulations.

President Clinton, on a nine-day tour of China, called Trimble and Mallon today to congratulate them on their election.

The peace deal that led to the creation of the 108-member legislature, which shares power between the province’s largely pro-Britain Protestants and its mainly nationalist Catholic community, was signed this spring on Good Friday. Elections were held last week.

Most of its 108 members support the historic accord that created the Assembly under continued British rule. But a bloc of 28 Protestants will form a die-hard anti-accord voice against proposals for relations with the Irish Republic.

For the moment, as Northern Ireland adapts cautiously to a new political era after a quarter-century of modern conflict, the Assembly will remain a shadow organization and Trimble only a first minister-designate. Real power will be transferred to the body next year, and then only if it manages to establish internal structures and several cross-border bodies with the Irish republic.

Trimble’s narrow majority, and the opposition of unionists to these bodies, leaves a question mark over how easy that will be. And more questions are being asked about possible outbreaks of violence this weekend in Northern Ireland, with tensions rising between Protestants and Catholics in the town of Portadown, about 30 miles from Belfast.

The Protestant Orange Order brotherhood has been banned from parading through the Catholic Garvaghy Road area of Portadown on Sunday--their traditional route home from an annual march to the local Dumcree church.

But Orangemen say they will defy the ban and camp at Dumcree until they are allowed to march.

Rioting has followed similar marches in recent years. With extra troops and police being sent into the province from Britain, the standoff has raised fears of new conflict and deepening sectarianism.

Trimble supports the right of the Orangemen to march, though Catholics resent the parades as a provocation by Protestants. He has urged all sides to keep the peace and has not yet decided whether to attend himself.