Protestant Protests Block N. Irish Streets

Protestants formed human blockades that jammed Belfast’s streets Wednesday, then rioted, throwing gasoline bombs and setting off fireworks, in a bid to exhaust British security forces who are preventing a march through a Roman Catholic neighborhood.

British troops were rushed into Belfast, the provincial capital, after the fourth night of violence triggered by the ban on the Protestant march.

The violence has rocked the province’s fragile peace process, which appeared to be making headway recently with the reestablishment of a power-sharing government representing the Protestant majority and Catholic minority.

The protests aim to force authorities to allow the Orange Order, Northern Ireland’s once-dominant Protestant brotherhood, to parade down Garvaghy Road, the main Catholic section of Portadown, an overwhelmingly Protestant town 25 miles southwest of Belfast.

Thousands of hard-line Protestants blocked more than a dozen roads simultaneously at evening rush hour, causing one of the worst traffic jams Belfast has ever seen. Motorists were trapped on some streets for two hours.

Then, as those protests subsided, masked youths began tossing gasoline bombs at armored police cars and hijacking vehicles. Black smoke from burning vehicles stained the evening sky in south-central Belfast, where Protestant youths also pounded drums and played anti-Catholic tunes on flutes.

Exploding fireworks and wailing police sirens completed the chaotic soundtrack.