Protestant Roadblocks Bring N. Ireland to a Standstill

Hard-line Protestants formed human roadblocks across Northern Ireland on Monday, bringing the province to a tense standstill and provoking running battles with riot police as darkness fell.

Militants hijacked and burned cars in several Belfast neighborhoods as anger over restrictions on traditional Protestant parades flared into violence for a second week.

Leaders of the Orange Order brotherhood insisted that they had counseled supporters not to destroy property or attack police after Monday’s planned four-hour blockades.

“It is essential that the protests are not used by malcontents, who have no real interest in the Orange institution, as a cover for violence,” leaders of the 80,000-member group said in a statement.

Within minutes of the first protests, trouble broke out in Belfast and other towns and got progressively worse at night. Motorists in several towns were terrorized into handing over their cars to mobs.

Along the so-called peace line, a network of fences and walls separating Protestant and Roman Catholic communities in western Belfast, youths on both sides traded salvos of bottles and rocks.

In Portadown, the mostly Protestant town at the center of the debate over the parades, a clash broke out between riot police and masked Protestant youths.

Businesses, many of which closed early Monday, condemned the order’s tactics, saying the group was placing its own disputed right to march past Catholic neighborhoods above others’ rights.

“Most businessmen didn’t want to close their premises and certainly do not support what the Orangemen are doing, but they had a duty to ensure that their staff could get home safely,” said Bill Jeffrey, chairman of the Northern Ireland Small Businesses Federation.