Barricades up on N.Ireland parade

British troops are sealing off parts of Drumcree

PORTADOWN, Northern Ireland -- Britain is sending a large number of troops to Drumcree ahead of one of Northern Ireland's most contentious marches.

More than 30 armoured vehicles are sealing off Drumcree's Catholic section to enforce an order banning the Protestant Orange Order from marching through it.

Violent clashes have accompanied the march each year since 1995 as Catholics and Protestants argue over which route the Orange Order should take.

This year the Parades Commission again banned the march from passing though Catholic areas, forcing them to divert from their traditional route.

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Up to 1,600 additional troops are in place to cope with the anticipated attempts by Orange supporters to gain access to the flashpoint Garvaghy Road.

A convoy of army trucks laden with razor wire, tractors with earth-moving equipment and troop carriers trundled into the zone unhindered under cover of darkness before Sunday's planned march.

The pro-British Orange Order has been banned from crossing a bridge leading to Drumcree and entering a Catholic enclave.

Security sources said hundreds of soldiers would be involved in an operation to block the tiny bridge, dig trenches and roll wire across adjoining fields to block the march for the fourth successive year.

The "Drumcree Sunday" parade by up to 2,000 members of the staunchly pro-British Orange Order is among the most contentious of the summer "marching season" held to commemorate ancient battlefield victories over Irish Catholics.

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The independent Parades Commission says the marchers can parade from nearby Portadown to the bridge but has prohibited them entering the nearby Garvaghy Road Roman Catholic enclave.

Orangemen have maintained a continuous protest on the hill at Drumcree since they were banned from parading down the Garvaghy Road in 1998.

March organisers and community leaders have appealed for troublemakers to stay away so as to prevent violence which in previous years brought Northern Ireland to the brink of chaos.

Portadown Orange spokesman David Jones has urged anyone planning to come to Drumcree to remain peaceful and dignified.

"Because of the overall political situation we are concerned that some people may attempt to hijack the protest," he said.

He said he could not predict how many people would turn up at Drumcree on Sunday.

"As far as we are concerned we will be having our church service and our parade afterwards. We don't know whether there will be 10,000 people there or 100. Our protest will continue," he said.

The big security operation was launched with Northern Ireland's peace drive already gripped by crisis over the resignation of the province's First Minister David Trimble in protest at the banned Irish Republican Army's refusal to disarm.

The British and Irish prime ministers were due to make yet another bid in talks with the province's rival parties in England next week to save a 1998 peace deal known as the Good Friday Agreement.