By Dave Riley
On the afternoon of July 6, after a kind of martial law was imposed on the nationalist Garvaghy Road area of Portadown, County Armagh, a Protestant Orange Order parade marched silently through the rubble and debris left by the massive assault of the previous night.
After asking for months that the Protestant march be called off, residents were woken at around 3 o'clock by neighbourhood sirens announcing the presence of scores of tanks, land rovers and other military vehicles outside their doors.
Nationalists who attempted to prevent their community from being overrun were attacked by members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. A number were injured as they were dragged and kicked off the road by RUC men, while British troops quickly destroyed a peace camp set up on the roadside.
In the wake of the enforced Portadown march, nationalist areas of Derry, Newry, Armagh, Lurgan, Portadown, Dungannon, Coalisland and Belfast exploded.
Two trains and a number of vehicles, including an oil tanker, a crane and a several cars, were burned as a wave of nationalist anger swept the north. Renewed clashes broke out in the interface areas of North Belfast.
A government document leaked the day after the Portadown events revealed that all elements of the British administration had agreed to violently force the march down Garvaghy Road even as they publicly and privately proclaimed their government's neutrality.
Describing the march down the Garvaghy Road as the "least worst option", the document — dated a week before negotiations broke down — confirmed that Mo Mowlam, the secretary of state, had been negotiating with the nationalist community in what Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness described as "bad faith".
By contrast, the Orange Order praised Mowlam for her handling of the crisis and described her decision as "a blueprint for the future".
Despite the web of deceit engineered by the Mowlam and the RUC during this year's marching season, nationalists are determined not to be intimidated.
Addressing a crowd of angry Derry residents, Donncha MacNiallais of the Bogside Residents Group recalled last year's scenes of brutality on the Garvaghy Road.
"Everyone agreed that things had to change. Nationalist Ireland watched, waited, and hoped for change ... Instead, we are undergoing the annual nationalist experience of watching a British government folding under the threat of unionist violence.
"Last year, Garvaghy Road residents were beaten into the ground in broad daylight. Today they were attacked in the dead of night. It's a clear message from the British government: unionist violence or the threat of it will dictate a political response."
In Belfast at a similar rally, one woman summed up nationalist determination: "Nationalists and young Catholics have been told by the British that they are expendable.
"Mo Mowlam is going to make the same cost-benefit calculation this time as last: she reckoned that the Catholic backlash would cost less than the Orange backlash. Let's give her different sums this time."
With 20,000 Orangemen planning to march through the predominantly nationalist city of Derry and similar sectarian marches scheduled for the nationalist area of South Belfast, peaceful demonstrations have been planned for every night in support of the besieged nationalist communities. An international day of solidarity has also been called.
As McGuinness said, "Tony Blair failed his first test in Ireland". Referring to various pleas for people to "stay off the streets", McGuinness said, "All over the world, in Nicaragua, Chile, El Salvador, South Africa, to Palestine, the message is clear: the only place to be when demanding justice and equality is on the streets, confronting your opponent".