The Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) salutes the working people of Garvaghy Road and their many supporters. We also acknowledge the courageous stand taken by many within protestant community who stood up and supported the people of Garvaghy Road. The Orange Order does not represent nor speak for all protestants.
The unity and steadfast and sustained resistance by the community forced the British Secretary of State to overrule the Parades Commission’s decision despite it being upheld by the high court and ban the completion of the Orange Order march down the Garvaghy Rd.
It is clear that the absolute resolve shown by the people of Garvaghy Rd to oppose the return march, forced this back down by the British Government. The banning of the parade is not a victory or something to celebrate. It is a symptom of the failed political entity in the six counties. The cause of the Drumcree dispute is British occupation and colonial rule.
The continued insistence by the Orange Order to march through communities that they are not welcome in, exposes that at its core it has little if anything to do with defending “protestant” culture but at its core it is sectarian political organisation.
The original decision to allow the Orange parade to return via the Garvaghy Rd, has raised a number of serious questions regarding both the PSNI and the Parade Commissions which need to be thoroughly and independently investigated.
What has also been exposed is the deepening political and institutional malaise within the six counties.
The unity across the three Unionist parties in defending the Orange Order demonstrates their inability to accept that Orange Order does not have a right to trample on the rights of others. They also fail to recognise that there are many people in the Unionist community that accept the rights of the people of the Garvaghy Road and the wider republican community.
It is clear the political institutions have no answers or solutions to the deep economic and social crisis facing working class people. Thereby creating the conditions for sectarianism to be increasingly used as a weapon of division.
Imperialism’s interference in Ireland is failing our people. The road to peace and national liberation runs through working-class unity and a socialist republic built on public control and democratic central planning.
The mass resistance demonstrated on the Garvaghy Road that forced the British Secretary of State and the Orange Order into a retreat and the failure of this to bring the unionist people out in support can be a starting point of uniting the working class against their common enemy Capitalism.
