Loyalists are planning a march through Dublin city centre early next year to “demand justice” from the Irish Government for people killed by the IRA in border areas during the Troubles.
In a three minute YouTube clip posted yesterday, loyalist campaigner Willie Frazer addressed the Government and said: “We’re coming down to demand justice, and justice we will get, sooner or later, one way or another.”
Mr Frazer said the march would be “something similar” to the Love Ulster parade.
In 2006, a Love Ulster march ended with a riot in Dublin City Centre when around 300 protesters clashed with gardaí. Fourteen people, including six gardaí, were treated in hospital, and there were 41 arrests.
In yesterday’s clip, Mr Frazer – who is a prominent figure in the organisation of loyalist rallies – said the march is being planned for the end of January or early February.
“We are coming back down to Dublin,” he said. “The dissidents say they’ll do this. We don’t care what the dissidents are going to do. They’re a bunch of eejits, a bunch of dangerous, dangerous psychopaths that need to be dealt with, and I believe the guards will deal with them this time if they appear.
“But be under no illusion, we’re coming to Dublin.”
He said the Irish Government had “the cheek” to take the British government to the European Court of Human Rights in relation to the hooded men, which is a reference to the Government’s decision to ask the court to revise its judgment in a landmark case taken by the State over alleged torture by British forces in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.
“We met with Dermot Ahern and you were to come to our office a couple of weeks after it,” said Mr Frazer. “That was a couple of years ago and you still haven’t come because you haven’t got the guts to face the people who you know were slaughtered because your government did nothing about it.
“Well if you want to be hypocritical and you want to insult the victims in South Armagh, and indeed along the whole border area, we’re coming back down to Dublin. We’re looking for equality of justice. We’re looking for our culture to be accepted.
“You people play this card about equality and justice and human rights. Well let’s see some. Let’s see some for the unionist community in the border region that has suffered so brutally at the hands of the IRA, backed up by the Irish Government.
“We know you gave 500 weapons to the IRA in the early parts of the troubles. You took them out of the Dublin army barracks and drove them in army trucks up to the border. You set up training camps for the IRA to train them in weapons and explosives to come across the border and murder our people.”
Mr Frazer concluded his video message by denying suggestions that the march will be designed to cause acrimony on the streets of the Irish capital.
“People say we’re only going back to Dublin to cause trouble,” he said. “Listen, it’s quite simple, the Irish Government [MUST]deal with us to address the issue of justice and the genocide carried out in the border area, and we don’t need to go near Dublin.
“But they think that we’re fools and we’re going to sit back and take this. But we’re not politicians, and we’re certainly not fools, and we’re certainly not going to take it from the Irish Government.”
