AFTER the Drumcree events, Labour's Northern Ireland Secreytary Mo Mowlem has blood on her hands. No disclaimer that the decision was taken by Ronnie Flanagan, the chief constable of the hated RUC, can absolve her from her guilt - and that of the Labour leadership.
As we go to press, two fourteen year old boys are in hospital with serious injuries from rubber bullets fired to protect the Orange ascendancy.
Yet the marching season has only just begun - the Twelfth is still ahead. Then nationalist communi. ties in both Belfast and Derry may well face further seiges.
How high a price will the nationalist community have to pay before there is a real outcry? Certainly Labour's honeymoon is dead and buried for the Irish - but where are the protests from the British labour movement?
No one can surely buy Mowlem's hypocrisy when she tells the wold that she was forced to allow the parade down the Garvachy Road because of the theat of loyalist terror.
It must be obvious surely that this is not how she, or any of her predecessors have responded to demands from the nationalist reason tity. Then the British stock reason for refusal is - we can't give in to IRA terrorists... Something stange here don't you think?
So late on Saturday night the Photos: residents of Garvaghy Road were pushed off the road and barricaded into their homes. These enforced curfews brook no exceptions - it does not matter how urgent a reason you need to get out of the area - you can't.
The operation was lead by the sectarian RUC - pleased to be of assistance to their friends in the Orange Order - but the British Army had a higher profile than in recent years.
Socialists in Britain have an urgent duty to ensure that this stark illustration of Labour's bipartisanship has one positive outcome. There needs to be a new push to raise demanas tor britisn withdrawal and Irish self-determination. If not, more blood will be spilt.