CRISIS IN NORTHERN IRELAND Britain May Withdraw Troops From The Rhine

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32119, 15 October 1969, Page 15

CRISIS IN NORTHERN IRELAND Britain May Withdraw Troops From The Rhine

-GopyritrhO LONDON, October 14. At the end of an emotional debate on the Northern Ireland crisis in the House of Commons last night the Minister of Defence (Mr Denis Healey) said that if the situation in Ulster worsened, Britain might have to withdraw some of her NA.T.O. troops to deal with it. Britain has 52,000 troops assigned to N.A.T.O. in the British Army of the Rhine. The 8500 troops already in Northern Ireland are nearly treble the normal garrison strength there.

Mr Healey told the House that he regretted that the crisis must be seen’ -1 ' as a long-term problem of perhaps years, rather than months.

As he was speaking, reports of renewed violence were being received from Ulster, where the British Army was trying to tighten its grip on the province in anticipation of a fresh surge of Protestant fury. The British Home Secretary (Mr James Callaghan), who had just returned from Belfast, told the House: ‘lf I were to say all the things that are true about this situation, I could easily create a bloodbath." Paisley Attacked In a scathing attack on the Protestant extremist leader, the Rev. lan Paisley, Mr Callaghan said: “The hymn, Tight the Good ’’’•ght’ sung in Belfast after a night of rioting, is very different from when it is sung in a chapel in an English village. This is what Paisley fails to appreciate—or deliberately plays on.

“Paisley plays upon a devilish theme—one that blames every social, economic and political problem In Nor-

thern Ireland on the Church of Rome. “This devilish theme—and 1 believe this is increasingly recognised in Northern Ireland—has to be attacked and driven out”

“We must drag out this spectre of Paisleyism and really face it, and show it up for what it is.”

Mr Callaghan told the House that Mr Paisley was “using the language of war cast in a Biblical mould to inflame passions and obscure the real social and economic issues.”

Today, Mr Paisley denounced the Home Secretary as “an apologist for the Roman Catholic Church.”

“He is simply playing on the prejudices of the illinformed minds of the English people,” he declared, adding that, contrary to Mr Callaghan’s assertions, he bad

always condemned violence and murder. In the Commons debate, Miss Bernadette Devlin, the youthful and diminutive member for Mid-Ulster, accused the Government, and Parliament itself, of causing the turmoil and violence.

“Your fault, your blame, your shame," Miss Devlin cried out, her voice trembling. She criticised the House for not being interested in the problems of Northern Ireland until the violence broke out; and she accused the Gov-

i ernment of failing to understand the social ills in Ulster I which, she said, were responr sible for the crisis. After apologising to the I Speaker, who had reproached her for lack of conventional i behaviour, Miss Devlin said I saracastically: “I will now rei turn to the quiet, smug, selfsatisfied attitude with which i speakers in this debate have i looked at the problems of ■ Northern Ireland.” i Miss Devlin had waited for ■ more than 3J hours to be re- • cognised by the Speaker, and when at last she rose to speak • her wrath could not be smothered. After her first few sentences, mocking the debate, there were indignant shouts of ■ protest and a loud roar of “Rubbish, rubbish." Miss Devlin, who still looks ‘ like a schoolgirl but no longer has the shyness of

one, had a reply ready for them. “You said it was rubbish 25 years ago, you said it was rubbish on October 5, and you also say ‘rubbish* when people are dying in Northern Ireland people who have never had the vote and will never have it now.” In Belfast earlier in the day, after another night of violence, the battle-scarred Shankill Road area, the Protestant stronghold, looked as if it was under enemy occupation. Troops with automatic rifles at the ready stood along the street, and all round, armoured cars, utility vehicles and trucks were parked. A search by troops of houses in the Shankill area uncovered rifles and ammunition, and caches of petrolbombs, clubs and other weapons.

Army marksmen were posted on high buildings to watch for snipers as bulldozers came in to demolish the Protestants' street barricades.

Later in the morning the Belfast Police Court dealt with 77 people arrested by riot squads during the weekend clashes. Sixteen of them were sent to prison, four were fined, two were acquitted, and the remainder were remanded.

Two men, described as ringleaders in Saturday night's fatal rioting, were sent to prison for six months, and another man was sentenced to three months. A police witness said that they were in a crowd of 2000 people who attacked soldiers and the police with guns, stones and bottles. Stones Hurled Again, late last night, militant Protestants hurled stones at the troops and police and built new barricades with wrecked buses and cars and material from the debris of the barricades destroyed by the troops in the morning. “Go home, you bums, go home,” the Protestants shouted at the heavily-armed troops. “Go back to England.” Driving rain had kept the streets clear for most of the evening, but when it stopped before midnight, crowds began to drift from dark sidestreets back to the Shankill district, the scene of weekend violence that left three persons killed and at least 70 injured. In the aftermath of the violence today, housewives shopped and workers returned to their jobs under the protection of the British rifles and machine-guns that have turned Shankill into something resembling a garrison town.