ULSTER VIOLENCE Rhine Army Troops On Stand-By Alert

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32120, 16 October 1969, Page 13

ULSTER VIOLENCE Rhine Army Troops On Stand-By Alert

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) BONN, October 15. British Army of the Rhine units have been put on stand-by alert to move at short notice to Northern Ireland if the situation there deteriorates further.

The units, at company, battery and squadron strength, have already begun intensive training in riot control and internal security duties.

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Dents Healey) told the House of Commons on Monday that Britain might have to withdraw some of her N.A.T.O. troops from West Germany if the situation in Ulster worsened. It is reported from Belfast that British troops uncovered a petrol-bomb “factory” during their search of the the Protestant Shankill Road area of the capital yesterday. The troops found about 100 petrol-bombs in a disused

shop stacked with supplies of empty bottles in the riot zone. All were destroyed. The city was quiet yesterday, but about 100 “B” Specials of a total force of 130 in Newtownards, near Belfast, resigned last night. The “B” Special Constabulary, an armed all-Protestant police auxiliary of 8000 men, is to be disbanded as part of the Government’s programme of reforms to end the sectarian strife.

In London last night, the Prime Minister (Mr Harold Wilson) expressed confidence that the reforms would help to ease the tension. Mr Wilson agreed with questioners in Parliament that law and order had to be restored, but he emphasised that the basic, underly-

ing cause of the unrest was fear—fear from each side, Roman Catholic and Protestant, about the other. “I am sure that some of the steps now taken, including the Hunt Report and its acceptance by the Government of Northern Ireland, will go a very long way to ease some of the problems which have lain dormant in the past few years and have flared up recently,” the Prime Minister told the House. Stormont Pressure But at Stormont Castle, the seat of the Ulster Government, pressure was building up last night against the Government from hard-line Protestant politicians angered by the reforms, which are designed to help the Roman Catholic minority. Backbencher members of the ruling Unionist Party expressed strong dissatisfaction with the decision to disarm the Royal Ulster Constabulary and disband the “B” Specials. After a backbenchers’ meeting, Mr William Craig, a militant Protestant M.P. and a former Minister of Home Affairs, declared that the country was on the brink of civil war.

“The Government must do something to win the confidence of the people,” he said. “It will have to modify its police reforms or carry the responsibility for many unpleasant things.”

The announcement of the reforms last week gave rise at the week-end to Belfast’s worst rioting for 50 years. Other signs of opposition to the reforms came from the police themselves. One of the changes ordered was that the Royal Ulster Constabularly must adopt Eng-lish-style blue uniforms instead of the dark-green ones they now have. Police sources say that a number of officers have declared their intention not to accept the new uniforms because, they said, they had done nothing to disgrace the old ones.