THE MEN IN THE MIDDLE ON PATROL WITH AN ARMY DOING A JOB IN ULSTER

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32705, 7 September 1971, Page 16

THE MEN IN THE MIDDLE ON PATROL WITH AN ARMY DOING A JOB IN ULSTER

(By

ARTHUR SANDLES,

in the "Financial Times," London)

(Reprinted by arrangement)

BELFAST, August 26.—We were groping our way round houses in the dark streets of the Lower Falls area of Belfast. The street lights had ceased to work long ago. Not far away, 400 people at a Civil Rights meeting were being urged to “drive the Army out of Ireland.” The sniper we were looking for was nowhere to be found.

“How does this compare with Hong Kong?” I asked the soldier who less than a month ago had been bn duty there. “It’s a job, isn’t it??’ he replied cautiously. “Suppose the job lasts for years instead of months?” I pressed. "Well, you can count me out,” he said. The 12,000 British troops in Ulster are openly disliked by a large slice of the Catholic population and criticised by Right-wing Protestants for not- being firm enough with the terrorists. They themselves try to keep the peace. It is a task calling for fine judgments. A few days ago a Saracen armoured car commanded by a sergeant was sent to investigate a case of intimidation. He went to a partly barricaded area. Having completed the job, he turned the vehicle to leave. The gap through which He had entered had been closed by scaffolding quickly bolted together—a professional and substantial job. He rammed the barricade but it held firm. Then a hail of petrol bombs rained on the vehicle, surrounding it with flames. Across the street the sergeant could see people in their houses. Should be fire at the bomb throwers and risk hitting householders? Serious decisions He rammed the barricade again and again until it eventually gave. “That man,” said his C.O. later, "is just an ordinary chap. But he was faced with a serious decision. Had he fired to save his own men, he might have hit people in their homes and provoked a terrible reaction.”

During the last couple of days, I have spent some time with the 25th Light Regiment Royal Artillery, men largely from the Midlands who will be here for four months. With luck, each of the 190 men will get three days in England on leave with their wives or girl friends in those four months. Otherwise, they are allowed out of camp only on duty. They cannot go out with the girls they whistle at in the streets ana who tease them flirtingly as they patrol. By and large, morale seems to be surprisingly high. The troops laugh and joke about the work. They recognise the necessity of doing their work without favouring either Protestant or Catholic. But no-one pretends that private involvement in such an

emotive situation as Northern Ireland is avoidable. r Catholics are inevitably regarded as potential ene-

mies. “It is terrible. You can see the hatred in their eyes,” one soldier said to me. “You can tell whether they are Catholics or Protestants the moment you say ‘hello’ to them. If they are Protestants, they reply. If they are Catholics, they turn away.” “They say we pick on the Catholics" was another comment, “but they are the ones who are shooting at us. What are we supposed to do?” A group of youths We stop a small group of long-haired youths. "Don’t worry mate, we’re not arresting you,” says the sergeant. In fact he’s just “chatting up” the locals—keeping friendly while we wait to see if a meeting up the road turns nasty. At first the boys, much the same age as some of our group from the 25th, are suspiciously aggressive.

“Why don’t you go home?” they say, "instead of coming here ahd grabbing our women.”

“What are you talking about?” says the sergeant “All the Irish are in England grabbing our birds.”

In the end two of the youths get so involved in Anny talk that they say they are going to sign on. A miraculous conversion indeed.

Armed with a list of suspects, the patrol I was with dropped m on a number of houses. The houses are not clearly numbered, so we have trouble finding the right doors. The sergeant tells his men to take it quietly because if you call at the wrong house you are likely to spark off a complaint.. We reach the right number. Two men go into the back garden with rifles at the ready and I ring the bell. The teen-age girl who answers the door nearly faints with shock, but she quickly recovers and firmly says No, there is no one at home. But in the background people are moving around. No, she insists once more, there is no-one in. We have no power to search so we have to move on. If the Anny is really suspicious that the man they want is in the house, a warrant can be obtained. Sometimes the suspect will make a break for it. A soldier’s letter To-day one of the soldiers stationed in Ulster broke the rules and wrote of his frustration to the "Belfast News Letter,” the local newspaper: “As a member of the Parachute Regiment, I think it is about time we had a say about the allegations of brutality by the Security Forces.

“For the past three years, British troops have been petrol-bombed, acid-bombed, stoned, bottled, blown up, ambushed, abused, spat on, and have suffered all kinds of humiliations from , the hands of the very people we came here in the first place to protect

"Two members of this Regiment have died, one murdered in an ambush and one blown to bits saving two children, and when his body was taken from the police station, it was laughed and jeered at. “We cannot forgive this. “Now, at last we are given, the chance to round up a few of the scum that have killed so many of our mates and blown up half of Belfast a job that should have been done a long time ago. But politicians and Army commanders were too worried about their positions to take the decision.

“Perhaps the troops were rough, but with just cause. “1 hear no outcry from the soldier who was almost burned to death by a petrol bomb, the young lad disfigured for life by an acid bomb, the soldier in agony with a broken knee-cap from a paving slab hurled at him, or a soldier who had an

eye shot ■ out by a 1-inch ball-bearing fired from a catapult. “Let those without guilt cast -the first stone. “I only hope that by rounding up these criminals that a bit of peace can be restored to Ulster and that the soldiers killed here will not die in vain. “It is about time all those clowns from the Free State who are always crying about civil rights went back to the old country where they belong or stay here in Ulster and do a day’s honest work for the benefit of the community. I just hope that some of the citizens in Belfast have cause to remember the Red Beret, some perhaps with gratitude, others perhaps with “Minimum force” The paratroopers had some very rough times,' but now that the rioting has died down .the violent face-to-face confrontations are no longer a feature of everyday fife. Anny technique, here again, is “minimum force,” since force tends to escalate a situation. Gathering crowds are watched but not interfered with, in spite of the anti - crowd law. Stone throwers are warned and then hosed. Petrol bombers are rubber - bulleted and

“snatched” by Army teams who attempt to capture ring leaders as an exemplary measure. Snipers’ fire is returned, but not always immediately, since often, even at night, the rifles which the soldiers carry are not loaded. Although the Army is well trained and to some extent well equipped, not everything ■ is perfect. The Saracen armoured cars are old and' mechanically unreliable al- • though in theory well suited for the job. On one of the patrols I joined the Saracen broke down on a hill surrounded by trees and in pitch darkness. "God,” said one of the soldiers. “What a stupid place to stop.” Land Rovers,while highly mobile, are cluttered, which makes leaping about in them with a rifle difficult. These, along with ■ the lighter Ferret armoured vehicles, are the basic transport of the Army in Ulster.- . Usually the vehicles hunt in pairs and are linked by radio to headquarters. It is the Saracens—"pigs,” as they are known by both the Army and ' the Catholics—which have ; featured in the brutality alle- ■ gations. They have large protected interiors in which ; some Catholics claim, newly [ arrested suspects are someI times “softened up.”

Fighting a “TV war” These allegations have highlighted the fact that the Army is fighting its first television war. “What people don’t realise is that the tactics that are being used against us here are the same as those that are used against the Americans in Vietnam,” said one senior officer. He Suite plainly believed that te Americans have been beaten by brutality claims and the constant public exposure of death via television and newspapers. For the moment, however, much of the I.R.A. campaign has switched to bombs. "The best way we can deal with them is to keep the explosives out of Ulster,” said the Army. But the Army is far too thin on the ground to guard all possible targets. The road searchers on what seems at times a very illdefined border with the Republic are admittedly easily avoided, but the Army says that quite apart from the successes in the form of arms they have seized, they have frightened off at least those who were ferrying arms out of a misguided sense of adventure. The game is a bit too grim for amateurs these days. But if someone is determined to get gelignite into the province it is difficult to stop them. If the land routes become too difficult then the sea can be used or arms can be airlifted if necessary in light aircraft. “What we would really like is to have everyone so fed up with the LR-A. that they would tell us 1 if they saw something suspicious.” Already there is a great deal of traffic in tip-offs, but the Army has to build up a much greater degree of acceptance before, calling the authorities becomes standard practice. Meanwhile the Army continues to harry the men it has on its lists. It. steadfastly insists that the LR.A. was dealt a massive blow in the battle that raged two weeks ago. It points not only to the deaths within the LR.A. ranks but also to the detainment of dozens of I.R.A personnel in Crumlin Road Prison and the prison ship, Maidstone. There is no shaking the military conviction that internment was absolutely necessary to restore some form of law and order to the streets of Ulster.

Upset by children In the field of community relations the soldiers are obviously particularly upset by the activities of children. "Their mothers just stand there and watch them throwing stones at us. Don’t they realise what the danger is?” fumed a soldier. But do the soldiers ever think about the future of Ulster? Most of those to whom I talked seemed to think the province would be a running sore for Britain for many years to come. “They have been at it for too Jong to change. If you had one Ireland they would still be at it.” Time after time I have heard Army personnel predicting that the fight in Belfast will soon be followed by a fight in United Kingdom mainland cities. I actually heard officers talking about the unfortunate mistakes that British planners had made in not taking defence into account when designing new towns. “Stevenage would be awful to handle but no-one bothered to ask the Ministry of Defence when it was planned.” There is a measure of cynicism towards the politicians who are sometimes accused of having no policy for the Ulster situation, but this finds expression against a background of general unwillingness to become involved in political arguments. “We are here to provide a breathing space." they say. And if the politicians do not use that space? For once the colonel tb whom I was talking,, even in this media-conscious aged preferred to say: “No com-' ment.”