PROTESTANTS PREPARE ‘We will not be pushed around9

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32873, 23 March 1972, Page 13

PROTESTANTS PREPARE ‘We will not be pushed around 9

(By BERNARD WEINRAUB. of the New York Times News Service, through N.Z.P.A.) BELFAST, March 22.

A rising wave of Protestant militancy is surging across Northern Ireland and consolidating into a powerful mass movement seeking to thwart any substantial political change.

The movement, the Ulster Vanguard, has linked successfully large numbers of the Protestant working-class with the Orange Order, the 200-year-old Protestant brotherhood that wields broad political and social influence.

“This is the first attempt to coalesce the majority population in the province,” declared the Rev. Martin Smyth, county grand master of the Orange Order in Belfast, and a leader of the Vanguard movement.

“The message we have is clear: we will not be tampered with, we will not be pushed around.”

The power of the movement, only eight weeks old, was emphasised on Saturday, when more than 10,000 Protestants appeared at a Belfast rally and vowed to use violence, if necessary, against any political changes that would loosen Protestant control in Ulster.

Such changes, spurred in part by the civil rights protests of Ulster’s Roman Catholic minority, are imminent; today, the British and Ulster Prime Ministers, Mr Heath and Mr Faulkner, are meeting in London to discuss a “political package” for the province. The leaders of the rally—they claimed an attendance of 92,000 — have said that a major political change would give rise to demonstrations in the streets and lead to the closing of the province’s four power stations, as well as shipyards and foundries. Craig at head The central figure in the Ulster Vanguard is Mr William Craig, aged 48, a Right-winger, a former Cabinet Minister, and a bitter foe of the Roman Catholic civil rights movement In the new Protestant grouping, Mr Craig effectively replaces the Rev. lan Paisley as the leader of the militant Protestants. In recent months, Mr Paisley has lost support among the hard-liners because of his comments that the Ulster Government’s policy of interning suspected terrorists without trial has been a failure, and his alleged remark, later denied, that unity with the Irish Republic was possible so long as Protestants were given firm Af? Craig speaks adamantly about the Vanguard movement maintaining that violence would be inevitable “if the situation became desperate.” In an interview yesterday, Mr Craig said: “We are a disciplined movement Our aim is to preserve Ulster's link with Britain, and to prevent any alteration of the Constitution. The Vanguard Is not a military force. It is not a police force. It is not a party. It is an umbrella organisation to co-ordinate the activities of the loyalist groups in Northern Ireland. Dossiers plan "But there could be a violent reaction to any foolish initiative. , "What we demand, first and foremost, is a strong security policy that will liquidate both wings of the I.R.A. We need police saturation of all our counties. We need police to block off routes.”

A squat, solemn lawyer, Mr Craig reiterated the controversial comments made at

the week-end rally. “We have an organisation which covers every part of the land,” he said. “It must be used to build up dossiers on the men and women who are enemies of this country. One day it may be our job, if the politicians fail, to liquidate the enemy. “If it drifts into civil war, that means people being killed.” Mr Smyth, sitting in the living-room of his Belfast home in a quiet, tree-lined street, said: “Liquidation is a good, strong term. We shall be compiling dossiers. If the

Government doesn’t deal with the situation, we will.” The amiable Presbyterian minister who is 42, added: “Our people are restrained, but, none the less, realistic. We know that these terrorists — I call them rats — must be dealt with. We will not sit idly by. And we will not watch our way of life end here.” Workers’ leader The Vanguard includes members of the Orange Order, as well as Rightwingers from the Unionist Party (the ruling political party in Northern Ireland), and members of the former “B” Special Constabulary, the disbanded armed Protestant militia hated by Roman Catholics. The cornerstone of Vanguard is the Loyalist Association of Workers, a powerful group representing dockers, truck-drivers and city employees.

The leader of the group is Mr William Hull, a senior shop steward in the Harland and Wolff shipyard, who lives in one of a row of small attached houses off the Protestant Shankill Road. Mr Hull believes that Protestant workers will take action to make Northern Ireland ungovernable if the political initiative poses a threat to Protestant domination.

He says that there will be a complete disruption of power stations and heavy engineering industries. “I hope Heath knows that from Derry to Newry the vast majority of workers are standing shoulder to shoulder, and are saying loudly, *No surrender!*,** Mr Hull said. With the rise of the Ulster Vanguard, there have been indications of military activities; there are more than 70,000 guns in Protestant hands, most of them legal. For the first time for years, reporters are being taken, blindfold as in the early days of the I.R.A. campaign, to meet hooded, heavily-armed men who vow to defend Ulster. Mr Hull has said that there is paramilitary training in Vanguard. “Obviously, there are certain things I would not be permitted to tell anyone,” he said recently. “Let us say that, in the main, all those who are able and virile are not untrained. They are trained in all sorts of tactics they may need to defend their country.”