ULSTER STRIFE Warning by Craig about private army

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32958, 3 July 1972, Page 13

ULSTER STRIFE Warning by Craig about private army

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) SALTCOATS (Ayrshire), July 2. The Northern Ireland Protestant leader, Mr William Craig, a former Minister of Home Affairs, has given a warning that the vast private army formed by his followers will rid Ulster of its I.R.A. terrorists if the British Government does not do so.

“We are now establishing, all over the province, an organisation which can assume the role of a loyalist army 7 if the need should arise,” he said in an address to a rally of Scottish Orangemen in the Ayrshire town of Saltcoats last night. “If the British Government is not prepared to deal with the terrorists, then the loyalists of Ulster will have no alternative but to take action themselves,” declared the leader of the militant Ulster Vanguard Movement.

Saying that Scottish; Protestants might one day be asked to supply men, money, and materials to their Ulster ‘•brothers,” Mr Craig added: “Let me assure you that whatever this foolish Government in Westminster may do in the way of surrender, we, the loyalists in Ulster, will never surrender.”

Mr Craig demanded an immediate General Election in Ulster, and accused the British Government of abject surrender to the I.R.A.

Reuter reports from Belfast, however, that, according to Republican l sources, the other militant Protestant organisation, the Ulster Defence Association, has accepted an invitation to hold talks with the province’s principal Roman Catholic political party.

The sources say that the U.D.A. has at last agreed to confer with members of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, after a series of invitations to do so. The S.D.L.P. is known to have had several discussions with the Provisional Wing of the I.R.A. in the period leading up to the guerrillas’ ceasefire, which came into effect last Tuesday.

The main item on the agenda for the talks, to be held some time next week, is a proposal, supported by the LR.A. last week, to enlarge Northern Ireland from its present six counties to nine, the Republican sources say.

The new counties would be Donegal, Cavan and Monahan, now part of the Irish Republic bordering on Northern Ireland.

This move would still give the Protestants of Northern Ireland a majority, but not as large as the one they hold at present. The plan has met

[little criticism from Protestants.

The Republican sources also say that Dublin was likely to favour the new

arrangement, under which Ulster would have a Parliament elected on the basis of proportional representation. This would replace the Parliament that was suspended when Britain assumed direct rule of the province last March.

has said that it will not allow the establishment of any more permanently-barricaded “no-go” areas like the Roman Catholics have in the "Free Derry” area of Londonderry, has so far not intervened.

Most parts of Ulster are enjoying the most peaceful week-end for many months, although on Friday night a Roman Catholic man was shot dead from a passing car in a Protestant district, and a young man, gagged and hooded, was found dead, shot in the head, on a rubbish dump in another Protestant area.

This week’s meeting, if it takes place, will be the first between the U.D.A.—a paramilitary organisation formed by Protestant militants after the imposition of direct rule —and the S.D.L.P., which has wide support among the Roman Catholics of Northern Ireland.

In spite of these deaths, shopping streets in Belfast were crowded yesterday, and a Protestant march and a rally passed without violence. One development which could provoke anger from militant Protestants is that the I.R.A.’s politicallyoriented Official Wing last night began armed patrols in the Roman Catholic Markets area of central Belfast.

Scores of Protestant barricades have blocked off sections of Belfast and several other cities and towns of

The Officials, who announced their own cease-fire several weeks ago, sent out five men in a utility vehicle, armed with two rifles and a sub-machine-gun. A spokesman said that the patrols were to protect residents against the U.D.A., the British Army or the Provisional Wing of the movement.

Northern Ireland this weekend, during which there have been two more killings. One outcome of the barricading was the cancellation last night of both bus and taxi services in Belfast. The buses stopped in mid-evening after two had been hijacked, apparently for barricades, and the taxis quit before midnight, when the drivers heard that at least one taxi had been commandeered.

In Londonderry, where the Protestants are in a minority, there were five barricades of vehicles by early this morning, all well within Protestant districts. Faces hooded The U.D.A. barricades, as usual, are manned by young men in military-style clothing, with hoods over their faces. Many are armed with axe-handles.

They stop and check all cars entering the areas. It is assumed, however, that most of the road-blocks, consisting mainly of cars, lorries, and a few buses, will be removed at the end of the week-end, as they have been during the last few weeks. But a tense situation appears to be developing today in two Protestant districts of Belfast, Woodvale and Old Park, where, since Friday, the U.D.A. has erected road-blocks with girders sunk in almost three feet of concrete, backed by low walls of brick and mortar. The British Army, which