Action threat by Protestants

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32977, 25 July 1972, Page 13

Action threat by Protestants

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright)

BELFAST, July 24.

Militant Protestants in Ulster are threatening to take action this week against the barricaded strongholds of the I.R.A.

A spokesman for the Ulster Defence Association said at a press conference last night: “We are not naming the day, or specifying the moves we shall take, but to the Provisional I.R.A. we issue this warning: ‘Look over your shoulders if and when you leave your ratholes or stop hiding behind innocent children and women’s skirts’.”

The unnamed spokesman, who wore a mask and mili-tary-style jacket, said that the U.D.A. would erect no more barricades of its own, but that the present Protestant “no-go” areas would remain until the I-R.A.’s barricades in Londonderry were dismantled. The spokesman confirmed that the U.D.A. had dissociated itself from the other main militant Protestant organisation, the Ulster Vanguard Movement, because of the Vanguard’s call for a rent-and-rates strike. “This was the culmination of a series of differences,” the spokesman said. “The strike decision was taken without any consultation with us.” Thousands of Roman Catholics have been on a similar strike for many months. The Vanguards have told their supporters not to pay rent and rates until the provincial government is restored, until the I.R.A.’s barricaded “no-go” areas are cleared, and until adequate security is guaranteed throughout Northern Ireland. A British military spokesman reported early today that the province was comparatively quiet while the troops continued their search-and-arrest mission in I.R.A. strongholds.

Since the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr William Whitelaw) ordered the intense campaign last Saturday, more than 120 guerrilla suspects have been handed over to the police for inteiTogation. Some of those detained were quickly released. but others will be appearing soon before special: courts.

The British Army yesterday discovered an i.R.A. explosives “factory” which they believe to be the base from which Friday’s bomb blitz of Belfast was launched. In a disused house in a Roman Catholic area of the capital. they found more than 400 lb of gelignite, 12 guns. 1000 rounds of ammunition, and bomb-making equipment. Eleven people died and 130 were injured in the “Bloodv Friday” bomb attacks, and five other people were killed in shooting incidents that night.

In Dublin, a newspaper has called on the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic (Mr J. Lynch), to order a national day of mourning for those killed in Friday’s bomb attack.

A front-page article by the editor of the “Sundav Independent”. headlined.' “We Are the Cowards.” said: “We fostered the men who planned the murders of inno-

Durban memorial

South Africans of all races paid homage yesterday to the country’s only Nobel Prize winner, the late Chief Albert Luthuli, in a tiny churchyard near Durban. Some of the republic’s most distinguished public figures, representatives of foreign governments, and about 3000 Africans. Indians and whites attended the unveiling of a memorial tombstone by the chief’s widow, Mrs Nokukhanya Luthuli.— Durban, July 24.

cent men, women, boys, and girls in Belfast on Friday. “We fed these people with propaganda. We took advantage, when we could, of their exploits, and, because we are not a morally courageous people, we never seriously tried to stop their terrible excesses.

“Now all of us must pay the price for this neglect. There is a black sin on the face of Irish Republicanism today that will never be erased.

“We must break the paralysis that leaves the good name of the Irish people in the hands of unscrupulous men.”