Wilson’s plan: get tough, but talk

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34047, 10 January 1976, Page 13

Wilson’s plan: get tough, but talk

(N.Z. Press Assn —Copyright) BELFAST, January 9. The British Government is pressing ahead with its parallel efforts to control violence in Northern Ireland and devise a longer-range political solution to the problems of the troubled province.

The first elements of Special Air Service troops — Britain’s toughest and most sophisticated anti-guerrilla unit — have moved into

Northern Ireland and are headed for South Armagh, a rustic area straddling the Irish border that has served as a staging ground and sanctuary for terrorists from the Irish Republican Army’s Provisional wing. in London, meanwhile, the Prime Minister (Mr Harold Wilson) conferred with political leaders in an effort to establish a regular and broadened system of consultations on Northern Ireland that would involve all major political parties — including the province’s opposition Roman Catholics. But the Government met

criticism on both fronts. Catholics condemned the decision to reinforce regular army units now operating in Northern Ireland with the S.A.S. specialists, whom they regard as undercover agents of considerable ruthlessness.

For their part, Protestant leaders in London condemned Mr Wilson’s call for widespread “consultations” as an opening wedge that would ultimately lead to a degree of Catholic participation in the Government of Northern Ireland that many Protestants do not want. Mr Wilson has been talking about extending the present system of regular bipartisan consultation on Northern Ireland beyond the Conservative and Labour parties to include the Liberals

and two major Northern Ireland political groups — the United Ulster Unionists, who are Protestants. and the Social Democratic and Labour Party, which is Catholic.

Mr Wilson spoke by tele- [ phone with the Liberal leader (Mr Jeremy Thorpe) and won I his co-operation. The ConIservatives are expected to i agree to the idea when Mrs (Margaret Thatcher, the Tory party leader, returns on Monday from a trip to the Middle East. In a statement, however, the United Ulster Unionist Council — a confederation of (Protestant groups who wield much political influence — accused Mr Wilson of exploiting the recent violence to incorporate the Catholics into an “emergency government” that, in time, would lead to | a degree of power-sharing in 'lreland which many Protestlants have firmly opposed. Mini-Jaws

Argentine troops will use dynamite to kill shoals of man-eating piranha fish scaring tourists away from the riverside city of Formosa on the border with Paraguay. — Formosa.