I.R.A. ‘Provos’ claim they killed U.K. envoy

Press, 20 September 1976, Page 8

I.R.A. ‘Provos’ claim they killed U.K. envoy

' International ;

NZPA-Reuter Dublin The Irish Republican Army’s militant Provisional Wing has claimed in a newspaper interview that it assassinated the British Ambassador to Dublin, Mr Christopher Ewart-Biggs.

Three ranking “Provos' said in an interview with the; Sunday Independent,” one' pf Ireland's leading newspapers, that the envoys car was blown up in a land-mine! ambush in the outskirts of; Dublin on July 21, because; he had been sent to Irela- , to co-ordinate British Intelligence activities. It was the first admission of responsibility for Mr Ewart-Biggs' murder. They said the murder had also been retaliation for the killing of an I.R.A. officer, Peter Clery. in Northern Ireland earlier this vear by a unit of the British Army's crack Special Air Service Regiment. The Army clai .>ed that | Clery was shot trying to escape from military custody,! but a coroner’s report later I said that he had been shot! three times in the chest. The three I.R.A. men. giving the first maior interview by I.R.A. leaders in more than a year, were not identified bv name.

But informed sources reported that all were major; figures in the outlawed rganisation. The I.R.A. leaders admitted that their units on the British mainland had been damaged by a police t -’’ ac £* down in the last few months after a terrorist bombing campaign in English cities. But, thev said: “We have adopted a new strategy for our English operations, and wt are ready to start there again with devastating effect

should we deem it opp - tune.” , They said that day would! not come until all contact! was finally broken off with the British, referring to unofficial peace talks since late 11974 between the I.R.A. and

! British Government officials. 1 i The I.R.A. men claimed < 'that a leading Briti. i "cial, • not identified, gave the guer- • Irillas a commitment to withdraw explicitly on behalf of I (the British Cabinet ... in January, 1975. The British have re-

peatedly denied that they did so. The withdrawal of Britain’s 14,500 troops in Norths i Ireland is one of the I.R.A.’s prime objectives. The present war began when the British Army intervened not as peacekeepers (between two warring sides (Roman Cathoh and Protestants), but as partisan collaborators with tht repressive violent regime of Stormont (Norther Ireland’s disbanded Parliament), the I.R.A. leader were quoted

as saying. They said the present pea<e campaign led by Belfast housewives was simple- ; minded, and that the peace i for which they clamoured was a chimera. The fight would go on to

the end, they said, claiming sufficient manpower and ammunition to fight indefinitely if necessary. A total of 1617 people have been killed in the sectarian war since August, 1969. More than 5000 people,

mostly women, took part 1 yesterdav in a peace rally in Liverpool, England, for an end to violence in Northern Ireland.

The women, mainly from Liverpool’s large Irish colony on Merseyside, were led by Mrs Betty Williams, the 32-year-old Belfast housewife who launched the burgeoning peace movement in Northern Ireland.

The rally had the backing of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England, and was attended by the heads of both Churches in Liverpool. Mrs Margaret Wingfield, outgoing president of the Liberal Party, travelled from the party’s annual convention in Llandudno, Wales, to give Liberal backing to the peace movement. Mrs Williams has already organised and led four similar rallies in Northern Ireland in the last month, and (each one appeared to be bigJger than those preceding.