Gunmen ignore plea

Press, 3 October 1979, Page 9

Gunmen ignore plea

NZPA Belfast; Irish republican gunmen} held a family hostage and; used their house as cover to! ambush a British Army; Land-Rover yesterday only hours before the end of Pope, John Paul Il's peace mission 1 to Ireland. The police said that pro-' visional Irish Republican Army gunmen burst into a> house in the predominantly} Roman Catholic Andersons-! town district of Belfast and held a family hostage while} they set up a machine-gun post overlooking a motor-} way. The family had just re-' turned from the republic; where they had been to see} the Pope celebrate Mass ini Galway. The guerrillas fired om two British Army jeeps!

'carrying at least four sol-| idiers each. Two soldiers} I were injured when their vehicle crashed, the police re-j I ported. The gunmen fled when the jtroops returned fire, they! ‘said. It was the first serious incident since the Pope made, a plea to people on both I sides of the border to es-l chew violence. In Belfast, the Ulster Vol-' unteer Force, the Protestant: para-military group, has! offered the I.R.A. a cease-j fire if the Provos respond to] 'the Pope s call for an end to! violence. A U.V.F. statement said i they recognised that the : vast majority of the Romani Catholic population had “an: obvious desire for peace”'

jand called on the Provos to’ i'announce an unconditional -‘cease-fire. } Reliable republican! I sources in Belfast suggest} !:the move would be ignored,} las would the Pope's original} } plea for an end to the fight-i ■ing. } ;[ The U.V.F. has not taken} ; a leading part in the conflict] • for some considerable time] land exactly what form of} 'cease-fire they are offering} :;is unclear. ,! Meanwhile, men on the ; -| British Army’s list of most-1 >}wanted terrorists, the heads: >!of the Provo fighting bri-j igades, were yesterday slipp-, Ll ing across the border from; tiNorthern Ireland to the Irish! il Republic for a secret meet-} iiing to consider the Pope’s! appeal for peace.