Violence flares again in Ulster: ‘soft’ targets gunmen’s reply

Press, 25 September 1980, Page 17

Violence flares again in Ulster: ‘soft’ targets gunmen’s reply

From

SELWYN PARKER

in Dublin

Ross Hearst, aged 56. was driving with a friend through South Armagh in Northern Ireland’s no-

torious “murder triangle when the I.R.A. “arrested" him at gunpoint and drove him away.

Despite pleas for his release from Catholic and Protestant churchmen, he was shot dead and left beside his gutted car near the Ulster-Eire border.

Mr Hearst was not a member of any section of the security forces, but the T.R.A.. in a terse statement, described him as an “informant”. Three years before the I.R.A. had shot dead Mr Hearst’s daughter; she was a member bf the Royal Ulster Constabulary. ■

Wallace Allen, a 49-year-old milkman and Dart-time policeman, was kidnapped while doing his country rounds. The reason: he was to be “interrogated”, according to the LR.A. A week later the body of Mr Allen, married with a son and daughter, had not been found. He had died “while resisting arrest”, ' a later I.R.A. statement explained.

Between these incidents, the outlawed Ulster Freedom Fighters who support the status quo in Ulster, firebombed five young Catholic children in a mainly Protestant area of Belfast. A U.F.F. “operative” had climbed the wall of the Hillock family’s house and wired the bomb to the windowsill of the children’s back bedroom.

The explosion badly burned three of the children aged between 12 and seven. Their father. Brian Hillock, pointed out later that this had been the twentieth attack on the home but, this time, the family would move out.

This latest rise in sectarian violence all within the last month, has alarmed public and politicians alike. One of Ulster’s senior M.P.s, Gerry Fitt, a Catholic who respresents West Belfast in the British Parliament, had predicted that the abductions of Mr Hearst and Mr Allen would end in more violence.

“I realise full well that the murderers will not listen to my voice. However, I must tell them that the murder and kidnapping of Protestant people in South Armagh can. and will, inevitably lead to the murder and maiming of innocent Catholics”, he predicted. The reaction of Mr Hillock, hours after the firebombing, also reflected a sense of despair. Asked the reason for the brutal violence, be could only

say: “Because we’re Catholic”.

After months of relative quiet, justifying the optimism of the new Chief Constable Jack Hermon, the latest round of paramilitary’ activity has raised fears that Ulster may be about to sink back into the bad days of the early 19705. Some of the violence has veered sickeningly between the comic and tragic. Members of the Irish National Liberation Army kidnapped an Englishman as a suspected S.A.S. undercover agent. He turned out to be a tourist returning home from a charismatic renewal conference in Dublin and was left tied up in a field on the Northern Ireland side of the border.

A few days before an innocent man was killed by a booby-trap bomb intended for the security forces. The I.R.A. “apologised”.

In Belfast, a security man outside the Europa Hotel, whose scarred exterior has survived every kind of intimidation, was shot in the face by a pillion passenger on a motorcycle. A 16-year-old boy was found kneecapped . . .An R.U.C. constable is fighting for his life, in hospital after being shot in the chest and head. It goes on and on.

The latest annual R.U.C. report (for 1979 when Sir Kenneth Newman was still chief constable) suggests that, after 10 years of barbed wire, army scout cars, riots, bombing, and murder. general lawlessness has become the major police headache. Terrorist crime accounted for only IS per cent of total crime (although all but 20 of the 128 murders were “terrorist murders"). Serious crime of all types rose by' 20 per cent. Perhaps most serious for a police force whose major energies are concentrated on the battle against the paramilitaries, the detection rate is derisory — only 21 per cent. Clearly, crime does pay . . in Ireland.

In spite of these statistics, Chief Constable Hermon felt justified in saying there has been a considerable drop in the “horrific and widespread” violence of the early 19705..

Jack Hermon is determined to make his policemen and women acceptable to all levels of the Northern Ireland community, Protestant and Catholic alike. According to surveys, he is succeeding. The force in the early 1970 s was regarded by Catholics as a “Protestant force for Protestant people.” Now, as general support for the I.R.A. wanes, the R.U.C.

more and more successfully straddles the divide. The big question mark against the R.U.C. is its ability, combined with the British army, to stifle the paramilitary threat. At present, it gives the impression of a beleaguered force.

Police stations are like suburban fortresses, surrounded by 20-foot high barbed wire and often protected by rifle-carrying troops, swivelling from the hip as they move among lunchtime shoppers. It. is an incongruous sight that has become in--10 long years almost a cliche o"f Ulster.

The force’s major enemy, the 1.R.A.. has recently reformed, according to the latest issue of Ireland’s current affairs magazine. "Magill,” which has produced an in-depth analysis of Europ’s longestserving guerrilla army. Its seven-man “Army Council” is now dominated by Northern "hawks,” according to. the magazine. Its recruits are younger—between 18 and 19 — and have known nothing but violence. “We’re prepared for the long haul — 30, 40, 50 years if necessary,” saidan I.R.A. spokesman. Meanwhile, the cost to the British exchequer of thwarting the I.R.A. threat: is growing. In 1978-79, British taxpayers- paid $2OO million to the R.U.C., or $lBO million more than when the troubles first flared in 1970-71. The cost of keeping the army in Ulster’ was roughly the same — $199 million compared with a paltry $3 million in 1969-70.

In all, personal and criminal reparations have absorbed a staggering $740 million in 10 years. Even Eire, battling with serious economic difficulties will pay about $2OO million over the next few years to combat serious crime, including the apparently endless round of major bank robberies (much of the money flows north to the IJ?.A.) ... Already under the new - Prime Minister, Charles Haughey, Irish and Ulster police have co-operated very successfully along the border to combat paramilitary activity. (The immediate reason for Ireland’s $2OO million thrust against the criminals was the deaths of two policemen earlier this year as they attempted to stop a bank raid by suspected paramilitaries.) As the State security machine makes life tougher for the paramilitaries, it is feared that they may seek “softer” targets — ■ like Mr Hearst, Mr Allen, and the Hillock children.