Second I.R.A. striker near death as bombs fly

Press, 13 May 1981, Page 9

Second I.R.A. striker near death as bombs fly

NZPA-Reuter Belfast Violence flared in Belfast and Londonderry as the condition of the I.R.A. hunger striker, Francis Hughes, now 60 days without food, deteriorated sharply at the Maze Prison yesterday. “Francis is not able t<j, move at all,” his family said. The’Belfast brigade of the Irish Republican Army’s militant “Provisional” wing claimed responsibility for a sniper attack earlier on British soldiers escorting a Post Office cash shipment in west Belfast’s Ballymurphy district. One soldier was seriously wounded and another slightly injured, the police said.

In Londonderry, dozens of Molotov cocktails were hurled at security forces during the night and the police said they returned fire after coming under sniper attack in the Roman Catholic Creggan district. In Belfast, where police and Army patrols were attacked with more than 1500

Molotov cocktails last week, security forces found a storage hut in Ballymurphy containing 12 crates of bottles. a gallon of hydrochloric acid, petrol, funnels and cloth twisted into wicks —

all reportedly for making acid and petrol-filled bombs. The Belfast I.R.A. brigade called on residents of Catholic areas to keep children away from Army vehicles. The mostly Catholic 1.R.A., which is fighting to end British rule in Northern Ireland and reunite the province with the largely Catholic Irish Republic said: “Over recent days active service units have had to cancel operations due to young children playing near the vehicles.”

The statement was underlined by a spokesman, Richard McAuley, of Sinn Fein, the LR.A.’s political ffbnt, who said that the relatively muted response after the death last week of the hunger striker, Bobby Sands, may not continue if Hughes

died and the British Government still refused the prisoners’ demands.

Hughes, aged 25, serving a life sentence for the murder of a British Army officer in a shoot-out in March, 1978 was said by his family to be approaching death.

A statement from supporters, quoting family members, said Hughes was “in an intermittent coma,” unable to move, nearly deaf and “completely blind.” He has twice received the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church. Members of his family — he is the ninth of 10 children — were given a room in the hospital wing at the Maze and were keeping a bedside vi ?i L

Hughes and three other convicted Irish nationalist guerrillas are continuing Sands’s campaign for the right to wear their own civilian clothes, freedom from assigned prison work, free association among themselves in the H-shaped cell blocks of the Maze, the resto-

ration of lost parole time and more visits and mail.

The I.R.A. says the underlying purpose of Sands’s sacrifice and the continuing hunger strike is to win political prisoner status for the more than 700 jailed nationalist guerrillas in Northern Ireland.

The British Goveriiment, which in. 1976 adopted the policy of treating terrorists as ordinary criminals, says it will , never concede political status because it would encourage the recruitment of more gunmen and bombers. - Asked if street violence will be contained if Hughes dies (predictions of full-scale war after Sands’s death have proved wrong) Mr McAuley said: “At some point wq won’t be. able to contain the reaction to peaceful protests.”

If I.R.A. supporters launch a major offensive, they could face a showdown* with paramilitary protestants of the Ulster Defence Association.