Ulster protest to go on despite increased security

Press, 20 November 1981, Page 7

Ulster protest to go on despite increased security

NZPA-Reuter Belfast Hard-line Protestant leaders have vowed to go ahead with protest action against British policy on Northern Ireland despite increased security measures. The British Government has begun sending 600 extra troops into the province to combat a sharp rise in sectarian violence. The 7000strong police force has been put on full alert. But the hard-line Protestants, who fiercely oppose Northern Ireland's Catholic minority who want to unite with the Irish Republic, were unimpressed by the new measures.

The preacher-politician, lan Paisley, said that the sending in of more troops from a spearhead battalion held in reserve on the British mainland was a cosmetic exercise. Informed sources said the Army strength would be back to its total of six months go. The force already numbers more than 11,000. Mr Paisley said yesterday that a huge’“day of action” on Monday with work stoppages and demonstrations would still go ahead, and Protestants throughout the province had pledged support for it. Mr Paisley said it was

time for Protestants “to do or die” and he asserted that he could mobilise 50,000 men. some of them legally entitled to carry arms, for a “third force” to combat the outlawed Irish Republican Army. The Northern Ireland Secretary (Mr James Prior) later told reporters: “Private armies have no place in society.” He said there was a crisis of confidence in Northern Ireland which was being fostered by extremists on both sides. As the first 150 of 600 troops ordered to the province flew in yesterday, gunmen shot dead a former

part-time soldier and wounded another man in Londonderry, and injured a soldier and a passing farmer in an ambush near the border with the Irish Republic. The I.R.A. claimed responsibility for both attacks. In London, the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr Robert Runcie) yesterday launched a direct attack on Mr Paisley over his threat to make the province ungovernable. "An ungovernable country is an undefended and unhealthy country, delivered into the hands of the unscrupulous,” Dr Runcie said.