A Timetable to End Terror

THE Protestant sections of Belfast burst out last week in sudden and open fury. During two nights of violent rioting, which included a three-hour gun battle with British troops in the heart of the city, six people were killed and more than 100 soldiers and civilians injured. The rampages marked the first major Protestant attacks on British troops since the soldiers were sent to Northern Ireland more than three years ago to curb violence between Ulster's Catholics and Protestants. The riots also coincided with a tough new mood in Westminster. A British government source last week told TIME that Britain is no longer disposed to let its troops be shot at indefinitely while the opposing Ulster factions refuse to get together and reach a political settlement.

If the Northern Irish do not settle their differences and come up with a new constitution within four months, the British government will impose one of its own making. If a new constitution has to be imposed and the Ulster political parties refuse to operate under it, said a Whitehall insider last week, "we would be faced with a situation of the utmost gravity in which our total withdrawal from Northern Ireland cannot be ruled out." The government has a detailed timetable worked out. The Cabinet is determined that one way or another there will be a new constitution ready before next March, when the special powers that Westminster assumed over the province will be one year old and, by law, must be either renewed or ended.

Within the next week or so, the British government intends to publish guidelines to its own thinking on what provisions a new Ulster constitution might contain. Westminster strongly favors some form of regional assembly in Belfast; it does not approve of a revamped provincial Parliament dominated by a Cabinet--such as the one through which the Protestants ruled Northern Ireland from Stormont. And Britain does not want the full integration of Ulster into the United Kingdom in the manner of Scotland and Wales. A regional assembly could be modeled along the lines of the Greater London Council, with various assembly committees--some headed by Catholics--administering the province's financial, social welfare, housing, transport and general police affairs. Internal security would remain under William Whitelaw, Britain's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, for an indefinite period. Foreign affairs and defense would continue to be handled, as in the days of Stormont, by Westminster.

White Paper. The obvious hope of the British Cabinet is that the guidelines will encourage representatives of all the Ulster political parties to meet independently with Whitelaw and work out a settlement of their own that can then be presented to Westminster. Extremist Catholic and Protestant groups can hardly be expected to cooperate, of course, but the government is prepared to proceed with an "agreed" solution even if it carries the backing of only the Unionist Party (which has traditionally represented most Protestants) and the Liberal Alliance Party (which includes many Catholics). If no one agrees, the Cabinet will then formulate its own solution. However the formula is arrived at, it will first be presented as a White Paper early in the New Year (probably at the beginning of February), at the same time that a referendum is held on whether the citizens of Ulster want to join Ireland -- a proposition that the Protestant majority seems certain to reject. Soon after, the White Paper will be translated into a bill and placed before Parliament. To help ensure its passage, Opposition Leader Harold Wilson and his shadow cabinet will be invited to assist in the drafting of the legislation.

That timetable to end the terror of Ulster was being prepared long before the Protestant riots erupted last week. But the riots underscored the futility of Britain's trying to keep the peace while waiting for Ulstermen to negotiate a settlement among themselves. The waves of attacks were a controlled show of frightening power by the paramilitary Ulster Defense Association. Little more than a clubhouse of toughs and workers less than a year ago, the U.D.A. now claims to have 53,000 members, including a few American "volunteers" who are veterans of Viet Nam (but whom nobody seems to have seen). It also boasts of having almost unlimited sources of funds, a claim somewhat supported by the fact that its former chairman is now awaiting trial in London on charges of trying to buy nearly $1,000,000 worth of firearms.

Few Orangemen of any persuasion seem to have the heart these days to say no to the U.D.A. , which dispenses jobs, money, small favors and, of course, local protection in Protestant areas. It even handles the burying of the dead. In a prelude to last week's rioting, the U.D.A. buried with its own form of full military honors two young Protestants who had been killed by British army vehicles. According to the U.D.A. one of the victims, a 26-year-old man with a limp, had been chased by a Saracen personnel carrier and deliberately crushed against the side of a house; the other, a 15-year-old boy, had been trapped and run over by a Land-Rover. According to the army, on the other hand, both had been accidentally hit during a riot. On the first night of the rioting, the U.D.A. set up flower shrines, each covered with the Ulster flag, at the places where the two victims had been killed. On one of the shrines was hung a hand-lettered sign: REVENGE IS SWEET. Earlier the U.D.A. had described the deaths as cold-blooded murders and issued a "declaration of war" against the British army. 'To hell with the British army," it said. "To hell with the British administration. The British army and the British government are now our enemies." Soon after, the attacks began.

While the fighting went on, the U.D.A. succeeded in getting the British commanding officer, General Sir Harry Tuzo, to attend private peace negotiations at U.D.A. headquarters. The talks were conducted as if they involved two major powers. After two days and six hours, U.D.A. leaders emerged solemnly to announce that they had agreed to a truce. Declared one U.D.A. spokesman, surrounded by aides in commando battle gear: "Our war with the British army is now over." Many Northern Irishmen are not so sure. Said one moderate member of the Unionist Party: "The task is to get through the next six months without a major bloody conflict."

That task got no help whatsoever from William Craig, leader of the militant Ulster Vanguard, who last month formed an alliance with the U.D.A. Addressing a right-wing Conservative Party group in a meeting room at Britain's House of Commons last week, Craig declared: "We are not prepared to accept any dictate of a government that has sold us down the drain. I am prepared to kill!" In an extraordinary outburst that stunned his audience, Craig predicted that Ulster will declare its independence after a bloodbath in which the Protestants will destroy the Catholics. "Six hundred people have died in Ulster," he said. "A thousand and more will die before Christmas." It was the sort of violent rhetoric that so often has inflamed the agony of Ulster. If the Northern Irish ignore Britain's program for a new constitution and force the British to pull out, Ulster could be engulfed in the bloodiest battles in its tortured history.

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