Renewal of a Vicious War

AFTER four years of civil unrest and more than 700 violent deaths, the troubles in Northern Ireland had seemed, for a few weeks at the beginning of the year, to be receding at last. The persistent and truculent tribalism that for so long had gripped that meanest corner of the British Isles seemed to be giving way if not to reason then to fatigue, or to an instinctive will on the part of the community to preserve something of itself.

But then, in two terrible weeks, the terrorism broke out again more savagely than ever. Once again Northern Ireland seemed to be drifting toward civil war, its population helplessly caught between two bands of extremists who practiced slaughter in the name of their religion.

This time, for what it was worth, the blame for the outburst of violence could be leveled at the Protestant side: the long-feared backlash was a fact at last. For the British army, the renewed violence created a second front, a vicious situation in which its men were being shot at by both Protestant and Catholic extremists. The flare-up caused the British government to order yet another round of troop reinforcements for Northern Ireland. It remained to be seen whether, in the long run, the two-sided sniping at Britain's army would lead British public opinion to conclude that the best solution might be to get out of the place once and for all.

What set off the new bloodshed?

Like almost every event in Ulster, it was mindlessly linked to some unavenged deed from the past. Two weeks ago, a group of Protestants had tossed a grenade at a busload of Catholic workers, killing one (TIME, Feb. 12). The British government placed two Protestants involved in the incident in detention--a technique previously reserved for gunmen and bombers of the outlawed Irish Republican Army. So the Protestants reacted--at the detention, in part, but also because of their fears that the British were going to "sell out" to the Catholics in a forthcoming White Paper that will outline Westminster's hopes for settling the civil war. This in turn led to a bloody weekend in which seven Catholics and three Protestants were killed, and 22 civilians were wounded.

Last week Ulster's Protestant extremists called a 24-hour general strike under the auspices of a newly formed organization called the United Loyalist Council. "There is going to be no more pussyfooting," cried the council's chairman, William ("King Billy") Craig, who has a way of turning up at the head of militant Protestant groups. "The strike will be a show of force and determination."

Burying the Dead. In fact, it turned out to be the occasion for some of the most blatant attacks against the Catholic community in the four-year history of the troubles. Protestant gunmen fired indiscriminately on a funeral procession of several hundred Catholics who were following the coffins of three suspected members of the I.R.A. who had been killed a few days earlier by British troops. The shots wounded a middle-aged man and an eleven-year-old boy. "They won't even let us bury our dead," cried a Catholic woman.

Elsewhere in Belfast that same afternoon, a convent and a Catholic school for handicapped children were attacked by mobs hurling stones, bricks and bottles. A Catholic church and parish house were broken into and ransacked, their religious statues smashed. Three Catholic families in Protestant areas were fire-bombed from their homes. The day left five dead, including a fireman who was shot in the chest as he arrived to fight a blaze in Sandy Row, a Protestant section of South Belfast. Tom Herron, vice chairman of the Ulster Defense Association (U.D.A.), largest of the militant Protestant organizations, brazenly declared that the day's success had been spoiled only by the British army's "indiscriminate fire on men, women and children."

Last week's violence demonstrated to what extent the balance of extremist power has shifted in recent months. The British army's tough campaign against the I.R.A. has left the organization vulnerable and in disarray. Says one British army officer: "We are on top of them to the point where if they leave their house with a rifle in their hands and turn the corner, they run into us." The I.R.A. also seems to be running short on promising recruits. "We aren't picking up gunmen any more," says the same officer. "We are getting gunboys. They are hardly worth interrogating."

While the strength of the I.R.A. has declined, the Protestant organizations have grown larger and bolder. Since December, the "sectarian" killings that had long seemed to be an expression of random aggression have taken on a more perceptible pattern. Often in the past two months they have involved groups of two or three automobiles making hit-and-run attacks in areas that had been considered safe. A few days before the Protestant strike, for instance, a car stopped casually near a spot where a group of Catholics were engaged in a Sunday afternoon hurling match, the Gaelic version of hockey. Suddenly the men in the car sprayed the crowd with machine-gun fire, wounding a young goalkeeper, a teen-age boy and a 14-year-old girl.

British authorities believe that the Ulster Volunteer Force (U.V.F.), which, unlike the U.D.A., is an illegal organization, took part in the bus bombing incident two weeks ago. Certainly it has become more visible lately. Even as William Craig blandly denied at a press conference last week that the U.V.F. played any role in the new United Loyalist Council, a U.V.F. representative sat in plain view behind him.

Late last week, in a determined effort to head off any drift toward a two-front war, British authorities took eight more Protestants into custody. In the strongest language he has yet used against Ulster's "loyalists," William Whitelaw, Britain's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, denounced the strike and its organizers. "Let us be quite clear," he said. "No one, no matter who he thinks he is, no matter how loud he shouts, is above the law." He made it clear that the British government would press ahead with its plans for a referendum on reunification and on the White Paper. He also dismissed suggestions that the prospect of having the British army under attack by both sides in Ulster would lead to a decisive change in his government's policy. "The British will never betray Northern Ireland," he said grimly. "It can only betray itself."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.