Northern Ireland Terror in the Cemetery

By J.D. Reed

At first the funeral seemed to be at least a melancholic pause in the long and bloody struggle between Ulster's Protestants and Roman Catholics. On the eve of St. Patrick's Day last week, an estimated 5,000 people had gathered at Belfast's Catholic Milltown Cemetery to bury three members of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, the organization dedicated to uniting British-ruled Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic. The I.R.A. trio had been gunned down March 6 by a unit of Britain's Special Air Service regiment in Gibraltar, where, the British government said, the three had planned a terrorist bombing.

As the coffins were being lowered into the earth, the crack of gunshots and the thud of hand grenades echoed over the grave markers. Panicked mourners dived to the ground or crouched behind tombstones. Pistol in one hand, a bearded man hurled several more grenades into the throng and fired at the bereaved. As the injured staggered away in shock or cowered in terror, a group of enraged mourners pursued the retreating attacker, caught him several hundred yards away and beat him severely before he was rescued and arrested by men of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (R.U.C.), the Northern Ireland police ! force. After his arrest, according to police sources, the terrorist asked, "How many of the bastards did I kill?" The answer: three people dead. Some 60 others were injured, four seriously.

Even in Ulster, with its long history of anger and bloodshed, an attack on a funeral had seemed unthinkable. The incident raised worries not only in Belfast but also in London about a fresh cycle of sectarian violence: before the cemetery attack 14 civilians and members of the security forces had been killed in Ulster this year. In an effort to head off terrorist reprisals, Tom King, Britain's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, pleaded with both sides to avoid "revenge and retaliation"; otherwise, he said, "the mad cycle of violence will go on and on."

His appeal went unheeded. Two days after the Milltown attack, a 21-year-old Protestant woman, with no known connections to the security forces, was shot dead near the Irish border on Friday. Her 24-year-old boyfriend was wounded in the same attack. The IRA has claimed responsibility for the shootings. An even uglier incident soon followed. On Saturday, during the funeral procession for one of the Milltown cemetery victims, an angry crowd of mourners spotted two British undercover agents desperately trying to maneuver their car out of trouble. They were pulled from their vehicle, disarmed, stripped, beaten savagely, dragged into a nearby alley and killed, apparently with their own weapons.

Ulster Catholics tend to blame rising tensions in the province on what they consider provocations by the British government. Earlier this year, for instance, Britain announced it would not prosecute several R.U.C. men accused of obstructing an investigation into an alleged 1982 "shoot to kill" policy by the force against the I.R.A. The flames were further fanned when the three unarmed I.R.A. guerrillas were killed in Gibraltar.

In the aftermath of the Milltown attack, Ulster's Catholic community was suspicious of everyone. Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, the I.R.A.'s political wing, charged that the R.U.C. was in collusion with the grenade- throwing attacker, as evidenced by the low police profile around the cemetery. Officials in Belfast dismissed the charge, explaining that only a few policemen were in the area because the R.U.C. was responding to previous complaints that its presence had inflamed mourners at similar graveside ceremonies.

The assailant was quickly identified as Michael Stone, 32, a Belfast Protestant who is also being questioned about earlier terrorist acts. The Ulster Defense Association, a leading Protestant paramilitary organization, denied any affiliation with him and claimed to have had no involvement in the cemetery attack.

In an apprehensive Whitehall, the cemetery outrage and its violent aftermath conjured up the nightmare of more British troops being caught in cross fire between Protestants and Catholics. Authorities believe both Protestant and Catholic extremists in Ulster have been stockpiling weapons. In response, a number of opposition Labor Party politicians in London were again raising demands to get British troops out of the province. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who called the latest killings "an act of appalling savagery," fears that a pullout would trigger even worse bloodshed in Ulster. She is adamant that the forces stay.

With reporting by Edmund Curran/Belfast and Frank Melville/London