Northern Ireland Another Cavalcade of Coffins

By Christopher Ogden/Dungannon

Along the back roads of County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, black flags nailed to telephone poles fluttered desultorily in an autumn mist. In Dungannon an Irish tricolor flew at half-staff, while in Carrickmore the sidewalk curbs were painted orange, white and green. Thus last week did supporters of the tiny but lethal Irish Republican Army mourn the loss of three ranking "volunteers" -- two of them brothers -- who had been shot to death by British commandos in an ambush near Carrickmore.

After a series of successful attacks against British forces, the outlawed I.R.A. has suffered a string of mishaps and setbacks. In the Catholic Ardoyne district of Belfast, police last week confiscated 200 pounds of explosives and predicted that the I.R.A. was planning a "horrific remainder to 1988." That followed the arrests in Waldfeucht, West Germany, of two I.R.A. suspects by a border guard who discovered weapons in their car during a random search. Waldfeucht is only 16 miles from Rheindalen, headquarters for the 67,000 British troops stationed in the Federal Republic.

The most damaging reverse came in Derry, where a middle-aged man and woman were blown up by an I.R.A. booby-trap bomb intended for a British army patrol. The accident prompted yet another embarrassed apology by the terrorists. They realize such mistakes cost them support, even among sympathizers in Ulster's 500,000-member Catholic community, and stiffen the determination of the Protestant majority, 1 million strong, to continue keeping a lid on the minority.

The government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was meanwhile coping with a potential embarrassment of its own, in the British crown colony of Gibraltar. Last week a coroner's inquest opened into the March 6 killing of another three-member I.R.A. team by a squad from the British army's antiterrorist Special Air Services regiment. The inquest is expected to last a month and hear testimony from more than 70 witnesses, including seven SAS members who were involved in the killings. The seven, identified only as Soldiers A through G, will testify from behind a curtain in the witness box, within sight of only the coroner, lawyers and an eleven-member jury.

At the heart of the investigation are allegations that Britain has been conducting a shoot-to-kill policy against the I.R.A. Thatcher denies the charge, insisting that the security forces operate within the law and follow the same rules of engagement that prevailed during the Falklands war. "You obviously set certain criteria and let the people operate within them," she said.

Nonetheless, witnesses in Gibraltar have said the three victims -- Mairead Farrell, 31; Daniel McCann, 30; and Sean Savage, 23 -- were unarmed, on foot and shot without warning by plainclothes gunmen, who immediately disappeared in police cars after the shootings. The accounts received some unexpected support last week from Dr. Alan Watson, a University of Glasgow pathologist who testified for the British government. He told the hearing that his work had been impeded by British officials, and described the shootings as a "frenzied attack."

Back in Ulster, Tom King, Britain's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, defended the Carrickmore ambush killings of the latest three I.R.A. victims. "The security forces responded in a very effective way," he insisted. "This was a particularly nasty murder gang." The I.R.A. has admitted that the three, heavily armed and wearing jump suits and the sinister-looking hoods known as balaclavas, were on "active service" when the SAS cut them down in a hail of bullets. In Britain the ambush was applauded as the first stage in a more aggressive campaign by the government against the I.R.A. Thatcher said the recent upsurge in violence "strengthens our resolve," and added, "Terrorism is a form of tyranny. You can never let it win."

British security officials say the I.R.A. has amassed an awesome arsenal. It reportedly includes more than ten tons of Semtex, a powerful, difficult-to- detect plastic explosive made in Czechoslovakia; a dozen or more Soviet- made SA-7 surface-to-air missiles; crates of grenades and grenade launchers; and at least 50 heavy machine guns. The weaponry arrived in three shipments by sea from Libya between 1984 and 1986 and was hidden in the Republic of Ireland and Ulster.

Philosophically, the I.R.A.'s goal remains unchanged: forcing Britain to withdraw its troops from Ulster's six counties. As the I.R.A. sees it, ending the "occupation" would lead to reunification with the 26 counties of the South and a new Ireland under a socialist government. To further their cause, the guerrillas now specifically target British soldiers: ten were killed in 1987, and 31 already this year.

In contrast to the 30,000-strong British security forces, there are probably no more than 150 full-time activist I.R.A. "volunteers," or regulars, backed by some 800 supporters who provide intelligence and safe houses. Fighting units are divided into tiny cells of three or four volunteers who operate independently, under general policy directives that are transmitted with excruciating care via long-time, trusted confidants.

Politically, the I.R.A. has not fared well lately and operates from a narrow base. In elections in the Irish Republic last year, Sinn Fein, the political arm of the I.R.A., pulled only 1.9% of the vote and failed to win a seat in the Dail (parliament). In Britain's 1987 general election, Sinn Fein won less than 12% of the ballots cast in Northern Ireland.

The I.R.A. faces other problems. The tragically mistaken deaths on Aug. 31 of Sean Dalton, a 55-year-old taxi driver, and Sheila Lewis, a 60-year-old widow, who were blown up when they went to check on the apartment of a friend in Derry, were a worse blow to the guerrillas than the loss of gunmen. The deaths of innocent victims horrifies moderates among the Northern Irish Catholics whom the I.R.A. claims it wants to emancipate.

Ironically, it is in battle areas such as the heavily Catholic Falls Road district of West Belfast that optimists see Northern Ireland's best chance for ending the killing cycles. Despite the violence and unrelenting tension with Ulster's Protestant majority, daily life for Northern Ireland's Catholics has improved in some respects. Thanks to a $2 billion investment in public housing, for example, the proportion of Belfast dwellings judged unfit for human habitation has shrunk from 25% in 1974 to 10% today. The main beneficiaries have been Catholic residents. Building on that, British and Irish moderates hope, will eventually lead the Catholic community to turn against the gunmen. "The only people who can beat the I.R.A.," said Father Denis Faul, "are the little women of the Falls Road."