Dublin Sunday World, the main actors in this black comedy are Glen Barr, Vanguard member and UDA negotiator in Libya; Andie Tyrie, commander of the Ulster Defence Association and supremo Ulster Volunteer Force; Bill Craig of the Vanguard Party; and Harry West, United Ulster Unionist how to re-impose their ascendancy.
Craig has justified this step in the following way: "The Ulster people must prepare to use all means necessary to maintain and defend our British heritage and way of life. If that means setting up a provisional government to govern and defend our province, then so be it'. So the cat is out of the bag. The Loyalist ultras are preparing a rebellion' of the kind which got them the Six County state in the first place in 1920.
CARSON
Craig's words echo those of Sir Edward Carson in 1911 when the Liberal Government was threatening to pass a Home Rule Bill for Ireland. Carson said: 'We must be prepared ..the morning that Home Rule passes, ourselves to become responsible for the government of the Protestant province of Ulster'.
Later he went on to state: "They may tell us, if they like, that this is treason. It is not for men who have such stakes as we have at issue to trouble about the cost. Just like these forebearers, elements like Craig are actively preparing their armed might to show exactly what they think of 'law and order' when they reckon their interests are threatened.
FIRE-POWER
Make no mistake, these 'parliamentarians' have the fire-power to back up their threats. The UUUC is is inextricably bound up with the para-military organisations through the Ulster Loyalists Council - itself reinforced by last week's announcement of the formation of a united command of para-military organisations in the Ulster Army Council. This body contains on its command staff two of the UUUC's recently elected Convention members. Most other UUUC Convention members are openly linked with para-military organisations. As the Irish Times was forced to admit: "The distinction between the UUUC as a purely political grouping and the Ulster Army Council as a military coalition are The Loyalist forces in Northern Ireland have set up a 'provisional government' According to the of the new Ulster Army Council - the joint command of all the paramilitary groups except the Council leader. The only discussion now going on amongst these reactionaries is not whether but motley crew that go to make up the self-proclaimed 'provisional government' - Dr lan Paisley. In addition the UVF has refused to join the Ulster Army Council. These elemequally dangerous to the minority, but based on an alliance with Westminster - that of integration.
SHOOT-UPS Westminster would be increased, while there would be local power sharing where the minority was in an overwhelming majority so long as as the RUC was able to operate its 'rule of law' and so long as the Loyalists had their hands firmly on the purse strings. The divisions within the UUUC, and the shootups between the UVF and the UDA Red Hand Commando, explained by this different view of how to distribute the spoils.
Then direct There - 350 one fails.
ents are projecting another alternative In this scheme, representation at are to be At the DEMA But it is just because of the ceasefire that these documents have been given to the Loyalists. The British military have been heavily indoctrinated with anti-Catholic ideas. Many athies are 100 per cent with the pro-Unionist forces. They just want to get on with the job of smashing the nationalists.
If the army is temporarily restricting the use of its own murder gangs, who have left a trail of mayhem and brutality behind them in the Catholic ghettos, then some of its officers have decided to compensate for the drop in the death rate by bringing in the Loyalist assassination squads. This bloody liaison between the professional killers of the British Army and the murderous hit-men of the Loyalists is the logical outcome of British imperialism's policy in Ireland. The Army can only keep the 'peace" in Ireland through terror and violence and by working in alliance with the Loyalists. The release of these documents shows once again the need to pull every single British soldier out of Ireland for good.
moment, however, the 'UDI-merchants' have the upper hand. Paisley's project is a very good reserve if that TROOPS OUT British workers have no interest in either of these two projects. They both depend upon the smashing of the the minority, on the denial of their democratic rights, and the continual subordination of Ireland to British imperialism. These 'solutions' are the only ones that can come out of the Constitutional Convention.
Never has it been more clear that people." there can be no British solution to the Irish question. The past year has seen a series of concessions to the Loyalists culminating in this Convention. Every concession has simply whetted the appetites of the Loyalists.
There must be no more concessions.
The Army - the bastion of the Loyalists' self-confidence: the cover for their open preparation for civil war; and the main force against the struggle and demands of the minority - must be removed immediately This is the message that must be taken back to the workers movement from the TOM trade union conference If we do this, we can play our part in consigning the UDA, UVF, and all these other relics from the past where they belong - into the dustbin of history. In 1911 Bonar Law, leader of the Tory Party, was able to say: I can imagine no length of resistance to which Ulster can go in which I should not be prepared to support them, and in which, in my belief, they would not be supported by the overwhelming majority of the British MASS MOVEMENT Unfortunately the British people didn't then repudiate those words. Now we have the chance through the building of a massive movement to withdraw the troops to prepare to repudiate the similar protestations which are being prepared by today's Bonar Laws and Frank Carsons.