last year.
Over the last three years some 13 Loyalists have been arrested and charged with involvement in sectarian attacks - a period in which nearly 300 Catholics have been murdered. At the same time all Loyalist internees have been freed from Long Kesh.
As a result of these attacks, Catholics have been driven out ot areas such as Rathcoole in North Belfast. They have been forced into tighter, more besieged ghettoes, and out of some places of work.
A recent example was at the Scottish & Newcastle Brewery in East Belfast. Last year a Catholic was shot at while at work in the plant, and in June this year a Short Strand man, Hugh Duffy, was shot dead on his way home from work there. In this climate the Catholics at the brewery have now decided they must all leave for their own safety.
These are concrete effects; others such as on the general level of confidence within the anti-Unionist pop¡ ulation, cannot be estimated.
With the assassination campaign intended by its perpetrators to have such an effect, it might be expected that the British Army and the Unionists' own forces, the RUC and UDR would not make a serious effort to halt the murders. And indeed the response of the Paratroop Regiment to the murder of Tony Molloy in Bally mena Street, Oldpark, last month was to come in and lift a neighbour, much to the disgust of local people. This typified British Army policy.
BLIND EYE
Some assassins have been stopped by passing patrols but many more and the Oldpark murder was such have passed by the averted gaze' of the British Army. Their a case overall role has been to disarm the Catholic working class, thus breaking up attempts to build defence against attack.
complicity with Loyalists is well known UDR soldiers have dual membership in the Ulster Defence Association or Ulster Volunteer Force. This ensures that members of the para-military organisations receive military training and access to weapons.
the UDR is to the Protestant paraJOHN MAGEE reports from Belfast Representatives of Loyalist murder squads announce their future plans The Ulster Defence Regiment's - a considerable number of Two incidents show how useful militaries: (1) the attack on the tion. Miami Showband on 31 July when the band's van was flagged down by bogus security forces, the musicians were ordered outside, a bomb exploded prematurely killing two UVF men, and three members of the band were machine-gunned to death; (2) the murder of two Catholics on 24 August near Newtownhamilton at a fake UDR road-block.
The UDR was originally set up by the British Government as an attempt on the one hand to appease the Catholics by disbanding the hated B-Specials, while on the other giving the Unionists an alternative to the B-Specials (but supposedly under the direct control of the Army). The result was to provide Loyalists with the opportunity for military training and spectacular "losses' of army equipment, backed up with the steady disappearance of ultra-modern rifles in ones and twos.
EXCUSE
As for the RUC - 90 per cent composed of Protestants, many of whom also have dual membership in the para-military organisations - it stands to gain from the assassinations by using them as an excuse to build up strength to re-enter CatholThe 26 June announcement of a special 'anti-assassination' force is part of the attempt to reintroduce the RUC. It is to be a unit of the Special Patrol Group, a heavily armed, mobile anti-riot squad (the SPG has been used in Britain in defence of the fascist National Front). The most significant aspect of the announcement was the appeal by Chief Constable Flanagan for more recruits to the RUC and RUC Reserve, and for 'public cooperation", especially from the Catholic populaCraig (left) and Paisley - pressurising Rees The growth.of the Loyalist paramilitary organisations since the UWC strike has been accompanied by a steady build-up of military activity. The formation of the Ulster Army Council, composed of the six main para-military groups apart from the UVE, reflects the moves towards open attacks on the Catholic minority as a way of giving. them great er autonomy to defend the institu tions of the Orange statelet against the 'threat of any concessions to the Catholics. The UAC is intent on forging a united Loyalist army capable of controlling the North for a limited period. Its members calculate that 20,000 men should be enough to do the job.
The latest retaliatory campaign by the South Armagh Republican Action Force' would appear to be a reaction to the sectarian killings carried out by the Loyalist gangs. But the Loyalist organisations have seized on this excuse to put pressure on Rees by threatening industrial action and an escalation of paramilitary attacks Rees's reaction has been to draft at least a thousand more troops into Northern Ireland, and police and extra troops into South Armagh. He explained that the sec urity forces would be extending the scope of their activities in a manner not to be specified'. The moves by the security forces seem to be so secret that a BBC reporter was able to travel around in a car for an hour without meeting a single Army patrol!
The Loyalist coalition's boycott of the Rees meeting on law and order with the SDEP, Faulknerites, Alliance Party and Northern Ireland Labour Party; Paisley's demand for closure of the border and a Home Guard organised under the Crown;
along with the Loyalist calls for
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The heightened activity of Loyalist assassination squads over recent weeks is a reflection of the growing confidence of the Unionist organisations since the Ulster Workers Council strike