Catholics Face Loyalist Backlash!

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TORY MINISTER James Prior was almost lynched on Tuesday by an Orange mob Zat the funeral of Rev. Robert Bradford, the MP shot by *the Provisional IRA.

As a Tory newspaper put it: Protestant Ulster is on the point of rebellion. A 124 hour general strike has been called for next Monday. The Ulster Defence Association, the 10,000 strong legal Orange paramilitary organisation which wants an independent Northern Ireland, has called on Unionist MPs to "come home and set up a democratic (i.e. Protestant!) system of Parliament' in Northern Ireland.

Orange local authorities in Northern Ireland are to withhold cooperation from the British government. 500 ›armed Protestants have demonstrated in Enniskillen (Fermanagh) and a similar number, wearing masks, demonstrated in Derry City: both Fermanagh and Derry City are heavily Catholic.

The Official Unionist Party has given the British authorities an ultimatum to increase 'security' operations dramatically, or else it will set up a 'third force' of armed. Orangemen. Mr Paisley says the third force' (between the British and the IRA) already exists.

Thus the Catholic population of Northern Ireland is in imminent danger of attack from Orange pogromists.

The keynote was struck by the murder of an 18 year old Catholic, Thomas McNulty, within hours of the killing of Bradford.

Robert Bradford was an outspoken Orange leader:

over Hospital workers are better prepared this time, and plan to give management a very hard time if they snatch patients off the wards again with the support of security guards and police.

Meanwhile TGWU shop steward Mick Woods has been suspended for three weeks now and is due to have his contract of employment not renewed because he refused to move a patient when management closed Ward 2.

Mick is the first hospital workers to be sacked during the course of an occupation, and since he is a shop steward this is a challenge to the TGWU. McNulty was chosen at random and lynched. When the Protestant militants call for increased "security' against the Catholics, it is mass lynchings and jailing without trial that they call for.

The British Army raids, searches, and continuously harasses in the Catholic areas. To do anything that the British Army is not already doing, the third force would have to organise large scale attacks on Catholic enclaves and shoot suspected Republicans.

What the Orangemen want in a third force is a sectarian militia to terrorise and hold down the Catholics, as the B Special constables did for 50 years.

The Catholic enclaves will defend themselves.

Civil war is looming in Northern Ireland.

St Mary's support conference: November 21, 11am to 2pm at Porchester Hall, Porchester Rd, W2.

If any gains for trade unionism have been made in the hospitals, it is essential that the TGWU leadership take urgent steps to ensure his reinstatement.

Staff at the hospital have been visiting other hospitals in the past week urging support for the conference and appealing for sympathetic industrial action to defeat the union-busting management of the Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster AHA.

SO appeals to all its readers and supporters to commit their branches to send delegates to the St.

Mary's Support Conference and/or attend in a personal capacity.

Loyalists parading: now The catalyst for the Protestant backlash was the killing of Bradford by the IRA. In fact the main concern of the Protestants is that Britain and the Irish Republic are in the process of reaching a settlement of the Northern Ireland situation.

Throughout the year, as the Catholic community mobilised in support of the hunger strikers; the communal polarisation has been stretched drum-tight.

Britain is making a show of increasing its "security' operation in response to the Official Unionist Party ultimatum. Nothing that the EDITORIAL: see LAST YEAR, Tony Benn announced' at the Labour Party conference that the next Labour government would abolish the House of O'Mahı they're rallying for pogroms British government can do, or is likely to try to do, will satisfy Paisley and supporters, who are seizing their opportunity to get maximum Orange mobilisation and organisation.

It is impossible that the Provisional IRA, whose central leadership has claimed responsibility for it, did not expect that the killing of Bradford would trigger a Protestant backlash and help Paisley. Why they should want that is not clear. To judge by the predictable results of what they did, it is most likely that the intention was to create conditions to scuttle the London-DublMoney for the dribbling in • at slow rate.

But there is a lot to be done: helping the Leyland Action Committee to organise the new militants from the BL strike; mobilising in the TGWU to defend shop steward Mick Woods, sacked for his resistance to ward in deal now being set up was the Protestant gen strike of 1974 that scut the last attempt at a deal.

Drum-tight

fund is still a painfully Such deliberate stoking of the sectarian fires is a radical new departure for the PIRA. It follows the decision of the recent conference of the Provisional Republicans to formally abandon the policy of conciliating the Protestants and offering them special arrangements in a united Ireland to which the Republicans have been committed since 1972. closures at St Mary's Hospital, London W9; rallying the labour movement to fight Denning's Law: organising the Labour Left to defend conference policy against the centre/right offensive.

We need at least £750 this month on top of the bankers' orders. Send to Socialist Organiser, 28 Middle Lane, London N8.

Whatever the explanation, the Catholics are likely to suffèr for it. If the sectarian conflict escalates seriously, the Catholic community would be in danger of widespread pogroms and massacres. The Catholics are the minority. Areas like Catholic West Belfast exist in a Protestant sea.

The UDA would be the core of a sectarian 'third force' . Tens of thousands of Protestants legally hold guns.

The Orange drive is a drive to restore their sectarian dictatorship over the Catholics in the six counties. In the final analysis, the ferocity of the IRA campaign is a direct result of their belief that within the six county statelet, under either British or Orange rule, life would not be livable for the Cathol ics. They are quite right.

Socialists in Britain must take a stand on the fundamental questions of Irish self determination and the role of the troops. we must continue to support the oppressed Catholic minority against the Orange supremacists and po gromists, and against the British Army.