Word: stormont
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...Irish Republican Army. The Provos had listed their conditions for securing a permanent ceasefire; they included the setting of a date for British troop withdrawal from the province, abolition of Ulster's parliament, and amnesty for political prisoners. But the initiative stirred little response from either the Stormont or Westminster government, leading one I.R.A. leader to declare: "It's now total war." The day after the truce ended, a 200-lb. gelignite bomb shattered windows and tore the roofs off several buildings in downtown Belfast. Another I.R.A. explosive, left in a parked car, killed two British Army specialists...
...Faulkner, has tried to serve as a balancing force against Protestant extremists, even though he has lost all credibility with the Catholics. He denounced the march at Newry last week as "an exercise in irresponsible brinkmanship. " But he also told Protestants that they must accept more Catholics in the Stormont government or "dig still deeper trenches for a long and bloody battle...
With Ulster on the verge of flames, what can Heath do? He is not yet ready to anger the Protestants by disbanding the Stormont government and imposing direct rule from London-but perhaps he may be pushed into taking over Stormont's police powers. He certainly cannot remove British troops without risking the possibility of civil war between Catholics and Protestants. Some Britons are advocating, however, that he set a date for withdrawing the army, thereby giving both sides a deadline for working out a settlement...
Futile Exercise. Bloody Sunday made it clear to all that the 15,000-man British army force, which is technically under Stormont's control but is independent in practice, has not yet reduced violence in Ulster to "an acceptable level," as Maudling recently described its aim. The Londonderry killings, moreover, succeeded only in polarizing still further Ulster's divided Catholic and Protestant communities -and in strengthening the hands of extremists on both sides. The recently split Unionist ranks now have closed behind Faulkner and his no-nonsense rejection of any form of Irish unification. From Stormont came cold...
...Catholic side, the killings immensely increased the influence of the I.R.A. terrorists, who now have more applicants than they can possibly train. Internment had confirmed the Catholics' worst fears about the Protestant-dominated Stormont government: that its ultimate answer to Catholic political and civil rights demands would be naked sectarian repression. No Unionist Prime Minister, they feel, can ever survive while ignoring the extremist Orangemen's call to "make the Croppies [Catholics] lie down." For Catholics, the Derry shootings have now added weight to the I.R.A.'s claim that the real enemy is the British government...