Protestants in Ulster to Stage General Strike

Northern Ireland’s Protestants plan to carry their opposition to the Anglo-Irish agreement giving the Dublin government a consultative role in the operations of the province into the streets despite a series of concessions by their opponents.

Protestant leaders Wednesday announced a one-day general strike for next Monday throughout Northern Ireland to voice their contempt for terms of the agreement between the Irish Republic and Britain. The strike is aimed at stopping public transportation, closing schools and halting much of the industry in the province, also known as Ulster.

“On Monday, the people of Northern Ireland will signal that Ulster really means business,” said the Rev. Ian Paisley, the Protestant preacher who also leads one of Ulster’s two main Protestant-dominated political parties.

Sectarian Strife

The strike is expected to heighten tensions in Northern Ireland and threaten peaceful implementation of the agreement, reached last November as the first step toward ending the bitter, centuries-old sectarian strife between Ulster’s Protestant majority and the Catholic minority.

Nearly 2,500 people have died since 1968 as a direct result of the violence.

The U.S. Congress is preparing an economic assistance package, reportedly worth $200 million, to support the agreement.

Protestant leaders also have discussed withdrawing support from all local government bodies and engaging in acts of civil disobedience as part of a plan to make the province ungovernable.

The Anglo-Irish agreement, which provided the Irish Republic in Dublin with a formal role in Northern Ireland to build confidence among the beleaguered minority, has been rejected by Protestants as a sellout and the first step toward a united Ireland dominated by Catholics.

Resigned From Parliament

Last December, Ulster’s 15 Protestant members in the British Parliament resigned their seats en masse and declared that their re-election campaigns should be considered a de facto referendum on the accord. Fourteen were re-elected.

The decision to go ahead with the strike came late Tuesday after a sudden policy reversal by Paisley and James Molyneaux, the province’s other leading Protestant politician.

Both had emerged from talks here with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher only hours before and announced a compromise that appeared to have averted the confrontation and opened the door to Protestant participation in a round-table dialogue on the province’s future.

But the rare flicker of euphoria over Northern Ireland was brief.

Succumb to Hard-Liners

Shortly after returning to Belfast, the two men apparently succumbed to hard-liners demanding the strike. A statement released after an emotional three-hour meeting of the Protestant community leadership rejected the dialogue and called for a campaign of non-cooperation with the government, including Monday’s one-day general strike.

One of those who attended the meeting claimed that Paisley and Molyneaux had misjudged the community’s mood and were forced to abandon their conciliatory position.

A prolonged Protestant-supported general strike helped scuttle the last attempt to reconcile Northern Ireland’s sectarian strife, in 1974. But the fatigue of an additional 12 years of violence since then, coupled with crippling 22% unemployment in the province, raise questions about the level of support for such a move.

Minority Favors Strike

A province-wide public opinion poll last month indicated that only one-third of Northern Ireland’s 600,000 Protestants favored strike action as a form of protest.

A senior Thatcher aide said the strike would have no impact on British support for the agreement.

“A strike will only hurt the ordinary people of Northern Ireland,” the aide said. “It will do them (the Protestant leaders) no good at all.”