Britain’s Minister for Northern Ireland Visiting Los Angeles

A British Cabinet minister arrives in Los Angeles today to urge American support for Northern Ireland peace efforts jeopardized by internal stresses within Roman Catholic and Protestant factions in the divided province.

Marjorie “Mo” Mowlam, the minister for Northern Ireland, will argue that a terrorist cease-fire remains firm and that the British-Irish deadline of May 1 for a political settlement is realistic.

Both are newly imperiled by strains affecting the Irish Republican Army and Sinn Fein, its political arm, and by the refusal of hard-line Protestant parties to join slow-moving peace talks.

In civic and media appearances on Monday, Mowlam will also stress Northern Ireland’s welcoming climate for investment, highlighting financial and community-mending successes of high-tech American firms already there.

Signs of IRA impatience with the peace process form an ominous backdrop to the Mowlam visit. On Thursday, the IRA rushed to deny the third report in a week of resignations by republican veterans, saying in a statement that the movement remains “intact, united and committed.”

The IRA concedes that five senior members resigned last month after a strategy meeting in Ireland’s County Donegal. Irish sources say there were up to 20 defectors, including at least one senior officer.

Breakaway republicans are protesting the peace process and, in some cases, the pledge by Sinn Fein to uphold democratic principles as its admission ticket to talks chaired by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell.

At the same time, two strongly anti-nationalist Protestant parties--the Democratic Unionist Party and the tiny United Kingdom Unionist Party--steadfastly refuse to enter the slow-moving talks.

Since Sinn Fein joined the talks in Belfast, the provincial capital, on Sept. 15, eight Catholic and Protestant parties have stated their positions on key issues ranging from increased local self-government for Northern Ireland to the surrender of terrorist weapons.

“Everybody’s position is now on the table, and it’s up to Mitchell to compile a report stressing the common points,” said one source close to the talks, adding gloomily, “It’ll be a short report.”