Shadow Of a Gunman

By George Russell

Sands starves to death, and others vow to follow

As British army helicopters clattered anxiously overhead, some 50,000 Northern Irish Catholics lined the streets of Belfast last week for an emotional ceremony that was part funeral, part political demonstration. A lone piper led the way as thousands of mourners followed a Daimler hearse bearing a coffin draped in the green, white and orange flag of the Irish Republic. Beside the hearse strode seven hooded members of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, dressed in mottled green combat jackets and berets.

At Andersonstown Road, in the heart of a Catholic section, the cortege stopped, and the coffin was removed from the hearse. Three more I.R.A. men suddenly appeared with rifles and fired into the air the traditional three volleys of honor and mourning. The procession, discreetly shepherded by police and British troops, moved past Protestant strongholds, where tall screens were erected to prevent even eye contact between the rival sectarian groups.

Finally, at the Milltown Cemetery, the coffin was carried to a special area studded with the graves of more than 200 I.R.A. faithful. Republican Leader Gerry Adams declared: "We will bury our dead with the dignity denied them while living." He added, "The ordinary people of Ireland have turned out to show their solidarity with Bobby Sands. They know that [his] death didn't have to happen."

True enough. But death had come at last to convicted I.R.A. Terrorist and Hunger Striker Robert (Bobby) Gerard Sands, 27, by virtue of his own will. His earthly remains were little more than a husk after a 66-day fast in the H-block section of Northern Ireland's Maze Prison. He was the first I.R.A. member to starve himself to death since 1976, the 13th Irish Nationalist to do so in this century. Sands had failed in his mam aim: to force the British government to grant special political status to himself and 700 other I.R.A. members imprisoned in the Maze. But he had managed to fan Republican passions -- and street violence -- to levels unseen in the North in nearly a decade. His death raised the specter of more terror to come and tightened the tension between those implacable opponents, the I.R.A. and the British government.

The news of Sands' death was announced in the British Parliament, as it had to be, since the I.R.A. rebel became a member in a stunning by-election victory on April 9. But Speaker of the House George Thomas omitted the usual expressions of bereavement and extended no sympathy to the relatives. That break with tradition matched the tough mood of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who had refused to move an inch in the face of Sands' demands. Said Thatcher crisply: "Mr. Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life. It was a choice his organization did not allow many of their victims."

The Prime Minister's sentiments had the full backing of Opposition Leader Michael Foot, who said that government concessions would give "sure aid to the recruitment of terrorists." Within hours of the funeral, Home Secretary William Whitelaw announced the government's other response: the intent to plug a legal loophole that had allowed Sands, a convicted felon, to stand for Parliament. Westminster wanted no repetition of the I.R.A.'s ploy when yet another by-election is called in Northern Ireland's turbulent Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency.

Sands' fatal hunger strike now appears to be only the prelude to a sustained movement by other Maze prisoners. Three I.R.A. members joined Sands in the three weeks after he had begun to fast on March 1, and one, Francis Hughes, 25, was reported to be sinking quickly. After Sands' death, other I.R.A. prisoners announced that they would take the place of any hunger striker who died. But the British had no intention of giving way, even if, as a spokesman at 10 Downing Street harshly put it, "they drop like flies."

The prospect of a sustained war of attrition hardly boded well for the scarred, sad urban ghettos of Belfast, Londonderry and other Northern centers. As the clanging of garbage can lids announced the news of Sands' death, gangs of Catholic youths once again rampaged through the streets, despite calls from the I.R.A. itself for calm as the organization prepared its martyr's farewell. Cars and other vehicles were overturned and burned as impromptu barricades. As they had in previous weeks, plumes of smoke from Molotov cocktails hung over Belfast. One youngster blew himself up as he tried to plant a crudely made bomb in that city; a Belfast policeman was shot to death. Another youth died during a riot-caused auto crash. The violence spread to the Irish Republic, where a Dublin gang ran amuck along fashionable Dawson Street, hurling rocks and debris through shop windows. Heavy police protection was given to scores of British Members of Parliament.

Sands' death also managed to cast a shadow abroad. The state legislatures of New Jersey and Massachusetts passed resolutions deploring Sands' death. The 110,000-member International Longshoremen's Association, which mans the docks along the U.S. East and Gulf coasts, announced a one-day boycott of ships flying the Union Jack (only three vessels were believed to be affected). Of more serious consequence was the high probability that Republican sympathizers in the U.S. were once again passing the hat for the I.R.A., renewing the flow of arms-buying money estimated as high as $3 million annually.

Yet despite fears of an immediate bout of terrorism in retaliation for Sands' death, the I.R.A. last week bided its time. It might have reason to avoid testing its strength openly -- and risking a defeat. For example, an I.R.A. attempt to coerce Irish Republic shopkeepers into closing down for a national day of mourning for Sands ended as a dismal failure.

The other force that also held itself in check in Northern Ireland was the province's Protestant majority ("the sleeping monster," as one senior British army officer called it) that outnumbers Catholics 2 to 1. On the day of Sands' funeral, Protestant Leader Ian Paisley held another memorial service, outside Belfast city hall, to commemorate the many victims of I.R.A. terrorism. Nonetheless, said Paisley: "Protestants will not react so long as the police and the army are controlling the situation in Catholic areas, and so far they have been doing that satisfactorily."

Even if wholesale sectarian violence is kept at bay, Sands' death and the continuing hunger strikes could create serious political hazards in the weeks ahead. Particularly threatened is Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey. Last December, he and Thatcher agreed to a series of consultations on the whole spectrum of Irish-British relations, an understanding that Haughey had hoped to exploit in an upcoming general election as a small step toward Irish unification. Now Haughey clearly has been weakened by the reaction to Sands' death. He has prudently decided to delay the upcoming election date, originally expected for this month, until at least June 10. But the approaching crisis with Hunger Striker Hughes could upset Haughey's strategy again.

Still to be determined is the full effect of Sands' death on Northern Ireland's Catholics, although it has clearly been huge, to judge by the funeral turnout. Says one expert on Northern Irish politics: "Never since 1969 has the Catholic community been so anti-British." Says a moderate Protestant: "Before, it was only the simple, unlettered people as a rule who backed the extremists. Now you're getting intelligent young Catholics who are really committed, and the same thing is happening among the Protestants. If we're not careful, we're going to wind up like Lebanon."

That comparison is far too extreme, but moderates on both sides feel that the British must find some way of heading off a string of hunger-strike deaths. John Hume, a respected Catholic leader of Northern Ireland's Social Democratic and Labor Party, feels that the British could work out a compromise on the political prisoner issue, allowing inmates some freedom of association and to wear clothing they could claim as their own.

But the mood in London is, if anything, surprisingly confident that nothing worse will happen. One senior Whitehall official repeated the government's refusal to compromise with the prisoners or to propose any solutions to the deeper problems in the near term. The situation was, he said, evoking centuries of bitterness, "a classic Irish tragedy from which at the moment there seems no escape." The desperate death of Bobby Sands appears to be the start of a new chapter in just such a prolonged and dangerous tragedy.

-- By George Russell.

Reported by Erik Amfitheatrof/ Belfast and Bonnie Angela/ London

With reporting by Erik Amfitheatrof, Bonnie Angela

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.