Northern Ireland From Here to Eternity

By Scott MacLeod

When Lieut. Alan Shields of the Royal Navy maneuvered his black Capri through rush-hour traffic in Belfast last week, he knew he was in a combat zone: the Irish Republican Army had recently stepped up its terrorism, especially against British servicemen in Northern Ireland. What the 45-year-old officer did not know was that his car had been booby-trapped with explosives. As he pulled away from a traffic light, a powerful blast tore through his car, incinerating Shields and the car in a ball of flame.

Less than 72 hours earlier, in Ballygawley, 40 miles west of Belfast, another I.R.A.-triggered explosion blew up a bus filled with British servicemen returning from furloughs to duty in Northern Ireland. Eight died and 27 were injured. So far this year the I.R.A. has killed 27 British soldiers, including four in Western Europe. The total last year: three. Not since 1979, when 38 soldiers were killed in Northern Ireland, have the outlawed guerrillas been so effective.

The I.R.A. hopes that the mounting toll of servicemen will force Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to withdraw her country's 10,400 troops from Northern Ireland. But the latest violence has infuriated the British and increased the pressure on Thatcher to break the back of the I.R.A. once and for all. Cutting short a family vacation in Cornwall, the Prime Minister ordered a full review of her government's options and told reporters, "Nothing has been ruled out."

While Thatcher made her choices, eight more bombs exploded in Belfast and Londonderry, injuring one policemen. The blasts followed the return of I.R.A. Leader Robert Russell from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland under a recent extradition treaty. Russell escaped from a Northern Ireland prison in 1983 and was arrested in Dublin a year later.

To help prevent casualties, Thatcher's Ministry of Defense moved to reduce the high visibility -- and vulnerability -- of British troops on the Continent. The 95,000 British soldiers in West Germany were ordered to exchange special black-and-white military license plates for ordinary British tags. This fall Thatcher plans to push legislation in Parliament that would curb Sinn Fein, the political arm of the I.R.A., by requiring candidates for local council chambers in Northern Ireland to declare that they will not support any illegal organization.

But the vigorously pro-British Protestant politicians of Northern Ireland are not satisfied with such limited steps. They called upon Thatcher to reinstate the practice of interning suspected I.R.A. terrorists in prison camps without trial. Former Prime Minister Edward Heath urged Thatcher to reject internment, however, contending that it proved disastrous after the policy was introduced in 1971. Not only was Britain widely denounced for violating human rights, but the internment policy triggered a bloody I.R.A. bombing campaign. Predicts former Northern Ireland Secretary Lord Whitelaw, who abandoned the practice in 1975: "Such a move would inevitably result in violence on a truly major scale."

Thatcher could instead extend the period during which a suspected terrorist can be held without being charged from one week to one month. She could also abolish the right to silence in terrorism cases, allowing British courts to infer guilt if I.R.A. suspects refuse to answer questions. "We are facing a particularly cruel and insidious violence," argues Paul Wilkinson, an antiterrorism expert at Scotland's University of Aberdeen. Wilkinson suggests that London copy a tactic used by Italy to crack the Red Brigades by adopting a "repentant terrorist law," which gives shorter sentences to those convicted of crimes if they finger their comrades. Another option is banning "remission," which enables jailed terrorists to go free after serving half their terms.

Thatcher is also looking at ways to prevent the smuggling of I.R.A. volunteers and weapons into Northern Ireland from the Irish Republic. Social Democratic Party Leader David Owen has called for sealing the 280-mile border using military personnel, sophisticated surveillance equipment and, in some areas, barbed wire and mines. Army officers urge tougher military action, including the increased use of commandos from the Special Air Service regiment; last March S.A.S. operatives gunned down three suspected I.R.A. terrorists in Gibraltar. "A majority of officers are now strongly backing a shoot-to-kill policy as the principal method of defeating the I.R.A.," says Field Marshal Lord Bramall, former chief of the defense staff. Otherwise, he says, "we shall be marching toward an eternity of duty in Northern Ireland."

The renewed debate over internment illustrates the lack of original ideas to end the Troubles. Since London and Dublin signed the Anglo-Irish cooperation pact in 1985, there have been no new initiatives to solve the political problems that lie at the root of the violence. Previous British governments held direct talks with the I.R.A. in 1972 and 1975, but Thatcher has refused to consider the idea.

Should she change her mind, it might ease at least some of the anguish caused by last week's slaughter of British troops. On a barbed-wire fence at Ballygawley, close by the ghostly hulk of the bombed British army bus, someone laid a wreath with an unsigned note. "In sympathy 20-8-88," it read; "A little tribute, true and tender, just to show you are remembered."

With reporting by Anne Constable and Frank Melville/London