The World: The U.D.A.

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THE Protestant counterpart of the I.R.A. is the Ulster Defense Association, a formidably organized group of street-fighting soldiers who wear masks, combat jackets, British army chevrons and shoulder pips. Self-proclaimed saviors of Ulster's "Prods," they carry clubs and boast of having an arsenal of automatic pistols, rifles, submachine guns and grenades. As a group, U.D.A. members are mostly young and working-class; many are British army veterans, others graduates of the tough Tartan gangs. From Belfast, TIME'S London Bureau Chief Curtis Prendergast filed this report on their activities:

The Shankill district is a Protestant Bogside, barricaded and bellicose. Just off the Shankill Road, past a checkpoint of steel pipe driven into the pavement, is the headquarters of C Company, Ulster Defense Association. ¶Company patrols, some riding Land Rovers, mount round-the-clock guard over the area's narrow back streets. From C Company headquarters, a two-way radio network keeps the patrols in contact, while a clandestine broadcasting station—named Radio Free Nick, for nearby Nixon Street—keeps up local residents' morale with pop-record requests and Orange marching songs.

¶Company is one of eleven U.D.A. units in Belfast. The U.D.A. claims it has 37,000 men in Northern Ireland, and the number may eventually swell to 60,000. For all its size, the U.D.A. has not displayed its weaponry openly in the streets yet, although 16 men (not yet officially identified as U.D.A.) were arrested while driving around the streets of Belfast carrying shotguns.

Last week, after the I.R.A. called off its ceasefire, the U.D.A. threatened to become the "Ulster Offensive Association" and to "take steps to eliminate the terrorists from this country" if William Whitelaw, Britain's proconsul in Northern Ireland, does not. In one U.D.A. office, I was shown purported I.R.A. lists, giving names, addresses and, in some cases, brief physical descriptions of members of the Catholic underground.

U.D.A. leaders insist that they are not seeking confrontation with the British army. "We couldn't tackle the British army as regards firepower," a company commander admitted. "But if the British army wasn't here, we could look after ourselves." The U.D.A.'s objectives, its leaders claim, are political, not military. They want to pressure Whitelaw by challenging British authority in the U.D.A.'s barricaded areas until he orders British troops to clean out the I.R.A. sanctuaries of Bogside and Creggan in so-called "Free Derry." As a slap at the British, the U.D.A. has set up free zones of its own. A sign in the U.D.A.-controlled area of Belfast reads:

YOU ARE NOW ENTERING FREE WOODVALE. Four such areas in Belfast, plus one in Londonderry, are now permanently "nogo" for British troops, with entry blocked by steel girders, cement slabs, or masked U.D.A. men.