ULSTER'S NEW STORMTROOPERS

In a period of just over three weeks a new armed force has presented itself on Northern Ireland's streets - the Ulster Defence Association. Its sinister uniform is now familiar from television and newspaper photographs-face masks, sun glasses and various armbands denoting rank and platoons.

The men in the UDA have been shown drilling up and down the streets of Belfast and training with weapons. Sentries check people moving on foot or in vehicles into certain Protestant areas of the city.

The first aspect of tilis new force is the amazing speed with which it has been got together.

This is not to say that the Loyalists have not always had • para-military organization; the -Specials and the Ulster Volunteer force (UVF) have long operated as vigilante-style ter+ rorists.

The these, goops in secreds, both these groups weaponry and discipline.

It comes on the scene in the aftermath of the Tory government's decision to declare direct rule from Westminster.

Who is behind the emergence of the private army is very much obscure.

But this can be said-the men calling the shots have influence and they have considerable wealth. In other words, they are almost certainly members of the extreme right-wing Protestant bourgeoisie who have finally lost wEn way mu le uanus ul Luc UDA.

For despite what the capitalist press says, Ulster is not brimming with arms, except those belonging to the British army.

The Official IRA, for example, has fewer arms in Derry today that it did at the start of the civil rights campaign in 1969, due to army discoveries of two small arms caches. Keeping • 1 nere scarcely single Catholic in this body. Indeed, Catholics who joined following the appeals of the British government have been shot or threatened by the IRA. In other words there is very little incentive on the part of the UDR to stop the smuggling of arms to the UDA.

Who are in the ranks of the UDA? The men are mostly Broup. Their 'officers to 25 age drawn from the 18 30 in the main although there are number of ex-soldiers involved except to say that it is 'associated with the Vanguard moveThey also 'pledge allegiance' to William Craig, the ex-Home Affairs Minister who was in charge of the police when the first riots occurred in Derry in 1969.

Groups affiliated to Vanguard include the Ulster Loyalist Association, the Loyalist Association of Workers. the Ulster Special Constabulary Association, the UL VAUINA Young Unionist Council, the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, the Royal Black Preceptory and At a big rally at Ormeau Park in Belfast in March, Craig told his supporters: 'We are going to do more than just talk. Whatever the call of duty requires, we shall do.' LIQUIDATE deputy chairman of the NF, spoke in Leicester at an antiimmigration rally. A leaflet handed out by the Leicester Committee Against Fascism quotes Tyndall as writing in 1962: 'The SS man has been our model-an SS state must be our aim.' This then is the political millieu which the Protestant bourgeoisie is arming.

The first concrete show of strength came last weekend when UDA marched in Derry against the 'no-go' areas.

The march was prevented from attention at the barricades waiting for a response, a section of the march broke away and joined them.

Soon stones and bottles were being hurled at the troops. The soldiers replied with water cannon and rubber bullets.

During this clash William Craig was addressing the main body of the march about 500 yards away. no connection with the Vanguard organization'.

Reporters on the scene speak differently. They were not drunk, they say, and if they were under influence at all, it was the good captain's.

Meanwhile at his rally down the road, Craig was telling the rows of young men in _paramilitary uniform who had participated in the march: 'People will ask why we have assembled nere today in such large numbers? 'We are here to protest at the disgraceful way in which law and order is being administered