N.IRELAND: BRITISH TROOPS BACK ON THE STREETS OF WEST BELFAST

(5 Jan 1998) English/Nat
Dangerous divisions grew within Northern Ireland's two major pro-British paramilitary groups as Britain's senior minister in the province tried to reinvigorate the shaky Belfast peace talks.
Representatives of the Ulster Volunteer Force argued internally at a meeting on Monday over whether to meet Mo Mowlam, the British minister responsible for governing Northern Ireland.
Mowlam is meeting eight other party leaders on Monday, following a week of violence that led to deployment of extra police and troops.
Troops were back on the streets of West Belfast on Monday.
The extra troop deployment follows a week of violence in the province.
The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) said most of its approximately 130 members inside the top-security Maze prison, near Belfast, voted against continued participation in the multi-party negotiations on Northern Ireland's future.
The peace talks are supposed to resume on January 12th and finish by May.
At stake is the outlawed groups' joint October 1994 ceasefire, which was to have ended their reign of terror against Northern Ireland's Catholic minority.
At Stormont, Gary McMichael, leader of the Ulster Defence Association's legal political party, met for talks with Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam.
He insisted that the U-D-A prisoners had cast a vote of "no faith" in the peace process, but not a vote against a ceasefire.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We had a comprehensive meeting. You know, and I think one which dealt with the reality of the current situation we're in. I'm not sure whether anything is going to come out of it or not. You know, we've made it very clear that we think we're at a very, very dangerous stage of this process. That if confidence within Unionism and Loyalism erodes much further, then the whole process is going to get away from us."
SUPER CAPTION: Gary McMichael, leader of the Ulster Defence Party
David Ervine, of the Progressive Unionist Party, was also due to meet Mowlam for talks at Stormont.
Before entering the meeting, Ervine said he was waiting to hear what the Northern Ireland Secretary had to say.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"She's perfectly aware of the difficulties we have with the process, and I suppose we wait with interest, given her comments yesterday on television, whether or not they will be satisfactory for us."
SUPER CAPTION: David Ervine, Progressive Unionist Party
The Loyalist Volunteer Force, a dissident gang that thinks the talks will result in an end to British rule, opened fire in a Catholic-run hotel on December 27th and a Catholic north Belfast pub on New Year's Eve, killing two men and wounding eight.
The man fatally shot in the north Belfast pub, 31-year-old Eddie Treanor, was buried on Monday.
The attacks came after an I-R-A splinter gang assassinated their commander, Billy "King Rat" Wright, inside the Maze prison southwest of Belfast.
Both the U-D-A and U-V-F say the British government needs to offer early releases to some of their imprisoned members to reward their side's 3-year-old truce.
The Irish government, which co-sponsors the peace talks with Britain, has already freed a majority of its prisoners from the Irish Republican
Army, now into the sixth month of its own truce.
Northern Ireland's main Protestant party, the Ulster Unionists, planned on Monday to press British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London to release some Protestant militants soon.
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