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Third Force (Northern Ireland)

The Third Force' was the name given to a number of attempts by Northern Irish politician Ian Paisley, then leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), to create an Ulster loyalist 'defensive militia'.

The best known example was the Third Force rallies on 1 April 1981. At a number of these rallies, large groups of men displayed what purported to be firearms certificates. Rallies were held on hillsides near Gortin, Newry, and Armagh. At Gortin the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) were attacked and two vehicles overturned. On 3 December 1981, Paisley said that the Third Force had between 15,000 and 20,000 members.

The group was established by Paisley as a complement to the security forces (Paisley had previously been associated with the Ulster Protestant Volunteers loyalist paramilitary group). It grew from opposition to the increasing pace of co-operation between the governments of the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, as well as in response to the murder of Robert Bradford. The group largely disappeared with the emergence of Ulster Resistance.

Third Force (France)

The Third Force (Troisième Force) was a French coalition during the Fourth Republic (19471958) which gathered the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) party, the centre-right Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR), the Radicals, the Christian democrat Popular Republican Movement (MRP) and other centrist politicians, opposed both to the French Communist Party (PCF) and the Gaullist movement. The Third Force governed France from 1947 to 1951, succeeding the tripartisme alliance between the SFIO, the MRP and the PCF. The Third Force was also supported by the conservative National Centre of Independents and Peasants (CNIP), which succeeded in having its most popular figure, Antoine Pinay, named Prime Minister in 1952, a year after the dissolving of the Third Force coalition.

Third Force

The Third Force may designate:

Third Force (South Africa)

The "Third Force" was a term used by leaders of the ANC during the late 1980s and early 1990s to refer to a clandestine force believed to be responsible for a surge in violence in KwaZulu-Natal, and townships around and south of the Witwatersrand (or "Rand").

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) found that:

while little evidence exists of a centrally directed, coherent or formally constituted "Third Force", a network of security and ex-security force operatives, frequently acting in conjunction with right-wing elements and/or sectors of the IFP, was involved in actions that could be construed as fomenting violence and which resulted in gross human rights violations, including random and target killings.

Third Force (Myanmar)

The Third Force is an informal group name given to a collection of political parties and local non-governmental organisations operating inside Burma (also known as Myanmar). It was used mainly in relation with the 2010 general elections. Although campaigning for improvement of living conditions and for democratic change inside the country, the Third Force is seen as distinct from Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy. The political parties participated in the November 2010 General elections while Aung San Suu Kyi's party called for a general boycott. Some state that the Third Force consists of liberal elements of the regime, more 'pragmatic' components of the opposition movement and a handful of local and foreign academics who advocated for a change in western policy of sanctions and isolation. The Third Force contains pro-democracy parties, ethnic minorities parties and locally established educational non-governmental organisations.

The name is derived from the argument that the members are distinct from the two main political camps inside the country, the Burmese military regime and the political movement centred on Aung San Suu Kyi. It is seen as campaigning for the similar goals of the more well known opposition but by adopting a less confrontational approach. Some have described it as neither pro-junta or pro-opposition.

Third Force (Ukraine)

Political Party "Third Force" is a political party in Ukraine that was created in 2005 by Vasyl Havryliuk.

Third Force (Hong Kong)

The Third Force is a banner running in New Territories West for the 2012 Legislative Council of Hong Kong Election. It was led by Chan Keung, a member of the Guangdong Provincial Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, who was backed by the rural leaders and several district councillors.

In a police's operation arresting some Wo Shing Wo triad-linked people openly involved in election campaigning in the New Territories, "Shanghai Boy" Kwok Wing-hung, "Little Boy" Cheung Chuen-hon, Ping Shan Rural Committee chairman Tsang Shu-wo and his counterpart on the Ha Tsuen Rural Committee, Tang Lai-tung were arrested. The four were said to be active backers of Chan Keung, who is running for a Legislative Council seat.

The party refused to attend any election debate and failed to gain a seat with 16,767 votes in the election.

Usage examples of "third force".

Sometimes, in the instants when the pull slackened, he had time to feel a third force struggling here between that black, blind downward suck that dragged at him and his own sick, frantic effort to fight clear, a third force- that was weakening the black drag so that he had moments of lucidity when he stood free on the brink of the ocean and felt the sweat roll down his face and was aware of his laboring heart and how gaspingly breath tortured his lungs, and he knew he was fighting with every atom of himself, body and mind and soul, against the intangible blackness sucking him down.

For now, wethose of us who come from other places, who came here knowing one anotherare the third force on the Well World, and we damned well better keep it that way.

Could there then be a third force in this rent and warring land, one which stood apart from both the Dark and the Light—.

The third force must be ready to go down them as soon as they're clear.

A third force of Cursed Ones could be seen circling around toward the east side of the crown.

Instead they had been directed to carry out a survey of the starfield that lay between the two would-be empires, to see if anything like a substantial third force might be arising between them.

Could there then be a third force in this rent and warring land, one which stood apart from both the Dark and the Light —.

State has a computer analysis which suggests that the intervention of a third force is the only factor likely to prevent a war over Beninia when my good friend Zad dies - and that day can't be as far off as I'd like it to be.