Thursday, May 03, 2007
“In doing so we reaffirm the legitimacy of our tactical response…”
As has been heavily trailed in the media, and as the PA report says, The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is to assume a non-military, civilianised role after putting its weapons beyond use beyond reach.. Full statement here Adds The PUP’s Dawn Purvis is “pleased”.. natch.. But the IICD is “concerned”.. And The Secretary of State for Wales etc seems keen to move along, now..
“I specified the UVF in September 2005 following the loyalist feud of that summer. In the light of today’s statement I will consult with the Chief Constable to review that position.”
That statement in full
“Following a direct engagement with all units and departments of our organisation, the leadership of the Ulster Volunteer Force and Red Hand Commando today make public the outcome of our three-year consultation process.
We do so against a backdrop of increasing community acceptance that the mainstream republican offensive has ended; that the six principles upon which our ceasefire was predicated are maintained; that the principle of consent has been firmly established and thus, that the Union remains safe.
We welcome recent developments in securing stable, durable democratic structures in Northern Ireland and accept as significant, support by the mainstream republican movement of the constitutional status quo.Commensurate with these developments, as of twelve midnight, Thursday May 3 2007, the Ulster Volunteer Force and Red Hand Commando will assume a non-military, civilianised, role.
To consolidate this fundamental change in outlook we have addressed the methodology of transformation from a military to civilian organisation by implementing the following measures in every operational and command area:
:: All recruitment has ceased;
:: Military training has ceased;
:: Targeting has ceased and all intelligence rendered obsolete;
:: All Active Service Units have been de activated;
:: All Ordnance has been put beyond reach and the IICD instructed accordingly.We encourage our volunteers to embrace the challenges which continue to face their communities and support their continued participation in non-military capacities. We reaffirm our opposition to all criminality and instruct our volunteers to cooperate fully with the lawful authorities in all possible instances.
Moreover, we state unequivocally, that any volunteer engaged in criminality does so in direct contravention of Brigade Command and thus we welcome any recourse through due process of law. All volunteers are further encouraged to show support for credible restorative justice projects so that they, with their respective communities, may help eradicate criminality and anti-social behaviour in our society.
We ask the government to facilitate this process and remove the obstacles which currently prevent our volunteers and their families from assuming full and meaningful citizenship.
We call on all violent dissidents to desist immediately and urge all relevant governments and their security apparatus to deal swiftly and efficiently with this threat. Failure to do so will inevitably provoke another generation of loyalists towards armed resistance.
We have taken the above measures in an earnest attempt to augment the return of accountable democracy to the people of Northern Ireland and as such, to engender confidence that the constitutional question has now been firmly settled.
In doing so we reaffirm the legitimacy of our tactical response to violent nationalism, yet reiterate the sincere expression of abject and true remorse to all innocent victims of the conflict.
Brigade Command salutes the dedication and fortitude of our officers, NCOs and volunteers throughout the difficult, brutal years of armed resistance. We reflect with honour on those from our organisation who made the ultimate sacrifice; those who endured long years of incarceration and the loyal families who shared their suffering and supported them throughout.
Finally we convey our appreciation for the honest forthright exchange with officers, NCOs and volunteers throughout the organisation over the past three years which has allowed us to assume with confidence the position we adopt today.
For God and Ulster
Captain William Johnston; Adjutant.”
Pete Baker @ 10:31 AM
Miss Fitz 1 Pete Baker 0 in the reactions test
Next up the swimsuit contest
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 10:42 AMas the PA report says, “The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is to assume a non-military, civilianised role after putting its weapons beyond useâ€
Hmm…
From the BBC report:
“The Progressive Unionist Party’s Billy Hutchinson said: “The weapons have not been put beyond use, but they have been put beyond reach.”
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 10:52 AMIndeed, Dec.
As previous reports had pointed out
It’s not decommissioning.
And there’s still the stench of the Faustian pact..
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 10:56 AMIt’s a great <b>start<-b> guys.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:12 AMRidiculous. The guns should be openly and publicly destroyed. What exactly does “beyond reach” mean?
What does a civilianised role mean? Are they going to intimidate kids/business owners with cold stares now rather than the threat of a knee-capping? Drugs to be sold via eBay rather than in illegal shebeens?
This organisation has no right to exist. It should cease to do so.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:12 AMI have to say, nowhere have I seen a statement from the Provo’s indicating that they will continue as some sort of a community organisation. What we have here is a load of useles thugs in both the UDA and UVF trying to carve out a niche for themselves and a legitimate way of continuing their insidious community control.
Cue Hain et al. throwing millions at them to enable them to do just that!
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:14 AMIt has to be welcomed, Ginfizz. As for the other problems you mention, they are no longer a case of breaking the law for ‘the cause’ or whatever, and will become a case of illegal behaviour carried out for personal profit - as such to be dealt with by CRJ and the police.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:17 AMCRJ?!!!! Are you for real? CRJ will be one of the main areas where these gangsters will be looking to get involved! Wake up and smell the coffee!
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:23 AMI note that you placed CRJ before the police as a means of dealing with illegal activity. That speaks volumes.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:24 AMGinfizz thats exactly what the IRA have been doing, they just didnt say it, tyhe UVF are actively encouraging their members to take on a more positive community role, nowhere does it say ‘control’ quite the opposite, they have been encouraged to fit in with existing programs.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:24 AMSorry nonsense, but you’re living up your name with that last one. I come from a loyalist area, don’t try and tell me something which I know to be totally untrue. These gangsters have no role to play in our community. They are not leaders in the community, except in the sense that they are feared by local people. I understand that s-c-u-m is a word that is not allowed on Slugger, but I feel that strongly about this.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:30 AM“reiterate the sincere expression of abject and true remorse to all innocent victims of the conflict”
Didn’t this organisation have a policy of targetting innocent civilians in the first place?
“all intelligence rendered obsolete”
That was pretty obvious from a long time ago.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:31 AMNonsense:
exactly right. The IRA started taking steps, and things started looking up. The UVF are taking similair steps, and hopefully in time all the various groups will be out of the picture.
Apart from the community work that both sides take on. In the Republican movement, it is not unusual at all for ex-prisoners to be involved in community work.
It may not go down well, but many paramilitaries (presumably) from both sides of the conflict will have gotten involved in order to protect their communities. There may be sectarian lunatics in the ranks, but there are also people who do it for love of their own people.
These people are entitled to be involved in community work, they may well be the most dedicated people to a given community available.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:34 AM“a more positive community role”
G-d, it really makes me want to puke. I feel like the child pointing at the Emperor’s nudity! These people have role to play in our community, other than to get off it’s back and leave us alone. They are a vicious, nasty, little criminal sub-caste.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:34 AMno role to play - sorry
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:35 AMTo pick up on Pete’s extracted headline, ‘… we reaffirm the legitimacy of our tactical response‘.
Exactly what was the modern UVF responding to when it reformed and commenced its campaign of sectarian violence in 1966? Was it the spent force of the ‘old’ IRA, whose border campaign had ended ignominiously four years earlier? Exactly how did the murder of a Catholic barman in the Shankill offer a response to a defunct - and southern-based - IRA? Or is it the case that the murder of Peter Ward, simply because he was a Catholic, was just the extreme end of a Unionist campaign to intimidate and bully the Catholic minority away from their growing demands for civil rights? The Civil Rights movement (the NICRA) was not formed until February 1967, eight months after the reformation of the UVF. And the PIRA was not established until 1969. So exactly which group was ‘responding’ to violence, and how does sectarian murder and intimidation ‘augment accountable democracy’? While today’s announcement should be welcomed, the attempts to write a history of the UVF as some sort of noble defenders, responding legitimately to a nationalist threat, does not stand up to historical scrutiny.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:46 AMIt beggers belief and I don’t want to get into the “whataboutry” thing but if the IRA had issued this statement it would have been rejected out of hand. Yet here and in the previous statement almost everyone is patting themselves in the back about a job well done.
So when Captain William Johnson goes to the British Government and asks for money will those weapons still be “out of reach” no matter what the answer is?
Another small point should it not have ended “for God and Northern Ireland”
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:48 AMoverhere
One Unionist on this thread agrees with you.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:53 AMThe pike-in-the-thatch approach to the IRA’s weaponry wasn’t deemed acceptable by Unionists - I take it we can expect similar indigation from that source now that the UVF have adopted the same principle?
Today’s statement talks about Republicans finally accepting the principle of consent, but by keeping arms “out of reach” but not “out of use”, it sounds like the UVF only conditionally accept the PoC, the condition being as long as it yields a Unionist majority. The moment that a Nationalist majority looks probable, we can expect these weapons and others to be “within reach”.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 11:59 AMAm I right in understanding that this statement means: (i) the UVF will continue to exist but at the moment they have decided not to kill anyone else (ii) they will continue to have access to weapons but have decided at the moment not to use them (iii) they will resume killing people if they decide it’s necessary (iv) there has been no independent verification of the way in which weapons have been put ‘beyond reach’?
Not really good enough, is it?
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 12:14 PMJenny
Correct.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 12:18 PMGinfizz,
Totally agree. I have to sit in my local bar each weekend watching these low life gangsters drinking, intimidating locals and generally living the life of Reilly, all with no visible means of support, naturally.
There was never any justification for these people, their grandiose words make me feel physically sick.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 12:22 PMI’m with Ginfizz.
I’ve been up close to this organisation and its’ members and a more repellant bunch I have yet to encounter. As a unionist I am ashamed that my community could produce this mafiaosa but heartened that their support at the ballot box is minimal and that they will never be near the Executive table.
These “volunteers” should hang their heads, pack up and don the “sackcloth and ashes” previously demanded of others. While they’re at it, provide photographic evidence of decommissioning in accordance with the legislative scheme. And donate their ill gotten gains to their local communities. God knows they need it.
Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God go.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 12:28 PMMyself I welcome this statement whilst sympathizing with the comments made by Ian. [post 19] I feel that in the past the main unionist polititians were quite content to turn a blind eye to the UVF/UDA terror tactics and indeed at times benefited indirectly from them. But that was in the past, however, it makes me sick to hear some of them now growling at the Loyalist paramilitaries, for when such words were needed the likes of Paisley and Trimble etc were no where to be seen.
As to the Pike in the Thatch, it has been the traditional Irish method for centuries of disposing of arms after an insurgency has ended; and I would have preferred the Provos to have gone down this road and who knows perhaps they did to a certain degree.
I feel most will accept the statement at face value but base their final judgement on how things pan out on the ground, much as the Unionist community did when the PIRA said the war was over, and they would be correct to reserve their judgement in this manner.
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 12:30 PMGinfizz, thank God for that, I thought I had somehow woke up this morning in a parallel universe where I was the odd one out
Posted by on May 03, 2007 @ 12:32 PM
