Friday, August 10, 2007
UDA have 60 days to comply..
The Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie has stated that the UDA must engage in a process of decommissioning, overseen by DeChastelain, and move to end criminality if the funding of the UPRG project is to proceed. And they have 60 days to do that in. Personally I’m with Hugh Orde.. and they’ve had more than enough time already. I’ll add any more details as they emerge. Adds Press release from the Department here. And the Minister’s full statement here Update According to a usually reliable Slugger source the Social Development Minister wanted to withdraw the funding immediately.. but none of her Executive colleagues would support that position. Which brings into question what will happen after the 60 days are up..
From the Minister’s statement
I have decided therefore that the funding for the CTI project will cease unless there is clear evidence that the UDA means what it says. The funding will end 60 days from now unless there is clear and demonstrable evidence that the UDA has engaged meaningfully with the IICD and has started to decommission its weapons.
I will also want to see evidence that the UDA has moved irreversibly away from criminality and violence to positive and lawful community transformation.
If the evidence and commitment that I seek are forthcoming the funding for the project will remain in place for the three year period as long as the progress towards decommissioning and reducing violence and criminality is sustained.
If, however, what I seek is not evident within 60 days the funding will stop and the project will be wound up. Consequently I have suggested to the Farset organisation, which administers the project, that the staff involved whose interests need to be recognised be put on protective notice.
The conflict is over but the peace is not easy.
This is a test of that.
I’d suggest they’ve already failed that test..
More Sinn Féin’s Alex Maskey criticises the announcement as “public posturing"… while Irish Government Minister Dermot Ahern supports the move.
Pete Baker @ 09:29 AM
IF they want to show they are serious there should be legislation tabled that anybody caught with illegal explosives, bomb making equipment or firearms gets a mandatory life sentence wih a minimum jail term of 25 years.
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 09:42 AMAt last someone is tackling the elephant in the room. Fair play to Margaret. Personally very courageous.
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 09:49 AMTkmaxx
I can do not better than agree completely with what you said.Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 09:52 AMFair play to Margaret. Now watch them thugs squirm. Decommissioning hasn’t gone away, you know!
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 09:52 AMThe mind boggles as to why ANY money at all is ever going to be paid to the likes of the UDA.
The whole situation is lunacy and would not occur anywhere else.
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 09:54 AMWhoa - stop the rush. Two months ago Mags said she was going to stop the money. Now 2 months later she is sdaying she is going to give it another 2 months before deciding what to do.
Anyway surely it is some kind of mistake to even link public money for guns.
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 10:08 AMBut then neither would having unrepentant terrorists in government.
///The whole situation is lunacy and would not occur anywhere else. ///
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 10:08 AMI think Ritchie is spot on. Watch the appeasing scum in the NIO try and offer their buddies in the UDA some political cover. Watch for the dirty-tricks against the minister as well!
This was a brave decision and i don’t mean in the Sir Humphrey sense!
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 10:13 AMGood thing the Social Development portfolio didn’t go to a Sinn Féin MLA. It would have meant damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 10:13 AMAbsolutely brilliant. Make those b*stards squirm. A big well done from this Unionist!
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 10:13 AM“Well done, Margaret.” :)
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 10:17 AM“gets a mandatory life sentence wih a minimum jail term of 25 years”.. lol
but stopping short of daisy-cutters eh.Dear oh dear the self-righteous condemnation, and desperate attempts at distancing oneself from the stink to claim moral purity is toxic.
You ain’t fooling me one little bit with that hang em and flog em rant.Good move margaret.
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 10:36 AMyup, I think the majority of unionists and nationalists will be fairly satisfied with this decision. Question now is, will the UDA throw the rattle out of the pram and go nuts, or will they take this all on board and try to get their drinking tokens back. Certainly a much better decision that remving the cash altogther - puts the ball firmly in the UDAs court - nice move and listening to the speach, it was well written and delivered effectively.
I wonder what the reponse from the other parties will be - I think they;ll find it hard to argue with her - perhaps SF will deand immediate withdrawl of the funds?Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 10:44 AMYo Margaret - Respec’ ‘iz due
Big thumbs up from this Unionist too. Now let ARA/SOCA or whatever take away all their Beemers, holiday homes in Spain and the £25k they just happen to have kept in a shoe box from that time when they had that really big windown the bookies.
Frig me, Some of them might even need to get a job!
b45 :p
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 10:45 AMI’m still mystified as to why any money at all is going to them. I can think of atleast 4 or 5 projects in East Belfast alone who despirately need a cash infusion and aren’t fronted by anyone in the UPRG, yet their cries for funding sre ignored.
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 10:47 AMATH
Alliance already have!
Hardly surprising she didn’t cut the funding immediately really. All her officals would have been advising against any cuts, telling her it would be impossible etc. All of course nonsense but it would have been the instruction from the Chief mandarins in Stormont castle to keep the scum on their money leash.
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 10:48 AMCue Frankie Gallagher with some thinly veiled threats…
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 10:51 AMIt’s not lunacy but it IS a logical consequence of not taking the option of “extreme prejudice” - much though certain extreme right-wingers would have had government doing for thirty years and would still have it do, even in peacetime.
NOT using daisy cutters or napalm as the preferred option is what helps give Government a moral authority above that of unelectable armchair generals and guttersnipes.
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 10:53 AMDec
Of course. Frankie will be trawling through his well thumbed Conflict Resolution for Beginners handbook right at this minute searching out the terrorist spokeman’s cliches for this situation.
They just roll out of him without challenge even though it’s obvious he hasn’t the first clue what they mean himself.Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 10:59 AMYes indeed, the elephant is now truly in focus.
Don’t criticize the Minister too much for allowing 60 days. At least we now have a firm deadline.Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 11:16 AMhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6939636.stm
alex maskey is attacking Ms Richie for not showing decisive leadership,
i wonder how the SF ministers on the executive feel about these comments!!!
and what they siad in the executive?
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 11:20 AMSpot on Cuchulainn.
This decision could have been taken at Executive level. And it would have sent out a stronger message to the scum.
Why was there no pressure from the DFM’s office to support Ritchie? Perhaps he has closer links to the UDA’s paymasters in the NIO than we think?
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 11:29 AMGood move Margaret
If they think they are going to get government money, they need to show they are open to change. They are the ones holding back East Belfast.
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 11:33 AMAll the fuss about a million quid or two.. has that become big money to the paramilitaries these days? I’m not sure about the carrot and I’m not sure about the stick, so what’s the subtext to this plot? Perhaps it’s disengagement with honor and people need to be paid to go home, but I can’t see real change happening over one week’s take from the working class parts of town. It would provide a shopping trip to Italy for a new wardrobe though…
BenPosted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 11:44 AMInsider’s cut-and-paste from Alex Maskey’s statement is a pathetic piece of partisan sniping from behind the ditch. Only the Executive as a whole could have renounced a legally made decision by Peter Hain. Margaret Ritchie has taken action on her own authority, while Maskey’s colleagues on the Executive sat on their hands. She is bound to take account of employment contracts already signed by the Direct Rulers, and it really is posturing to suggest otherwise. Ritchie laid her stall out honestly when Peter Hain announced the grant - all Alex Maskey could do was talk about deep unease in the nationalist community, as if there wasn’t just as much unease among decent unionists. It is glaringly obvious that Ritchie has done the right thing.
Posted by on Aug 10, 2007 @ 11:44 AM
