UDA Says UFF Will Disband

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UDA Says UFF Will Disband

November 15, 2007

By Barry McCaffrey

A CATHOLIC man who was seriously injured in one of the worst Loyalist atrocities of the Troubles says he will never believe that the Ulster Defense Association (UDA) is fully committed to peace until it decommissions its weapons.

On Sunday the UDA announced the disbandment of its military wing the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF).

For the first time ever the UDA leadership stated publicly that its “war’’ was at an end and that it was now putting its weapons “beyond use.”

It claimed the disbandment of the UFF would include putting all its weapons beyond use, ensuring that “violence and weaponry are ghosts of the past.’’

However, shortly after the UDA announcement its leader Jackie McDonald publicly denied that the Loyalist organization would be destroying it weapons or handing over guns to General John de Chastelain‘s decommissioning body.

Insisting that UDA weapons belonged to the “Loyalist people,” he said, “They’re not the UDA’s guns. They’re the people’s guns. Ninety percent of the Loyalist community is against decommissioning.

“The UDA will not be decommissioning. There is a serious engagement with General John de Chastelain, but it hasn’t got to that stage yet.”

Insisting that Loyalist communities remained under threat from Republican extremists, he said, “Hugh Orde says there is still a genuine threat from dissidents.

“There is still a threat and until such times as that perceived threat has gone the situation will not change.”

However, the senior Loyalist insisted that standing down the UFF was a significant move.

“We have to learn from our mistakes. We have seen the flag of the UFF furled,” he said.

“Their job is done and hopefully they will never have to come back to do what they did before. We have to accept that we created victims as well as others created up on us. We have to think of those dead and their families on a day like this.”

However, insisting that the structures of Northern Ireland’s largest loyalist paramilitary would remain intact, he said, “The UDA is not going away. People are trying to force the UDA in a certain direction.

“They are damning and demonizing it every chance they get. I have been talking to the members of the inner council and senior members of the organization and everyone is agreed that we are being treated like second class citizens.”

One UDA victim said that Nationalists would never be able to believe that the Loyalist group was fully committed to peace until it decommissioned its weapons.

Mark Sykes was seriously injured in a UDA gun attack on Sean Graham’s bookmakers on the Ormeau Road in February 1992, which left five men dead, including his 18-year-old brother-in-law Peter Magee.

He said Nationalists would be highly skeptical about the UDA statement, given its refusal to decommission weapons.

“Nationalists will ask why the UDA feels the need to hang on to its weapons if it is serious about its war being over,” he said. “If your war is over, why do you still need guns?

“I spoke some of the families after the UDA statement, but to be honest it was no comfort to any of us. The only thing the UDA has said is that it’s putting its weapons ‘beyond use.’

“But the only way to ensure that no other family loses a loved-one is for the UDA to decommission its weapons.”

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