Nationalists urged to reserve UDA judgement

A leading loyalist today urged nationalists to reserve their judgment on the Ulster Defence Association’s ceasefire until next year.

West Belfast councillor Frank McCoubrey was responding to SDLP and Sinn Féin comments on a forthcoming six-month review by the Ulster Political Research Group of the UDA ceasefire.

As the UPRG confirmed the results of the review would be disclosed in Derry tomorrow, the SDLP’s John Dallat warned the UDA would not be taken seriously if it continued to threaten its ceasefire.

“When the UDA announced their 12-month ceasefire in February it was given a cautious welcome by the SDLP,” he said.

“The public were told that there was restructuring going on within the UDA and the UPRG would become its public face instead of its war-mongering brigadiers.

“Any threat to end it now will be treated with the contempt it deserves.

“While there can be no doubt that the present political vacuum is a cause for major concern and is seized upon by dissident republicans and elements identified with the UDA and other loyalist factions.

“The reality is that there can be no going back to the ’killing fields’ of the past which served no-one, and failed everyone.”

Following the ending of a bloody feud within the UDA and Ulster Freedom Fighters, members of the UPRG declared a 12-month ceasefire in February which they said would be kept under constant review.

The UPRG, which provides political analysis to the UDA, also announced that it was submitting the name of a go-between to General John de Chastelain’s international decommissioning body but said it would only respond to full disarmament from the IRA.

The UDA confirmed that it was currently going through internal restructuring and it intended the UPRG to become its public face instead of its brigadiers.

The ceasefire followed a turbulent few months in the UDA, with a feud claiming the life of its South Antrim brigadier John Gregg and resulting in the expulsion from Belfast of supporters of the rogue loyalist Johnny Adair.

Sinn Fein councillor Paul Butler, whose house was targeted in a bomb attack in west Belfast two days ago, was today cynical about the existence of the UDA ceasefire.

“The UDA claim to have been on cessation for the past six months and will announce the findings of some sort of a review,” the Lisburn councillor said.

“But I have to say that I am a little shocked that the UPRG believes the UDA is on cessation.

“In the past six months things have been quieter but a significant level of violent UDA activity is ongoing.

“The UDA needs to stop their campaign against Catholics and they need to stop their involvement in peddling drugs within our society. That is what people want to hear from the UPRG this week.”