UVF Give up but keep the Guns

[An Fear Rua]

UVF calls end to terror campaign 

The UVF declared a ceasefire 13 years ago
The paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force has declared that it is renouncing violence and will cease to exist as a terrorist organisation from midnight.
It also said it will keep its weapons, but has put them "beyond reach".

This means they will be stored in a number of arms dumps "under the control of the UVF leadership, but not accessible for use by members".

During the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the UVF murdered more than 500 people.


Its campaign also claimed the lives of 33 people in bomb attacks in Dublin and Monaghan in 1974.


The statement was read by Gusty Spence, who helped found the modern day UVF in 1966.

It declared a ceasefire 13 years ago, but since then its members have been blamed for more than 20 murders.

Speaking in Fernhill House in west Belfast on Thursday, Gusty Spence said that from midnight, the UVF and its associated group, the Red Hand Commando, "will assume a non-military, civilianised role".

As part of this move, he said the organisation had implemented a number of measures to deal with what it called the "transformation from a military to a civilian organisation".

These include an end to all recruitment, training and targeting, and all so-called "active service units" have been de-activated.


'All possible instances'


On the issue of weapons, the statement said these had been put beyond reach and that the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning led by General John de Chastelain had been informed.

However, it did not elaborate on what this means, or whether the general will be allowed to verify its claim.

The Progressive Unionist Party's Billy Hutchinson said: "The weapons have not been put beyond use, but they have been put beyond reach.

"People should be seeing this (statement) as a positive thing rather than a negative thing."



The statement also condemned any criminal activity by its members, and said they should "cooperate fully with the lawful authorities in all possible instances".

The UVF has accepted that "the IRA's war is over" and said it was making this move now because it was satisfied that Northern Ireland's place within the United Kingdom was now safe.


Gusty Spence made the statement in west Belfast

The statement said: "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."

There was also a call to the government to tackle the threat from republican dissidents, and a warning that these activities could "provoke another generation of loyalists toward armed resistance".


BBC Northern Ireland home affairs correspondent Vincent Kearney said: "The government will welcome the fact that the UVF, which killed more than 500 people, has said it is now standing down as a terrorist organisation.

"But there will be disappointment that it has not announced a decision to decommission its weapons.

"The question the UVF will now be asked is simple: if it has accepted that the IRA's war is over, why does it need its weapons?

"Now that the organisation has said its campaign of violence is finally at an end, it will face growing pressure to dispose of the weapons it used to wage that campaign."


Dawn Purvis, the leader of the PUP, the UVF's political representatives, met Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in Dublin last week.

[Uladh]

Yawn

they're a blight on their own community and i for one wouldn't care if they carried on shooting each other over who has the best bling, peddling drugs to their own children and pretending they are tony soprano in their own drinking dens.

clowns

[The Iceman]

They want to make a transition into a civilian community association = they want a deal like the UDA got for £3million or some ridiculous amount like that to pay their members to be community officers.

What a pile of crap.

Their guns should be destroyed.  Their drug running operations should be shut down and their members should definitely not be given paid office rolls in communities!

Imagine the government paying the IRA.

[SammyG]

Yawn

they're a blight on their own community and i for one wouldn't care if they carried on shooting each other over who has the best bling, peddling drugs to their own children and pretending they are tony soprano in their own drinking dens.

clowns

100% correct.

[Tonto]

Yawn

they're a blight on their own community and i for one wouldn't care if they carried on shooting each other over who has the best bling, peddling drugs to their own children and pretending they are tony soprano in their own drinking dens.

clowns

100% correct.

Yis will forgive me for saying, but I think it's very sad that you both have that attitude.

That somehow the children who are also victims of their activities should bear the brunt.

I expected more from you, Sammy.

It will be actions, not words, that will be judged, and I for one (unlike 2 previous posters) don't take the attitude that they can carry on their existence, I hope this is the end.

[SammyG]

Yawn

they're a blight on their own community and i for one wouldn't care if they carried on shooting each other over who has the best bling, peddling drugs to their own children and pretending they are tony soprano in their own drinking dens.

clowns

100% correct.

Yis will forgive me for saying, but I think it's very sad that you both have that attitude.

That somehow the children who are also victims of their activities should bear the brunt.

I expected more from you, Sammy.

It will be actions, not words, that will be judged, and I for one (unlike 2 previous posters) don't take the attitude that they can carry on their existence, I hope this is the end.

To be fair they've had 15 years to end all this shite )which they should never have started in the first place) and they're getting worse not better. I hope I'm wrong and this really is the end but it just looks like a stunt to get their hands on some of Gordon Brown's peace dividend.

[his holiness nb]

Re the assurance that the weapons are beyond reach and De Chastelain has been informed.

In otherwords they have been put away safely should they need them again,
Hardly reassuring now is it!

Jesus if Paisley were a republican he wouldnt be happy with that!

[Uladh]

Whatever about the rights and wrongs of the IRA's campaign, they were struggling for an ideal.

These clowns have had no moral standing, even in the eyes of their own people, for a very long time abd are thugs and gangsters pure and simple. Drug dealing and extortion have been their business for years, nothing whatsoever to do with the defence of the protestant people. if they were concerned with defending the protestant people they wouldn't be poisoning and blackmailing their own.

They've been in it for the money only for a long long time.

The same applies to the peace time provos who have squeezed every pound out of diesel laundering and dvd copying for the past 10 years.

[MW]

They should disarm and disband. Now. There was no legitimate excuse for their existence as a terrorist organisation in the first place, and there's certianly none now.

[Square Ball]

the guns have been "put beyound reach"

what the f does that mean, on top of a cupboard out of the way, yeah dead on

[Uladh]

Why worry about the guns? decommissioning weapons is a cosmetic exercise. there'l always be guns if someone wants them

The idea is that they don't have any use for them and don't feel that its acceptable to threaten their use

[his holiness nb]

the guns have been "put beyound reach"

what the f does that mean, on top of a cupboard out of the way, yeah dead on

Theres a really tall guy holding them up in the air.

[his holiness nb]

Why worry about the guns? decommissioning weapons is a cosmetic exercise. there'l always be guns if someone wants them

The idea is that they don't have any use for them and don't feel that its acceptable to threaten their use

Uladh, you should have told that to Paisley a few years back and we would be much further along in the peace process 

[Uladh]

Paisley knows that as well as anyone. But then he has always been about "how it looks"

[his holiness nb]

Very true