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Ulster Volunteer Force disarms
Northern Ireland's oldest paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force, announced its full disarmament yesterday - a long-sought peacemaking move that, if confirmed, would formally end the pro-British group's decades of terror against Irish Catholics.
- AP
- Published: 22:43 June 27, 2009
London: Northern Ireland's oldest paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force, announced its full disarmament yesterday - a long-sought peacemaking move that, if confirmed, would formally end the pro-British group's decades of terror against Irish Catholics.
And the other major Protestant paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association, announced it also has begun to surrender weapons to independent disarmament officials.
Northern Ireland's disarmament chief, retired Canadian General John de Chastelain, has declined to confirm reports this month that both the UVF and UDA had handed over guns, ammunition and explosives in a secret ceremony.
But in Saturday's statement to Belfast media, the Ulster Volunteer Force said its commanders gathered together the underground group's entire arsenal and destroyed it in the presence of de Chastelain and independent observers from both sides of the Northern Ireland community on June 12.
The UVF said it had "completed the process of rendering ordnance totally and irreversibly beyond use". It declined to provide specifics of the type or volume of weaponry surrendered.
Minutes later, the Ulster Defence Association announced it also has begun to disarm in cooperation with de Chastelain, who since 1997 has led efforts to disarm all of Northern Ireland's myriad paramilitary forces. From 2001 to 2005, he oversaw the total disarmament of the Irish Republican Army, the major outlawed group on the Catholic side of the community.
The UDA said its representatives recently delivered an unspecified quantity of weapons to de Chastelain. It pledged to hand over more of its illegal arsenal soon.
"This is a courageous and unprecedented move that is part of a wider transition from conflict to peace. ...By carrying out this act we are helping to build a new and better Northern Ireland where conflict is a thing of the past," said the UDA's commanders in their statement.
In Dublin, Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern said he expected to receive a report soon from de Chastelain confirming both disarmament moves.
Timeline: Peace process
- April 2005: Sinn Fein calls on the Irish Republican Army to end its armed campaign.
-January 2007: Sinn Fein's mostly Catholic membership votes overwhelmingly to back the Protestant-dominated Police Service of Northern Ireland after decades of mistrust. n
- June 2008: Peter Robinson takes over as first minister, succeeding Ian Paisley.
- January 2009: Police destroy a large bomb packed with explosives in Castlewellan, south of Belfast. A splinter republican group claims responsibility.
- Reuters
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