Distretto Nord

UDA deve eliminare le armi

UDA must now decommission

Ulster Defence AssociationA meeting between the political wing of the UDA and the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland would have been |unthinkable a relatively short time ago.

The UDA is the largest paramilitary |organisation, loyalist or republican, and was characterised throughout its inglorious history by its nakedly sectarian campaign of violence directed against Catholics, often with fatal results.

There was also evidence that it was aided in that campaign by collusion from within the security forces and manipulation by intelligence agencies.

While the UDA was feared by Catholics, it was rejected by Protestants as a political force, seldom gathering any more than a few hundred votes in elections. That left the UDA as a body with nowhere to go once it had decided to stop its sectarian campaign and once bloody internal feuds were settled.

Little wonder that it became an organisation steeped in criminality, including drug running, racketeering and selling contraband goods.

However, its political wing, the Ulster Political |Research Group, has continued to give it limited entry into the world of politics and it is through that organisation that the meeting with Cardinal Sean Brady in Armagh has been arranged.

It is another step in bringing the UDA in from the cold with the twin aim of trying to ensure that it has forsaken violence for good and that it will put its arms out of commission.

While the Secretary of State has issued a deadline for decommissioning, no-one seriously expects the UDA to adhere to it.

Deadlines often postpone the inevitable, as was seen with the IRA and its decommissioning.

For its part, the UDA will want to reassure Catholics, through the Cardinal, that dissident |republican violence will not make the UDA return to violence, particularly sectarian killings.

The organisation showed commendable restraint following the murders of two soldiers and a police officer last month, not just through its lack of retaliation but also by its lack of threats.

The political wing of the UDA has also met First Minister Peter Robinson recently and was no doubt

told the self-evident truth that the war is over |despite the activities of dissident republicans.

The next step for the UDA is to put its guns out of commission. Just as the IRA had to decommission before Sinn Fein could be regarded as a credible partner in government, so the UDA will have to give up its arms if it is to have any credible political or community role.

As the political and public reaction to the deaths of the soldiers and police officer demonstrated, all shades of opinion in the community reject any |attempts to return to the dark days of the Troubles. The UDA has nowhere to go but out of existence as an armed body or paramilitary force. It is through its political wing that it has a future.

The areas where the UDA flourished were, and |remain, among the most disadvantaged in the province. There is a role for the voice of loyalism in seeking to improve the lot of its communities but only if that voice belongs to a peaceful organisation, not a terror gang.

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René Querin

Di professione grafico e web designer, sono appassionato di trekking e innamorato dell'Irlanda e della sua storia. Insieme ad Andrea Varacalli ho creato e gestisco Les Enfants Terribles.

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