November 12, 2007

Protestant Militia Renounces War In Northern Ireland

The Ulster Defense Association officially laid down its arms yesterday, telling a crowd of hundreds in Belfast that it would dismantle its armed units.

But the UDA stopped short of decommissioning its weapons, despite expectations from the British government. BBC News reports that the announcement comes weeks after Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie threatened to cut more than a million pounds of loyalist funding if the UDA didn't decommission its weapons within 60 days.

And AP reports the Protestant group's move follows "months of pressure on the group to catch up to Northern Ireland's other two big paramilitary groups, the Catholics of the Irish Republican Army and the Protestants of the Ulster Volunteer Force, which had already renounced violence."

The British and Irish governments applauded the move and encouraged the UDA to go as far as the Irish Republican Army did in 2005, when the Catholic group officially disarmed and vowed never to resume its campaign against British rule. The UDA said its move is conditional upon the actions of the IRA, and although it would "put arms beyond use," it would not relinquish its weapons.

The group is the largest Protestant paramilitary group in Northern Ireland, which has been torn by the sociopolitical conflict for centuries.

The BBC has more on the Ulster Freedom Fighters, the UDA's killing unit, and the Belfast Telegraph has a history of the group.

Posted at 8:55 AM
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