UDA say war is over

The impartial observer will recall First Minister Ian Paisley demanding photographic evidence of the decommissioning process. The same impartial observer has to be wondering years on, what all the fuss over decommissioning was now about.

The UDA is making another promise to stand down part of its organization, the Ulster Freedom Fighters, from midnight.
BBC reports
UFF being stood down at midnight
The UFF is being 'stood down' from midnight on Sunday
The Ulster Defence Association is to stand down part of its organization, the Ulster Freedom Fighters, from midnight.
It also said UFF weapons were being put beyond use, but stressed that this does not mean they will be decommissioned.

In a statement on Remembrance Sunday, the UDA leadership issued a strongly-worded attack on criminals in loyalist areas.
It said anyone with information about crime should pass it to the police.
The statement said: "The Ulster Defence Association is committed to achieving a society where violence and weaponry are ghosts of the past."

Earlier, Frankie Gallagher, of the Ulster Political Research Group, which gives political advice to the UDA, said talks had been going on for some time.
"They are looking for a way forward, in terms of dealing with crime and criminality in a big way and drug dealers, in particular, who are destroying our communities," he said.
"We have been talking about it for a long time and testing the water to see if the war is over."
UDA denies involvement in tar-and-feather attack
On Saturday, the DUP's Ian Paisley junior said the UDA should be judged on its actions and not on its words.

RTE reports
The loyalist paramilitary organization, the UDA, has given the strongest indication to date that it wants to go down an exclusively peaceful path.
At a Remembrance Day ceremony in Belfast's Sandy Row, it was stated that units of the paramilitary organization would be stood down at midnight and the UDA believes the war is over.
The UDA says it is going to concentrate on developing communities through peaceful means.

The organization announced that units of the Ulster Freedom Fighters would be stood down from midnight. It also said that weaponry would be put beyond use.
There was no mention of how this would be done, or the timescale involved.
Leading loyalist figure, Jackie McDonald, confirmed they would keep contacts with General John De Chastelain of the decommissioning body.
Mr McDonald also had harsh words for drug dealers.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern welcomed the statement by the UDA. Mr Ahern particularly welcomed the 'acknowledgement that the conflict is over and its commitment to achieving a society where violence and weaponry belong to the past.'

More than 12 years has passed from the IRA's 1994 cease fire to Sinn Fein pledging to support the PSNI last January. The process by Loyalist paramilitaries to end their campaign has been even more protracted.
Some of its leaders want to commit to an exclusively political path. Others continue to engage in crime, including drug dealing and racketeering.

Collusion
The Ulster defence Association, once proscribed as a illegal terrorist organization by the British government, however many are convinced the terrorists were both organized and effectively controlled by the British secret service in a official/semi-official policy aimed at intimidating the Irish nationalist community.

In 1992 Brian Nelson, a prominent UDA member convicted of sectarian murders, revealed that he was also a British Army agent. This led to allegations that the British Army and RUC were helping the UDA to target not only Irish republican activists but to terrorize the whole Irish nationalist community into submission. UDA members have since confirmed that they received intelligence files on republicans from British Army and RUC intelligence sources.
According to the Sutton database of deaths at the University of Ulster's CAIN project, the UDA was responsible for 112 killings during the Troubles. Seventy-eight of its victims were civilians (predominantly Irish nationalists identified by assumption through being a Roman Catholic), twenty-nine were other loyalist paramilitaries (including twenty-two of its own members), three were members of the security forces and two were republican paramilitaries. Some believe that a number of these attacks were carried out with the assistance or complicity of the British Army and/or the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which the Stevens Enquiry appeared to add credence to.

UDA and Criminality
The UDA is heavily involved in racketeering and in the drugs trade in the north of Ireland, and to a lesser extent in western Scotland. The group had also developed strong links with neo-nazi groups in Britain such as Combat 18, though in 2005 the UDA announced that it was severing all ties with neo-Nazi organizations.
They have been involved in several feuds with the Ulster Volunteer Force, which led to many murders. The UDA has also been riddled by its own internecine warfare, with self-styled "brigadiers" and former figures of power and influence, such as Johnny Adair and Jim Gray (themselves bitter rivals), falling rapidly in and out of favor with the rest of the leadership. On February 22, 2003, the UDA announced a "12-month period of military inactivity". It said it will review its cease fire every three months. It also apologized for the involvement of some of its members in the drugs trade.

On June 20, 2006 the UDA expelled Andre Shoukri and his brother Ihab, two of its senior members who were heavily involved in crime. Some see this as a sign that the UDA is slowly coming away from crime.[15] Other senior members met with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern for talks on the 13th of July in the same year.[16]

Cease fires
Its cease fire was welcomed by the the north of Ireland Secretary of State, Paul Murphy and the Chief Constable of the Police Service of the north of Ireland, Hugh Orde.
Following an August 2005 Sunday World article that poked fun at the gambling losses of one of its leaders, the UDA banned the sale of the newspaper from shops in areas it controls. Shops that defy the ban have suffered arson attacks, and at least one newsagent was threatened with death. The PSNI have recently begun accompanying the paper's delivery vans. The UDA was also considered to have played an instrumental role in loyalist riots in Belfast in September 2005.
On the November 13, 2005, the UDA announced that it would "consider its future", in the wake of the standing down of the Provisional IRA and Loyalist Volunteer Force.

In February 2006, the Independent Monitoring Commission reported UDA involvement in organized crime, drug trafficking, counterfeiting, extortion, money laundering and robbery.

Despite the statements of a continuation of criminality, from including leading figures within the movement itself, no one is calling for the photographer. The independant observer must be wondering why.
Alliance party calls for funding of UDA to stop

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