Fortnight Publications Ltd.

No Longer Just 'Rowdy'Author(s): Brian RowanSource: Fortnight, No. 309 (Sep., 1992), p. 14Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25553593 .

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No longer

just 'rowdy' Brian Rowan

T1 I HE DECISION TO ban the Ulster Defence Association was

taken after a searching review of UDA activities, conducted by

,_la security branch within the Northern Ireland Office. Sir

Patrick Mayhew acknowledged at his Stormont press conference that

the paramilitary group was deeply involved in terrorism.

It is a view that had long been argued by many politicians. Yet, little

more than three months earlier, Sir Patrick's deputy, Michael Mates,

who sat beside him at Stormont Castle, had referred only to "some

rowdy and possibly criminal elements" within the organisation. The banning move, although surprising, had not been totally unex

pected, however. It came after a year and half in which the violent

loyalist factions had matched the IRA, murder for murder. That marked

escalation coincided with sweeping leadership changes within the

UDA?a restructuring of the paramilitary command which saw the 'old

guard' being pushed to one side to be replaced by a more militant order.

In October last year, in a BBC interview, the RUC chief constable,

Sir Hugh Annesley, pointed up the significance of the emergence of the

new, younger leaders: "It's perhaps, I suppose, topical to talk of the 'new

guard' and the 'old guard'. I think there is very little doubt that the 'old

guard', if you like, would have had a level of activity above which they would not have gone, and I think in that sense there was probably

something of a restraining influence," he said.

"I think that influence has now gone ... I think that the team that are

coming through are more aggressive ... I think they are prepared to

match some of the atrocities that PIRA have committed ... and I think

that some of those who might have stood in the way have been pushed to one side, to be replaced by harder, more determined, more ruthless

and better quality individuals in their capacity to organise and carry out

attacks within Northern Ireland."

Sir Hugh's comments were clearly based on intelligence available to

'E3'?the section of the RUC Special Branch that monitors loyalists? and his words were a frank summary of even more sinister developments in the loyalist underworld. Murder, imprisonment and infighting had

removed from UDA ranks many long-time leaders?people like John

McMichael, Andy Tyrie, Tommy Lyttle, Billy Elliott and Davy Payne. Those who have come forward in their place have presided over a period of intense killing?an obvious factor in the banning move.

The UDA purge did not, though, completely clear out the older

leaders. The north Belfast 'brigadier' has held his inner council place since the arrest of Mr Payne in early 1988. And the south-east Antrim

leader was reinstated after charges against him, brought at the behest of

the Stevens inquiry into security-force/loyalist collusion, were dropped without explanation. Both command the respect of the remainder of the

paramilitary leadership?made up of much younger men who control

the organisation in south, east and west Belfast and north Antrim/Derry. Under the direction of this combination, killings admitted in the

name of the so-called 'Ulster Freedom Fighters' increased. Many were

purely sectarian, while some attacks were aimed against Sinn Fein.

Several SF members were murdered, including two of the party's councillors?one of them in the republic. As part of what senior police sources started to call the loyalist 'eye for an eye' mentality, the UFF

admitted firebombings?some in Dublin?and attempted van bomb

ings in Downpatrick and west Belfast. Again copying IRA tactics, bomb

hoaxes became part of the organisation's strategy.

Publicly the UFF threatened a response to all republican attacks. At

various times over the past 18 months or so, sweeping threats were made

against taxi companies, prison officers and the Gaelic Athletic Associa

tion. On one occasion a grenade attack was directed against (over

whelmingly Catholic) Cliftonville soccer supporters in Belfast.

While all this was going on, the RUC became aware that outside

Northern Ireland the loyalist group was searching for explosives, and it

warned of potential bombings in the republic. There was plenty of

warning, too, of more cross-border attacks, in statements issued last year in the name of the UFF. Constant reference was made to articles 2 and

3 ofthe republic's constitution, containing its claim to sovereignty over

the north, and to Dublin's 'interference' in northern affairs. Indeed,

when the UFF broke its conditional suspension of violence, during the

1991 round of political talks at Stormont, to murder the Sinn Fein

Councillor Eddie Fullerton in Co Donegal, senior UDA figures were

adamant that the 'ceasefire' did not apply in the republic. The extension of loyalist violence across the border is certain to have

persuaded Dublin to press harder at inter-governmental level for a UDA

ban. Sir Patrick maintained this was not a factor in the eventual

proscription order, but the UDA is convinced it was. Whatever the case,

the ban is sure to have earned Britain valuable brownie points in Dublin.

What does seem certain to have had a major bearing on the Stormont

decision was the distinct absence of any political activity involving the

UDA in recent years. There have been occasional mentions of the

organisation's 1987 Common Sense document?a paper which advo

cated working arrangements between nationalists and unionists in an

internal forum at Stormont. Then, last summer, there was that ten-week

conditional suspension of loyalist violence during the talks. But in many

quarters this was seen as posturing?a smokescreen to disguise what

SERIOUS TERRORISTS WHAT SEPARATED the Ulster Defence Association from the Ulster

Volunteer Force was its ambition to be a mass social and political movement. At the same time as some members were 'defending by attack',

the trade unionists and community activists who had joined the vigilante

groups were standing for election and trying to develop a distinctive

political agenda, Steve Bruce writes.

Their high point came with the UDA-led 1974 Ulster Workers' Council

strike which brought down the power-sharing executive. Despite the

imagination behind the 'negotiated independence' proposals of Beyond the

Religious Divide {WS), the UDA never regained the political initiative.

Gradually, the organisation shrank, as more and more senior members

concluded that the security forces were now doing as good a job of

defending Ulster as anyone could. In the reaction to the Anglo-Irish

Agreement, the late John McMichael saw a new opportunity for the UDA

to give political leadership, but he was wrong. So long as the UDA was more than a terrorist organisation, the

government saw some value in going along with the fiction that the Ulster

Freedom Fighters were not just a UDA codeword. But a series of events

removed the old guard. In August 1987 one brigadier was filmed trying to extort protection

money from the TV journalist Roger Cook. Four months later, Mr

McMichael was murdered by the IRA. Shortly after, another brigadier was

known to be racketeering and touting. Then last year, after the joint UVF

UDA ceasefire called during the political talks, the UFF renewed its murder

campaign. At the time of going to press this had seen 31 victims since?

almost as many as \n the whole of the 1980s.

With the disappearance of the UDA men with political aspirations, and

the upsurge in violence, the arguments against banning disappeared. The

current constitutional talks gave an opportunity for a useful political

gesture. The ban is that rather than a security measure: after all, the IRA

and UVF have been little hindered by being illegal.

Ironically, some of the UDA men who have tried to remove the stigma of

gangsterism will welcome this change in status. If they are no longer a

political force, they are at least now recognised as serious terrorists?on

a par with their enemies in the IRA and their rivals in the UVF.

had become more and more a primarily terrorist outfit hell-bent on

matching republican violence.

The UDA no longer has significant political clout. Last year, at the

time of the talks, unionist politicians rejected a request from the

revamped Ulster Loyalist Central Co-ordinating Committee?a body

heavily influenced by the UDA?to meet them. But the UDA has not

gone away, and in fact continues to operate fairly openly. As we went

to press, there had been no important follow-up security moves against the organisation's membership. In Northern Ireland suspecting some

thing and proving it are two entirely different things. Even though the IRA and the UDA's loyalist counterpart, the Ulster

Volunteer Force, have been illegal for years, few successful prosecu tions for membership alone have been mounted. So it is doubtful if the

required evidence will quickly become available to make a significant dent in the north's largest paramilitary grouping.

14 SEPTEMBER FORTNIGHT

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