Loyalist Paramilitaries – Protestant death squads (2)

loyalist collage

What are the main Loyalist paramilitary organisations?
1) Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Aliases Used: Protestant Action Group, Protestant Action Force
uvf gunmen
The UVF claimed its main aim was to fight the IRA. It was formed with the express intention of executing “mercilessly and without hesitation” known IRA men.
let me tell you
Although it did kill a small number of IRA volunteers, it’s main target was Catholic civilians.
It was started in 1966 by ex-British soldier Gusty Spence to counter rising nationalist sentiment centred on the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising
and to halt any introduction of equality legislation for Catholics.
terence o neill
The organisation was named in memory of Ulstermen who, in 1912, had signed the Covenant opposing Home Rule for Ireland and had then fought in WWI.

UVF_mural somme
The name also served to confuse the issue of the Loyalists’ aim which they stated was to defend the Protestant community from attack and protect Northern Ireland’s union with Britain.
Their first three victims, a Protestant woman and two Catholic men, had no connections with the IRA. It was the murder of 18-year old Peter Ward,
peter wqard
the third victim, which brought the UVF and its leader Gusty Spence to public attention. Spence was convicted of Ward’s murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The UVF was responsible for some of the worst mass murders that occurred during the Troubles, including

mcgurks bar
miami showband massacre
All of these attacks were aimed at Catholic civilians who had no involvement with Republican Organisations.
Here’s what the BBC says about the UVF today, several years after they announced they were on ceasefire

2) Ulster Defence Association (UDA)Aliases Used: Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF)
uda quis
Formed in 1971 with its main aim to “defend loyalist areas from attack” the UDA remained a legal organisation until the 1990s. On 3 July 1972 their plans to erect barriers between the Catholic Springfield area and the Protestant Shankill led to 8,000 masked men, many armed with cudgels, confronting 250 British troops.
Catholics regarded the peaceful resolution of the incident and the ease with which the UDA could paralyse the city with massive demonstrations as evidence that the British government was adopting a more conciliatory approach to loyalists.
One MoD official
ministry of defence
in November 1972 remarked thatan important function of the UDA is to channel into a constructive and disciplined direction Protestant energies which might otherwise become disruptive”.
Another confidential British Army briefing paper – “not to be passed [around] in writing below battalion level” –stated: “Operations against UDA should be directed against their criminal extremist elements whilst making every endeavour to maintain good relations with law abiding citizens in the organisation. Contact should be maintained at company commander level with the UDA.”
The UDA’s biggest and most successful operation was the 1974 Ulster Workers’ Council strike
ulster workers strike
that forced the power-sharing Executive to resign. The UDA also played a supportive role in the 1977 United Unionist Action Council strike but declined to support Ian Paisley’s Day of Action protest and his Third Force in 1981.
The UDA simply targeted Catholic civilians
and indulged in bouts of internal feuding. The group was responsible for mass murder including the Greysteel Massacre,
greysteel plaque
the Castlerock Killings and the Milltown Massacre

By the late 1980s and early 1990’s the UDA really ramped up its murderous activities and that ordinary Catholics were their main targets. They assassinated Catholics listed on leaked intelligence files.
Their murder record is an indictment of the collusion that occurred between some elements of the RUC and the loyalist paramilitaries. They killed some 197 civilians, 12 political activists, 11 republican paramilitaries, 37 loyalists, thirty of whom were in the UDA and 3 members of the security forces.

The UDA confirmed it was given assistance by the British Security forces. A number of UDA leaders including Brian Nelson, Ken Barrett and William Stobie were exposed as British Agents This led to the Stevens Inquiry and the conviction of Brian Nelson, an army spy within the UDA, and raised the spectre of collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces.
stevens inquiry
In 1992 the then Secretary of State Sir Patrick Mayhew proscribed it as it became increasingly clear to security forces that its members were carrying out killings but using the name of Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) as a cover.

The UFF’s campaign of violence began in the early 1970s, under the leadership of the UDA’s first commander Andy Tyrie, and continued throughout the Troubles.
The peak of the UFF’s armed campaign took place in the early 1990s under Johnny Adair’s ruthless leadership of the Lower Shankill 2nd Battalion, C Company.
shankhill uff

3) Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF)
formed in 1996 by Billy Wright
billy wright
and the mid-Ulster brigade of the UVF which had been stood down by the leadership for carrying out killings during the ceasefire. The group was formed during the 1996 Drumcree Crisis
in which Orangemen and Loyalists were prevented by the RUC and British Army from marching through a nationalist area of Portadown, the Garvaghy Road.
At roughly 4.30am on the morning of Sunday 12 July 1998 three young Catholic boys (Jason, Mark and Richard Quinn, aged 8, 9 and 10 years old) were burned to death when their Ballymoney home was fire-bombed by Loyalists in a sectarian attack.
quinn funeral
The LVF shot dead a Catholic civilian “in support of the Orangemen”.

The group was responsible for a string of sectarian murders before disintegrating in December 1997 when it’s leader, Billy Wright, was assassinated by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) inside a maximum security prison.
In response to the killing, LVF units attacked a number of Catholic owned bars, killing one man and wounding three others.
The LVF continues to be involved in widescale drug dealing, extortion, burglary and organized crime

4) Red Hand Commando
Formed in Belfast in 1972 the RHC was initially an independent organisation but later worked closely with the UVF sharing weapons and information but with a separate command structure.
The organisation was involved in mainly random sectarian attacks on Catholics.

The group have been responsible for 13 deaths. 12 of those killed were civilians while one was an RHC member

5)Red Hand Defenders (RHD)
red hand defenders
Formed in Belfast in 1998 by ex-members of the UDA and LVF, the RHD was supportive of the Orange Order during the Drumcree crisis and claimed responsibility for a blast-bomb attack which killed an RUC officer in September 1998.
nelson death
It claimed responsibility for the 1999 murder of human rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson.

The RHD has been responsible for 10 deaths which included 6 civilians, 3 UDA members and an RUC officer.


Loyalist Paramilitaries – Protestant death squads (1)

Background and Raison d’etre

loyalist collage
Loyalist paramilitary organisations originated in the 1960s and 1970s as vigilante groups in Protestant areas.
They stood around the fires at night on the street corners looking after areas and then they formed themselves into a paramilitary organisation but they were all there for the right reasons”.
When it was formed obviously people had been in the British Army and that is where the structure was formed from. That was when leaders just came to the fore and they did whatever they had to do with great pride within their communities to form themselves into a paramilitary organisation that everybody was proud of: the community, the people, their families, even the security forces were begrudgingly accepting that there were a well organised outfit”.(UDABrigadier, North Belfast, 2005)

What were “the right reasons”?
Loyalists claimed that the IRA, nationalist political parties, the Gaelic Athletic Association, Irish language speakers and Catholics comprised a “pan-nationalist front”
pan nationalist
and as such they were all legitimate targets.
bullshit detected
They swiftly developed into terrorist organisations. They were responsible for almost 1,000 deaths during the conflict. The overwhelming majority of their victims were innocent civilians who were killed and sometimes tortured because they were Catholics.
Loyalist groups funded their activities through protection rackets, robberies, counterfeit goods and were widely involved in drug dealing although most groups maintained that they were anti-drugs. Young Protestant men from Ulster’s most downtrodden neighbourhoods make up the core membership of loyalist paramilitary groups, which are effectively pro-state terrorist organizations

The British Army knowingly enforced an anti-terrorist policy based on religious discrimination during the early years of Northern Ireland’s Troubles, according to files unearthed in the National Archives.
ministry of defence
Ministry of Defence memos from the early 70s reveal for the first time that senior officials acknowledged that “Protestant terrorists” were not being interned on the same basis as members of the IRA. IRA suspects could be served with interim custody orders and interned without trial.

Military arrest instructions did not, however, specify that senior members of the UVF or other loyalist paramilitary groups should be arrested over similar suspicions.
The policy does not therefore provide for the arrest of Protestant terrorists except with the object of bringing criminal charges,” the MoD review admitted. “Protestants are not, as the policy stands, arrested with a view to their being made subject to interim custody orders and brought before the commissioners.

Accusations that the government pursued repressive security measures against republican paramilitaries while adopting a softer line against loyalist gunmen and bombers fuelled sectarian resentment for many years


What are Loyalists loyal to? 

‘Loyalists are basically loyal to the Crown; to the British way of life; I think that is the concept of our Britishness – the freedom to be who we are and what we are and say what we want, when we want”.

“Being loyal – we are loyal to the Crown.’(O, UVF, Tyrone, 2005)
the crown
“Our basic strength and definition of our loyalty include a whole lot of other things that make up our Protestant culture, our heritage, and our way of life; whether that is our Loyal Orders,
royal black knight
(Do they knight themselves in a self-knighting ceremony?)
marching cultures,
orange march
flute bands,

supporting Rangers,
Lambeg drumming,
“our Ulster Scots connection, or our basic sense of identity of being Ulstermen but being within the broader British Isle context within the Union. All of those things come together to make up what we are loyal to.(A, UVF, Co. Antrim)
“That is our culture, the Orange Order”.
reg empey.jpg2
“My motto would be that we are still defenders of the faith and the Protestant community”.(X, UDA, Belfast, 2005)
Their core assumption is that the only alternative to Ulster Loyalist dominance is Ulster Loyalist defeat and humiliation


Scrap the Stormont Assembly – It’s not fit for purpose (3)

same old
Same old bigotry, same old bigotry
You still on about this? What’s the latest bee in your bonnet?
bee in your bonnet
The Social Investment Fund (SIF)

What’s that?
It is £80 million the Northern Ireland Executive allocated in 2011 to deliver social change.

What sort of social change?
It’s supposed to reduce poverty and unemployment, promote education and health and fix up badly deteriorated property and areas.

What’s wrong with that? It sounds great.
bee in your bonnet
Two years on, not a penny has been released to projects.

The £15m that was supposed to be spent this allocated year has already been reallocated
peterìs principle
Has any of the money been used?
Nearly half a million has gone on consultancy fees and the rest is still sitting there.
Our people are suffering hardship!!
And foodbanks are “mushrooming” in Northern Ireland according to the Belfast Telegraph.

What’s holding up the money?
Demands for a shared out future –
apples shared out
not a shared future!

What do you mean?
sinn fein
wants the money allocated on the basis of need, but the
DUP doesn’t agree

what part no
What do you mean?

If the money were allocated based on deprivation statistics, then more money would go in to nationalist areas than into working-class unionist areas.
Unionist communities would receive less because Nationalist areas suffer more widespread levels of deprivation.

Usual old bigotry
its not true
It is. For example, 26% of Catholics are in low-income households compared with 16% of Protestants.

On every deprivation indicator the percentage of Catholics is higher than the percentage of Protestants.All the official figures agree that 16 of Northern Ireland’s most deprived wards are nationalist.

Our MLAs
OrangeMan back
are quite right to think it over carefully. They can’t just take resources away from us Protestants. We have pockets of deprivation in otherwise affluent areas, Look at
sandy row
sandy row shops
You yourself said we were the ones failing exams in Ulster.

We need that money too.

The way the Stormont Assembly works, the  Nationalists/Republicans and the Unionists/Loyalists have to agree on things before anything gets done.

Your DUP MLAs are the ones that want to split the money 50:50.

If they don’t get their way they will prevent everybody from getting any money
no way out
– including the 20% of the most deprived areas which are Unionist.

Talk about
cut off your nose

Would this level of spiteful incompetence be tolerated in Dublin or London? Edinburgh or Cardiff?


Collusion is not an illusion

Collusion /k’lu:z()n/ noun: Secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose.

Sir John Stevens,
former Metropolitan Police Commissioner who uncovered collusion between the RUC, British army and loyalists:
Collusion is evidenced in many ways. This ranges from the wilful failure to keep records, the absence of accountability, the withholding of intelligence and information, through to the extreme of agents being involved in murder”
The British government’s dealings in Ireland have long been characterised by cover-ups, deceit and perfidiousness. This includes collaboration between British security forces and loyalist paramilitaries, the obstruction of legal investigations, the refusal to hold public enquiries, and the introduction of a new form of intelligence-led policing which, in many cases, allowed informers to act with impunity.

Anne Cadwallader
is, as she promised in the video above, about to publish a new book called “Lethal Allies“. It deals with just one small area in Ireland, the mid-Ulster region of Armagh, Tyrone, Fermanagh and Monaghan and one brief period of time from 1972 to 1976. In that time and that place over 120 Irish men, women and children were killed and hundreds more wounded by one small terrorist formation – the infamous Glenanne Gang. It included members of the RUC, UDR and British Army intelligence, as well as Loyalist paramilitaries from Counties Armagh and Tyrone – all with the tacit authority of the nation-state of Great Britain behind them.Here’s the link to the Channel 4 report on her book and her evidence.
And here’s Anne herself answering some questions about her work

You might also like this interview with Anne
Some Key Atrocities that are linked to collusion between the RUC/Loyalist murder gangs/British forces:
mcgurks bar
15 Catholics were killed in Mc Gurk’s bar bombing on 4 December 1971
6 Catholics were killed at the New Lodge/Antrim Road ,junction in Belfast on 3 February 1973,
33 people were killed in bombings in Dublin and Monaghan on May 17th 1974

miami showband massacre
3 members of the Miami Showband were shot and killed on July 31st 1975. A fake army patrol made up of Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers and Ulster Volunteer Force members stopped them at a bogus checkpoint outside Newry. A premature bomb expolosion killed two of the UVF gang that targeted them.
Human Rights lawyer, Mr. Pat Finucane, graduate of Trinity College Dublin was murdered in his own house, in front of his family, on 12 February 1989
Rosemary Nelson, a prominent Irish human rights solicitor was killed on 15 March 1999

Some key points about collusion investigations/revelations:
*They are like therapy for the British state. British elements admit to some wrongdoing in Northern Ireland without incriminating the entire state.
*They give the impression that state collusion with loyalist killers was largely the work of ‘rogue elements’ within Britain’s otherwise benign and peacekeeping security force in Northern Ireland, when in truth collusion was widespread.
* Far from being isolated incidents, the actions of loyalist paramilitaries ( mostly sectarian attacks on Catholics and targeted assassinations of Sinn Fein and IRA members) were part and parcel of Britain’s brutal occupation of Northern Ireland.

*The ultimate aim of the collusion investigations/revelations is to placate republicans/nationalists and convince them their grievances are being taken seriously.
*They keep the ‘peace process’ on track
*They boost the British authorities’ flagging moral authority and claims to impartiality in Northern Ireland.

Some Key Publications
Summary of Stevens Report 17 May 1990
The main finding was that there had been evidence of collusion between members of the security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries. However it was the view of the inquiry that any collusion was “restricted to a small number of members of the security forces and is neither widespread nor institutionalised”.
Amnesty International Report 9 February 1994
It claimed that there was “mounting evidence” of collusion between the security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries. The RUC said that the claims were “utter nonsense”.


Final considerations
*Britain enlisted Protestant militias as auxiliaries while presenting itself as a neutral arbitrator
*Britain is exposed not as peacemaker but as perpetrator, spreading terror and spilling blood
*Britain was the most powerful presence among the warlords in Northern Ireland for over 30 years
*Her Majesty’s Government and her people need to assimilate these facts about their behaviour towards other British citizens before they can consign collusion to the past.



Scrap the Stormont Assembly – It’s not fit for purpose(2)

Planning at Stormont?
Northern Ireland’s environment minister
sdlp logo
Mark H Durkan dropped the Planning Bill,
hot potato
describing it as “bad law”
This angered the DUP, who are allegedly said to be the only party backing this deal.
They described it as an “antidemocratic decision“.
antidemocratic decision
Defying the democratic will of the assembly severely damages the credibility of the SDLP,” DUP chief whip Peter Weir warned.
credibility damaged
Despite a majority of nationalists and unionists being in favour of this legislation Mr Durkan is allowing party politics to cloud his judgment and defy the will of the assembly.”

What sort of a barrister is Mr Weir if he’s advocating majority rule to pass anti-EU legislation?
Peter Weir, called to the Northern Ireland Bar in 1992, former editor of the Ulster Review, member of Queen’s University Senate since 1996 and of the University Convocation
peter weir2
refused to support the Belfast Agreement of 1998,

what part no
saying in one television interview that the only positive comment he could summon for the Agreement was that it was “very nicely typed
He belongs to the Orange Order
orangeman in ni
and the Royal Black Preceptory.
royal black knight
Translation from Orangespeak to standard English:
No defiance, please Mr Durkhan, We’re Loyalists here. We’ll make allowances just this once for a temporary lapse on your part but please remember that in each and every circumstance , Croppies must lie down!!

What is the Planning Bill?
Introduced in January 2013 by Alex Attwood it was supposed to streamline the planning system and speed up decision making.

It was part of The Stormont Executive’s commitment to their joint development plan, a new package of proposals to rebalance the NI economy and secure a shared future for all its people,a pact that was signed in Downing Street.
downing st
The Republic of Ireland’s only role was to send tourists up North.
In June most MLAs knew little about what was being proposed in two last-minute amendments but voted for them anyway
Sheep in Fog
These amendments (if they had proven legally tight) would have handed absolute power to the DUP and Sinn Fein to:
 set Enterprise Zones exactly where they wanted them (and reap the maximum political advantage);
 wave through almost any economic project that took their (or their political backer’s) fancy;
 and defy the courts and by extension ordinary citizens any legal redress against OFMdFM decisions in this regard.

Logical Questions
Were the amendments an attempted power grab?
power grab
A cooked-up opportunity to control exactly which communities and which developers get the plum economic opportunities and which don’t?
Were they introduced to satisfy the request of any particular company?
a company
What’s Mr Cameron going to do once he learns the pact he signed has already gone the way of so much else in Northern Ireland?
david cameron
Would all this happen in London or Dublin? Edinburgh or Cardiff?

(to be continued)

Scrap the Stormont Assembly – It’s not fit for purpose(1)

1) Stormont Assembly can’t even agree on a beauty pageant!
Misses Out!!

misses out
The 2011 Miss Ulster competition
miss Ulster
Those frocks are perfect illustrations of a “shared future”. Note the Republican aspiration is short, puffed up and faded, while the Union Flag predominates
Even then the Miss Ulster beauty contest caused something of a stir, with some objecting to it being staged in Parliament Buildings
This year it was pulled at the last minute in the wake of an outcry from some politicians over entry criteria restrictions on age, height and dress size. An MLA who was sponsoring the event withdrew her backing.

what part no
2) Northern Ireland health minister Edwin Poots misses out not once but three times
He has spent almost £100,000 of public money appealing High Court decisions.
gay blood ban
a)Mr Justice Treacy said Mr Poots’ decision about the ban “irrational” and that Mr Poots had breached the ministerial code by failing to take the issue before the Executive
Poots 1

Mr Poots tried to challenge an appeal court’s decision
dup banner
that paved the way for gay and lesbian couples to adopt children in Northern Ireland.
gay adoption
b)A spokesman for the Supreme Court, the UK’s top court said: “The Supreme Court of the UK has refused permission to appeal the Court of Appeal’s decision in this matter”, adding “The Supreme Court issued an order on 22 October 2013 stating that the application did not satisfy the criteria of raising an arguable point of law of general public importance.

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Chief Commissioner Professor Michael O’Flaherty said
“All of the judgments and today’s rejection by the Supreme Court to hear a further appeal confirmed that the law in Northern Ireland was out of step
with the United Kingdom’s human rights obligations.”
The health minister cannot appeal the high court’s decision

what part no
Mr Poots said he was
disappointed by the court ruling”.
Draft guidelines on abortion that Mr Poots Ministry issued in Northern Ireland in March caused a “mood of fear”
mood of fear
among medical staff. They were warned they could face 10 years in jail
prison 2
if they did not report suspicions of unlawful abortions to the PSNI.
c)The Director of Public Prosecutions Barra McGrory,

said it was not a criminal offence if someone assists a woman going to England for a lawful termination

Is it legal for a Health Minister to waste public money, discriminate against gay people and terrorise medical professionals?

Would all this incompetence happen in London or Dublin? Edinburgh or Cardiff?