Viewpoint: The UVF guns must go

Opinion

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Editor: Martin Lindsay

Friday, May 16, 2008

The UVF is being returned to the list of 'good', or at least acquiescing, paramilitary groups. Secretary of State Shaun Woodward told the House of Commons this week that the Government will officially recognise the UVF ceasefire after three years in the breach.

The move is largely a technicality, costs the Northern Ireland Office nothing politically, and encourages restraint. Ultimately it will probably be seen as an unremarkable footnote in the general progress of paramilitaries moving beyond the outright terrorism that they have routinely engaged in.

So that's that, then? Well, yes and no. It's welcome that the UVF is once again considered to be on the right side of the peace process. But there are reasons for caution: we have been here before, and in some instances in the past loyalist paramilitaries have used the constant focus on the IRA's behaviour to literally get away with murder.

The decision to return the UVF to the list was taken on the recommendation of the Independent Monitoring Commission, the watchdog charged with judging the behaviour of paramilitary groups. It was their appraisal in 2005 that caused recognition to be withdrawn, citing the UVF's feud with the Loyalist Volunteer Force and violence surrounding the re-routed Whiterock parade in Belfast.

The IMC was persuaded to change its position by the UVF's announcement a year ago that the group would take on 'a non-military, civilianised role' and the group's subsequent behaviour since then. In a report earlier this month, the IMC said they have found no evidence of 'terrorist-type activity', and some members were expelled for failing to comply with the UVF's new definition of its role. Recruiting and training were stopped.

This hasn't meant the UVF has suddenly been transformed into a benign organisation. The story of grieving father Raymond McCord, revisited elsewhere in these pages, is a reminder of how the UVF has often behaved in the 14 years since they declared a ceasefire and offered their 'abject and true remorse'. Police informed Mr McCord earlier this year that there was an imminent threat to his life and there is every reason to believe UVF members were involved.

The IMC noted that 'more remains to be done'. UVF members continue to assault, deal drugs, extort and launder money, and sell counterfeit goods. This may be what the UVF had in mind with its new, 'civilianised role', but it's not enough. For most of the peace process, political and media focus has been on IRA weapons and intentions, because their political representatives were destined for government. But that was making the IRA a priority, not holding them to a different standard.

The UVF still has weapons, supposedly beyond the reach of members and retained for responding to future attacks.

Considering they killed more than 500 people, including the first civilians and the first RUC officer to die in the Troubles, that's not reassuring. The Government can't consider this issue closed: the guns must go.