UDA moves to cease paramilitary action

Loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Defence Association, has issued a statement outlining its commitment to cease paramilitary activity for the next twelve months.

News of the ceasefire came on Saturday, as the UDA released the statement through the Ulster Political Research Group.

However, the outlawed organisation stressed that their renewed commitment to a ceasefire did not represent a decision by the UDA to decommission – that move, the group stated, would only occur once the republican movement had set out their terms to do so.

The UDA's statement has received a mixed reaction from local politicians. Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy has welcomed the move, especially as it represented "a commitment to re-engage with the Decommissioning Body, to work to defuse tension at the interfaces and the recognition of the damage that drug abuse does to the community."

However, Sinn Fein assembly member Gerry Kelly sounded a note of caution, saying that any "genuine cessation" of the UDA's paramilitary activity would be welcome, but that the statement would inevitably be received with scepticism by some.

He said: "We have to be factual – the UDA have killed people. They have never said their cessation was ended, which means that while they were saying they were on cessation, they were killing people."

The UDA's statement follows the group's decision to leave 18 pipe bombs at playing fields in the Crumlin Road area on Wednesday 19 February. An official release from the UDA indicated that the devices were left there to be disposed of by the security forces, as a demonstration of UDA's commitment to "stabilise and normalise" loyalist west Belfast.

(CL)