Ulster Volunteer Force is no longer on ceasefire, police warn
Police Federation raises concerns after 15-year-old boy is shot in both legs
A UVF mural in Shankill Road, Belfast. Photograph: Reuters
The Ulster Volunteer Force is no longer on ceasefire after a series of shootings and acts of intimidation by the loyalist terror group, rank-and-file police officers have warned.
After a weekend of terrorist incidents including the shooting of a 15-year-old and the distribution of UVF leaflets naming and threatening people allegedly involved in antisocial behaviour, the Police Federation inNorthern Ireland said the loyalist organisation's ceasefire was over.
The teenager is recovering from his wounds in hospital after being shot in both legs at a house in Coleraine in the early hours of Monday morning.
Loyalist paramilitaries with UVF links are being blamed for the so-called punishment shooting in the Co Derry town.
Earlier at the weekend the UVF posted and distributed leaflets on the Kilcooley estate in Bangor, Co Down, threatening a number of individuals they accused of antisocial activities in the town.
The recent spike in UVF-related violence has prompted the Police Federation to claim the organisation's ceasefire is finished.
"We've been very clear that when it comes to the UVF, we firmly believe that they are not on ceasefire," the federation's chairman, Terry Spence, said.
Spence told Radio Ulster that the UVF had been "engaged in murder, attempted murder of civilians, attempted murder of police officers. They have been engaged in orchestrating violence on our streets, and it's very clear to me that they are engaged in an array of mafia-style activities.
"They are holding local communities to ransom. On the basis of that, we as a federation have called for the respecification of the UVF [stating that its ceasefire is over]."
The chief constable in the province, Matt Baggott, was challenged by nationalist politicians to review the status of the UVF ceasefire.
The SDLP assembly member for East Derry, John Dallat, said the shooting in Coleraine was the second such incident in the north-west area in recent weeks.
"No one knows whose child could be the next victim of such a gang," Dallat said, adding that he believed loyalist paramilitaries were responsible.
"I would also ask the chief constable, in light of this attack, to revise his position in respect of loyalist paramilitaries who are clearly flouting the terms of their ceasefire.
"Gangs of this nature must not be allowed to abuse members of this community and deliver their perverse concept of justice," he said.
Sinn Féin's Gerry Kelly said it was clear the UVF was no longer on ceasefire. "Matt Baggott did come out with a statement, I think last week, where he said the UVF ceasefire was intact. I think it was with incredulity that anyone read the article," he said.
"I've had people into my office, ironically, from the Shankill Road, complaining that the UVF are in charge there as well. So I do think they need to take a look at this. I don't understand why Matt Baggott is saying these things."
Loyalist terror groups, particularly the UVF, have remained active despite being officially on ceasefire. The UVF in east Belfast has been behind much of the street riots connected to the union flag dispute at Belfast city hall.
The organisation is also thought to be behind a series of shootings in the east of the city including the attempted murder of a former girlfriend of the UVF's so-called commander in the area earlier this year.
The majority of attacks and violent incidents involve loyalists portraying themselves as an alternative vigilante police force in Protestant working-class areas carrying out summary "justice" against those accused of antisocial activities.
Republican dissident terror groups have also stepped up their attacks on those in their own communities whom they label as antisocial. In the republican Ardoyne district at the weekend Oghlaigh na hEireann issued leaflets stating that they had forcibly evicted a woman from the area after repeated warnings from them.
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• Anne Cadwallader
The book analyses the role of the judicial system and names known members of the crown forces involved in many of the killings
DECLASSIFIED official Whitehall documents revealed in a new book by former BBC correspondent Anne Cadwallader show that successive British governments knew that members of the British crown forces were involved in unionist killer gangs responsible for the deaths of 120 people yet failed to act.
Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland is written by veteran journalist Anne Cadwallader, who previously worked for RTÉ and the BBC from Belfast and Dublin. She is now a caseworker with the Pat Finucane Centre human rights NGO.
Lethal Allies tells the story of how killer gangs killed 120 people, mainly nationalists, on both sides of the Border between 1972 and 1976.
The book establishes that a significant number of these killers were serving members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Ulster Defence Regiment of the British Army.
At the time, SAS Captain Robert Nairac (captured in 1977 on a spying mission and executed by the IRA) was operating hand in glove with death squads centred on the notorious ‘Glenanne Gang’ based in south Armagh.
The book analyses RUC investigations, links the killings through ballistic and other forensic evidence, and explains how the courts dealt with whatever charges were brought.
Where legally possible, it names the perpetrators using previously unpublished reports prepared for the families by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET), using information from RUC files.
Included in the book is a chapter that analyses the role of the judicial system and names known serving and former members of the crown forces who were involved in many of the killings.
These include James Mitchell, an RUC Reservist when involved in attacks on two bars which left five people dead. His farmhouse was used in the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings in which 34 people were killed.
Mitchell was only ever convicted of possession of weapons and explosives, for which he received a one-year suspended sentence.
Clearly the counter-insurgency strategies employed by the British in the North were developed in the years after the Second World War as Britain slaughtered it’s way through Africa and Asia attempting to hold onto its colonial empire.
Lethal Allies critiques how British generals employed and refined their counter-insurgency tactics against the nationalist population in Ireland.
The book demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that there was “systematic collusion” in the deaths of the 120 people cited.
• Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland, by Anne Cadwallader, is published by Mercier Press. As well as the BBC and RTÉ, Anne Cadwallader has also reported for The Irish Press, Independent Network News and Reuters. She is the author of Holy Cross - The Untold Story (Brehon Press, 2004).
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