Fortnight Publications Ltd.

They Have the WeaponsAuthor(s): Alan MurraySource: Fortnight, No. 324 (Jan., 1994), pp. 15-16Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25554369 .

Accessed: 25/06/2014 09:09

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Fortnight Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Fortnight.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.146 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:09:31 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

COVER STORY

They have the weapons

JL he standard Royal Ulster Constabulary briefing for visiting journalists last month suggested there

was little or no evidence loyalist paramilitaries had

received any significant quantity of new armaments.

Doubt was cast on suggestions to the contrary and

the strength of the expanding Ulster Freedom Fight ers was cast at around "100 to 200 activists".

Yet in a detailed statistical summary in the Irish

Independent by its security editor, Tom Brady, the

strength of the UDA/UFF?as derived from a brief

ing to the Garda Special Branch from the RUC?was

estimated at 2,300. Who is getting the disinformation?

Suggestions by this writer that loyalist paramili taries have secured small volumes of weapons from

Europe, conveyed by middle-class sympathisers, have

been decried as speculation. To the RUC, the depic tion of a US-manufactured M60 belt-fed general

purpose machine gun in pictures released by the

UFF in the Shankill area in November, along with

other weapons held aloft, is seemingly not irrefuta

ble evidence of an arms shipment.

Neither it is. But it is evidence of acquisition of

some weapons which were not in place before Sep tember. No RUC Special Branch briefing before

December advised the force to search for a heavy

belt-fed machine gun in Protestant areas.

Both the Gardai and the RUC were unaware of

arms shipments brought to Ireland during the 80s

and secreted in both jurisdictions, by the IRA and UDA respectively. Similar smaller, but equally clan

destine, movements could have occurred during the

last three months, as loyalists have claimed.

A small quantity of weapons?perhaps 60 AK47

rifles and 30 Browning pistols, plus hand grenades? is probably all that remains of the 1987-88 shipment from South Africa financed by the Ulster Defence

Association. This was split into three smaller con

signments after it arrived in the mid-Ulster area.

The UDA lost its share almost immediately along with David Payne, on his way from Portadown to

Belfast with the 'goods'. The Ulster Volunteer Force

lost half its share ten months later and further bits

and pieces have since been found in raids in Belfast.

The other third, retained by Ulster Resistance, has

been drawn on heavily by the UDA, as its campaign has escalated since it began to restructure in 1990.

Those with more ruthless tendencies, who control

that organisation today, claim they have increased

their armoury of guns substantially sincejohn Hume

and Gerry Adams issued the joint statement in late

September announcing suspension of their talks for

Dublin to consider their findings. What the UFF and UVF most want to secure is the

import of commercial explosives?to 'boost' the

:0? -

^K^^^^K^^^^^m^^^m^^KS^^K^^^^^^^m -

* m^^^^m^mum^mmmmmmmmmmmm^mmmmmmsmmWms'

^%m*mwti mm ^Mmm\m\m\\\\\\\\\\\\\mmm\\\\\\\\^m^^ ' >^jfe

large fertiliser bombs they have threatened for 16

months to visit upon the republic. That was the

major blow in the seizure of the large weapons

consignment at Teesside in November, not the loss

of AKM assault rifles and pistols.

They have adequate stores of modern handguns,

although the discovery?in Rathcoole, north of Bel

fast, last month?of nine sub-machine guns, six

home-made items and three World War Two Sten

guns, along with other weapons, suggests that loyal ists are less likely to enjoy modern weaponry than

their republican counterparts.

That proposition is rejected by figures in the UFF and UVF, however. Individuals close to both claim

their quartermasters have been handed boxes of

weapons and ammunition, in unsolicited approaches from middle-class unionists. Uzi sub-machine guns

and a variety of rifles and pistols are claimed to have

been smuggled in since the end of September. Behind the official briefings by the RUC press

office, there is genuine scepticism that middle-class

unionism has become sufficiently agitated to fund or

supply the 'war effort'. Special Branch resources

have not been deployed to anticipate or

investigate it. The consensus within the senior ranks of the RUC

would appear to be that reports of unionist mobilisa

tion are unfounded, even mischievous.

On the ground, however, officers in tough city areas like the Shankill lament that 'Headquarters' doesn't know what is going on beneath the surface in

the Protestant community. And those, like the Rev

Roy Magee, who have regularly counselled the UDA

Pre-Christmas toys for the boys

After the Downing Street declaration,

loyalist paramilitaries said the war would continue unless the IRA stopped. As ALAN

MURRAY reports, that was no idle threat.

JANUARY 1994 FORTNIGHT 15

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.146 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:09:31 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

I COVER STORY |

and the UVF?perhaps, too, the former health min

ister John O'Connell, who has acted as an interme

diary for the Dublin government?would suggest

that fear of 'betrayal' by the British government has

been uppermost in unionist minds.

In the two loyalist paramilitary camps, the Down

ing Street declaration was viewed equally fearfully last month. Sir Patrick Mayhew's hesitancy over the

timing for the handing over of IRA armaments, and

then his apparent admission that Sinn Fein could

approach the conference table for preliminary dis

cussions in advance of the yielding of IRA arms,

prompted a knee-jerk "nothing has changed" re

sponse from loyalist quarters.

Without an end to IRA violence, and thereafter

surrender of all major armaments, there is little

prospect of selling the proposals in the joint declara

tion to unionists, never mind loyalist paramilitaries.

The position of the latter remains that they will

desist from violence when the IRA agrees to do

likewise. But there is equivocation: loyalist paramili taries say they will accept no involvement of the

Dublin government in the internal affairs of North

ern Ireland and will violently resist it.

If they have more weapons, even if not as many as

they claim, and more continue to be smuggled in,

then, in 1994, loyalist gunmen could again surpass

republican paramilitaries?and more?in terms of

killings. And if a hundredweight of commercial

explosives is passed into their hands by unionist

sympathisers, their capacity for inflicting multiple

deaths will be greatly magnified.

One leading UDA figure asked recently: "Who are

the most dangerous people in the world?" He an

swered swiftly: "Religious fundamentalists, and we

have some here."

That element in Protestant society, fearful of im

prisonment in an arrangement which would create

a de facto 32-county nationalist institution or, ulti

mately, domination by nationalism, is pledged with

all its means to resist such a scenario. These include,

according to paramilitary sources, "unlimited finan

cial assistance" and the ability through business

contacts on the continent to procure a steady supply

of weapons and, eventually, explosives.

The scenario of outright loyalist insurrection

against what many Protestants perceive as a flow of

concessions to nationalism, and to the IRA princi

pally, appears unlikely at the moment. But we may be

in the calm before a new year storm, which loyalist

paramilitary figures predict if the IRA's campaign

endures at the level evidenced last month.

The major problem for both governments lies in

achieving the first and principal objective of their

declaration?the total cessation of the IRA's cam

paign. If the declaration fails, as the Anglo-Irish

Agreement failed, to deliver that elusive commodity,

then loyalist violence could be propelled to a fero

cious pitch by angry unionist elements, who would

seek to deter further concessions to republicanism

through major atrocities.

The loyalist paramilitary campaigns in 1994 may

have a frighteningly greater capacity to deliver the

bombing capability they have lacked for the last 13

years. That would pose volatile security implications for both governments?in a tension-filled atmos

phere when a dangerous political manoeuvre is

being attempted. ^

Terrorists to polituos

It's almost forgotten now?that minor crisis

over British

government contacts with Sinn Fein. ALAN

and JANET QUILLEY

explore the wider issues raised by it.

A* year ago, the idea that an elected government

might communicate with the IRA or Sinn Fein, while

the latter still condoned resort to the Armalite, was

for most unthinkable?though churchpeople or other

independents might talk to gunmen, to persuade

them to give up their weapons.

Yet the government was communicating through

intermediaries with the IRA for most of last year. The

unthinkable was happening?though unionist poli

ticians, unsurprisingly, did not join in the volte-face,

and the stream of revelations heightened fear and

foreboding.

How could such a change come about? And why

was the government's action so easily accepted by

the Commons? The recent and earlier Hume-Adams

dialogues helped soften attitudes and make change

conceivable. No matter how much the SDLP leader's

involvement was denigrated by some, the debate

surrounding Hume-Adams made the unthinkable

less so. There was much discussion of bringing Sinn

Fein in from the cold.

A movement in opinion, both in Northern Ireland

and in Britain, was detectable in the findings of the

Opsahl Commission, which concluded in June that

"there was almost across-the-divide agreement among

presenters at the oral hearings that a settlement

which excluded Sinn Fein would be neither lasting

nor stable?that some way had to be found to bring

Sinn Fein into the negotiating process". In the sub

sequent poll, there was substantial opinion in favour

of informal channels of communication with Sinn

Fein.

There were hints in the autumn that unionists

were being influenced by this change of mood. In

16 Fortnight January 1994

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.146 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:09:31 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions