NIreland militant group shuns violence

Source: Associated Press

<snip>

"The largest Protestant paramilitary group in Northern Ireland renounced violence Sunday, officially ending the decades of terror it inflicted on the province's Catholic minority.

The outlawed Ulster Defense Association said it was disbanding all of its armed units and would store its weapons beyond the reach of rank-and-file members, but was not willing yet to hand over its arsenal to international disarmament officials.

"The Ulster Defense Association believes that the war is over, and we are now in a new democratic dispensation that will lead to permanent political stability," the group said, referring to the Catholic-Protestant administration established in May under terms of a 1998 peace accord.

UDA representatives made the announcement in front of hundreds of supporters in a hard-line Protestant part of Belfast on Remembrance Sunday, the solemn British holiday that honors the dead from two world wars.

It followed months of pressure on the UDA to catch up to Northern Ireland's other two big paramilitary groups — the Catholics of the Irish Republican Army and the Protestants of the Ulster Volunteer Force — which had already renounced violence."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071111/ap_on_re_eu/northern_ireland

if you renounce violence?

"The Ulster Defense Association is to stand down part of its organisation, the Ulster Freedom Fighters, from midnight. <snip>
"The UDA's move comes weeks after Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie, announced she was to cut off £1.2m in loyalist funding unless the UDA decommissioned its weapons in 60 days."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7089310.stm

They're just holding the guns from some of the franchises (UFF but not Red Hand Defenders) because gov't funding was being threatened. Wonder why these organisations get money from the govt?

to just beatings and killings.. these people dont even know what they are fighting about anymore...