Inside the U D A

Colin Crawford

Description

This book is a unique insight into the beliefs and political ideology of the Ulster Defence Assocation (UDA) and the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF). Featuring interviews with key members of these paramilitary groups, many conducted inside the Maze prison, Colin Crawford presents a thorough analysis of Loyalism and the role that Loyalist paramilitary groups continue to play in Northern Ireland's troubles. He also provides an insider's account of the workings of state-sponsored terrorism.



Crawford explores these tensions and assesses the difficulties that the UDA faces in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement. He analyses the Ulster Democratic Party's failure to win seats in the 1998 elections, and he examines the conflict between those who are motivated by the profits of crime and drug trafficking, and those motivated by political ideals.



The book makes disturbing and often heartbreaking reading, and it marks an important step forward in understanding the Loyalist position - for it is only through improving our understanding of the experience of all citizens in Northern Ireland that lasting peace can be achieved.
Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Preface: By Marie Smyth

1. Introduction To The Conflict In Northern Ireland

2. Researching The UDA

3. The UDA/UFF: History, Organisation And Structure

4. Phase One: Beginnings. The UDA’s Chaotic Sectarian War

5. Phase Two: The 1980s UDA/UFF - From Infiltration To Re-Organisation

6. Phase Three: The Mid 1980s Travelling Gunmen And The Selective Strategy

7. Phase Four: The 1990s The Selective Strategy And Retaliatory Sectarian Murder

8. Phase Five: The Shankill Bomb And The Greysteel Massacre

Conclusion

Bibliography

Sujets

• Irlanda del Norte
• International relations
• Terrorism
• Northern Ireland
• Science
• Irlande du Nord

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 octobre 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849642088
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Inside the UDA

Volunteers and Violence

Colin Crawford

Foreword by Marie Smyth

P Pluto Press LONDON • DUBLIN • STERLING, VIRGINIA

First published 2003 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA

Distributed in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland by Columba Mercier Distribution, 55A Spruce Avenue, Stillorgan Industrial Park, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Tel: + 353 1 294 2556. Fax: + 353 1 294 2564

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright © Colin Crawford 2003

The right of Colin Crawford to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 7453 2107 0 hardback ISBN 0 7453 2106 2 paperback

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Crawford, Colin, 1948– Inside the UDA : volunteers and violence / Colin Crawford ; foreword by Marie Smyth. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0–7453–2107–0 (hardback) –– ISBN 0–7453–2106–2 (pbk.) 1. Ulster Defence Association––History. 2. Northern Ireland–– Politics and government. 3. Paramilitary forces––Northern Ireland––History––20th century. 4. Political violence––Northern Ireland––History––20th century. 5. Northern Ireland––History, Military. 6. Unionism (Irish politics) I. Title. DA990.U46C726 2003 941.60824––dc21 2003011541

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Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Towcester, England Printed and bound in the European Union by Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne, England

In memory of Cassie, 2003

Contents

Abbreviations Acknowledgements Forewordby Marie Smyth

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2

3

4

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Introduction to the Conflict in Northern Ireland 800 Years of Troubled History The Roles of the IRA and of the UDA/UFF in the Conflict Since 1969

Researching the UDA The Probation Service, Long Kesh and Political Prisoners Specific Methodology

The UDA/UFF: History, Organisation and Structure A Brief History of the UDA/UFF A Paramilitary Organisation? A Working-class Organisation? Strategy and Tactics: Selective Targeting versus Random Killing Infiltration by the Police and the Security Forces Collusion Between Elements of the British Security Forces and Members of the UDA/UFF From Paramilitaries to a Politicisation of the Conflict

Phase One: Beginnings – the UDA’s Chaotic Sectarian War of the 1970s Sam Duddy ‘Ken’ ‘Billy’ John White

Phase Two: The 1980s UDA/UFF – from Infiltration to Reorganisation ‘Terry’ ‘Jackie’

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1 1

5

10 10 16

20 20 24 30

32 39

42 46

51 51 63 76 89

97 97 112

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Inside the UDA

Phase Three: The Mid-1980s UDA/UFF – Travelling Gunmen and the Selective Strategy ‘Gary’ Michael Stone

Phase Four: The 1990s – the Selective Strategy and Retaliatory Sectarian Murder ‘Tommy’ Johnny Adair ‘Gordon’ ‘Alan’

Phase Five: The UDA/UFF 1993 – the Shankill Bomb and the Greysteel Massacre Combatant A Combatant B Combatant C Combatant D

Conclusion Bibliography Index

127 127 143

154 154 165 173 183

193 193 196 202 206

210 218 221

Abbreviations

ASU active service unit. CO Commanding Officer. DUP Democratic Unionist Party. FRU Forces Research Unit. A British Security Forces Unit drawing upon MI5, Army intelligence and Police (RUC) Special Branch. INLA Irish National Liberation Army. A small republican terrorist group. IRA Irish Republican Army. IRB Irish Republican Brotherhood. IRSP Irish Republican Socialist Party. LVF Loyalist Volunteer Force. A small but dangerous and fanatical group, considered to be ‘outside’ mainstream paramilitary loyalism. MI5 Military Intelligence, Section 5. PUP Progressive Unionist Party. The party which represents the UVF/RHC politically. RHC Red Hand Commando. Closely linked to the UVF, this is considered to be a small but elite loyalist paramilitary group. RIR Royal Irish Regiment. RUC Royal Ulster Constabulary (Police). SAS Special Air Service. SASU special active service unit. SDLP Social Democratic and Labour Party (of Northern Ireland). UDA Ulster Defence Association. The largest of all the paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, and possibly in the Western world. UDP Ulster Democratic Party. The party which represented the UDA/UFF politically. UDR Ulster Defence Regiment. UFF Ulster Freedom Fighters. The more militant ‘military wing’ of the UDA. UPRG Ulster Political Research Group. UUP Ulster Unionist Party. UVF Ulster Volunteer Force. The second largest loyalist paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland.

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Acknowledgements

I should wish to thank the officers and men of the Ulster Defence Association, the Ulster Freedom Fighters, the Ulster Democratic Party and the Ulster Political Research Group for their help and for contri- butions to this work. I was afforded a very special access to the organisation which was greatly appreciated. I hope that this work meets the expectations which were placed upon it, in recording a history of the UDA. Thanks also to my wife Gillian for her patience in giving me the time and space to write and to finish this work. Most of all, however, I should wish to thank my colleague and friend Marie Smyth, of the Institute for Conflict Research. This work may have remained unpublished had it not been for her academic guidance, and more particularly her connections within the literary and publishing world. Also to Julie Stoll in Pluto Press whose French flair assisted greatly in the coherency of the book. Finally, I should wish to thank all those many people, loyalist and republican, whose political vision and courage are helping to bring peace to our shared country.

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Foreword Marie Smyth

In the context of a growing global interest in non-state military actors, this book sets out to provide an account of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and it more militant wing, the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), and their role in Northern Ireland’s troubles. It is produced in the global context of George Bush’s war against terrorism, and growing interest in understanding the origins, modus operandi and motivations of such organisations. Some seek this understand- ing in order to overcome such organisations militarily. Others seek to understand the political and social circumstances that give rise to the formation and proliferation of violent non-state intervention. In the local context of Northern Ireland, the book appears at a par- ticularly challenging time for loyalist politics in general, and for the UDA in particular. In the wake of the Good Friday Agreement, unionism and loyalism have faced the challenges involved in the transformation of Northern Ireland politics, from direct rule to a locally devolved assembly. This has required substantial changes in unionist/loyalist and nationalist/republican political behaviour. For Loyalists it has meant moving from a position where they shunned republicans, refusing even to be in the same room as them, to one where they sat together with them in government. For those within the ranks of the paramilitaries, it has meant the transition – albeit imperfect – from militarism to democratic politics. For the UDA, the subject of this book, this transition has not been easy, for a number of reasons. Perhaps most importantly, the organisation has enjoyed a very limited amount of success in electoral politics. It has been observed that unionist constituents do not readily vote for parties with paramilitary links. Both political parties associated with loyalist paramilitaries, the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP), which is associated with the UDA, as well as the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) associated with the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), have struggled to become electorally viable. The PUP, however, has met with more success than the UDP, winning two assembly seats whereas the UDP won none. The UDP eventually folded as a political party and was

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replaced with an interim organisation, the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG), whose task it was to reform, unify and revitalise the political operation of the UDA and its political associates. However, the disputes within the UDA, the UDP and latterly the UPRG mirror the wider pattern of dissention and division with unionism and loyalism in the post-Agreement period. Splits and vitriolic disputes within the mainstream Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) were marked from the early days of the Agreement by Jeffrey Donaldson’s walkout at the time of the signing of the Agreement. This was followed by the outbreak of a series of loyalist feuds, within and between loyalist paramilitaries, the most serious of which was between the UVF and the UDA from 2000 onwards. The result of these disputes was the internal segregation of some loyalist working- class communities, separating UVF and UDA supporters from each other. Nor was life within the Ulster Defence Association unmarked by division. (In September 2002, they expelled Johnny Adair, the Commander of C Company in the Lower Shankill, and his associate, John White, who appears in this volume.) There are three kinds of substantive causes of these disputes: the tension between militarism and politics; the tension between those for and those against the Belfast Agreement; and the tension between those motivated by personal gain and involved in crime, racketeer- ing and drug trafficking.

MILITARISM VERSUS POLITICS

The first tension, between militarism and politics, is between those who espouse militaristic solutions to political problems, in opposition to those who tend to choose the political path. There has been much debate in Northern Ireland among paramilitaries in general and their supporters about the effectiveness of politics, compared with that of violence. Some argue that violence works, that Sinn Fein would not have had two ministers in the Northern Ireland Assembly had not the Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombed and shot its way into the political arena. There are other examples. One referred to by Mo Mowlam in her account of her time as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was the infamous ‘lesser of two evils’ decision at Drumcree (Mowlam, 2002: 97). Orangemen were allowed to march through a Catholic estate at Drumcree in 1999, because the Chief Constable argued that, if they were prevented, the violence that resulted would

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be worse than the violence emanating from the Catholic community. Therefore, on that basis, the Orangemen were allowed to march. In a militarised society, evidence is plentiful to support the argument that it is might not right that often prevails. Within loyalism, then, to argue for the adoption of an exclusively political path is to face the accusation of having ‘sold out’ unionism and loyalism by abandoning the battle against the IRA. Support for a military engagement has a wider currency within unionism. Both the UUP and Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), while eschewing paramilitary activity themselves, have argued that the IRA should to be defeated militarily by the use of the security forces. Both parties would see themselves having special links with the security forces, many police and RIR members are DUP or UUP supporters, and both parties have argued against the reforms of the police proposed by the Patten report. So even within parties that have no paramilitary link, military solutions are favoured for the problems of Northern Ireland. Yet the argument that ‘terrorists’ should be defeated by military means is not without its contradictions. The first contradiction, British military or loyalist paramilitary action directed, in this case, against republicans has arguably provided and maintained a context in which the IRA has been easily able to continue to recruit those who wish to defend their community against such patent threats. For example, the IRA was inundated with recruits after Bloody Sunday, when the British Paratroop regiment killed 14 Catholic civilians on a civil rights march in 1972. So, military strategy may be counterproductive, in that it can serve to escalate, not end, conflict. The second, the pursuit of a physical force solution may be difficult to present and justify in the political domain, and may risk the loss of the moral high ground. This is inevitably politically dangerous, and in the post-conflict period has been played out within paramil- itary groups as the tension between gangsterism on the one hand andbona fidepolitics on the other. This second contradiction is par- ticularly pertinent to this book. Within these pages, those who have pursued strategies such as the use of sectarian assassination of Catholics articulate their feelings and thoughts about their past actions. Were these actions morally justifiable or were the individual actors criminals or psychopaths? Were they dupes of the state, used and discarded when their usefulness was over? Were they heroes, taking up arms for a political cause and in defence of their communities and political heritage? Or were they victims of circum-