CCTS No 37: Our hope for years to come

Our hope for years to come{1}
A story from a section of the Loyalist community in Northern Ireland who are trying to live in peace, by Frankie Gallagher

Peace – the ultimate goal: to boldly go where no one has gone before. It sounds like something out of Star Trek, and at times I have thought achieving peace was as distant as the light years in the movie. But sitting where we are sitting at present in Northern Ireland, with an Assembly up and running, politically inspired violence virtually non existent, the situation is very different from when I set out on this journey. It’s not perfect but it is a lot better with, dare I say it, hope for the future. Nonetheless, there is still along way to go.

Looking into the abyss

I got into this process over twenty years ago: the 22nd of December 1987 to be exact. I was at home after a tired night out, attending community meetings and trying to organise local people to take action on a myriad of social issues. I was just into bed when a knock came at the door. It was a local commander of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and he was in a terrible state. He said, ‘John McMichael{2} has just been murdered by the Provisional IRA. There will be hell to pay for this’. You could feel the rage in the air. The Ulster ‘troubles’ had taken us to another precipice. We were looking into the abyss, again!

I knew the Loyalist community would not let this go. There would be action taken. That usually meant someone on the other side was going to die, probably more than one. It was the politics of an eye for an eye, which was blinding us all.

At this stage in our troubled past I wasn’t very confident that things were ever going to change. It was depressing. I was told that I would be required to attend a meeting at short notice, so I should be ready to go.

We bury our dead and the call comes

The call came the day after John’s funeral. I had to go to a well known social club on the outskirts of Belfast. When I got there I was escorted up the stairs into what must have been a committee room. The room was filled with people, some that I recognised but mostly strangers. I waited in the wings making small talk and drinking tea. You could feel everyone was nervous; there was a tension in the air you could cut with a knife. Then the door opened up and a group of about ten people came in and sat at a prearranged top table. They introduced themselves as the Inner Council of the UDA. My heart was in my mouth. What were they going to say? I knew the rage in the Loyalist community had continued to grow. I thought, ‘This is it! We are all going for it. Our community has had enough of being murdered while our own Government stands by and does nothing’.

A man at the head of the top table began to speak. He thanked us all for being there and promised not to keep us away from our families for too long. I thought this was it but didn’t know what to expect. To my total surprise and relief, he stated that we were there as a result of John being murdered and that we could not let him, his work or his memory die in vain. He said the Inner Council was determined to produce ten John McMichaels. His work and leadership would continue. We (all of us in the room) were chosen to develop the way forward.

Have the terrorists won?

I have described this moment because at that terrible time in our history I thought the Provisional IRA terrorists had won and that we were delving deeper into the abyss and then, out of one of our darkest hours (of which there were many), there was a light of hope still shining in my people. There were still those at leadership level who had the courage to rise above our collective adversity and seek something better for our children. I didn’t know it at the time but that is where my search for peace started. Thinking of John when the going gets tough is a source of energy for me to this day – and, believe me, my community and I have needed it.

The School of Hard Knocks and the University of Life

It was some years before I understood that what we were working at was conflict resolution and transformation: identifying problems that lead to violence and finding solutions to them. We should have been dealing with the causes of the conflict, but what we were doing was nothing more than fire fighting. We were banging our heads against a brick wall. We had no resources, no strategy and no hope. It always seemed that my community was excluded from any solution or process that would enable us to plan better and achieve more sustainable outcomes. We have jokingly referred to this work as going through the School of Hard Knocks and progressing on to the University of Life. It was a bit of a laugh but sadly it was true. We never got help from anyone and were excluded by those who were ‘in the know’. Education and training were a luxury and when we did manage to get on courses or were invited to seminars or conferences, you could easily spot us. We were stuck in the corner, like the proverbial pariahs.

Critical mistakes

This situation continued until the run up to the Belfast Agreement – also known as The Good Friday Agreement – in 1998 and the decline of the Ulster Democratic Party{3} which began shortly after. This party was set up by the UDA, to contest elections in a post-conflict era, capitalising on the feel-good factor that peace should bring.

It was evident to some of us at that time that one of the failings of the UDP was that for a number of reasons they moved too far away from their membership and lost their base support. This was a serious mistake, if the aim was to try to move a whole people on and out of conflict, especially when that people had an armed group attached to it. You need to constantly look over your shoulder to check that the people are still with you. It doesn’t work any other way.

It was after this, during 1999 and 2000, that another series of meetings was organised, much as had been done over a decade before, and it was decided to revive the Ulster Political Research Group, an ad hoc group formally set up in 1978 that would not contest elections, but would give political analysis to the UDA and identify ways of achieving a sustainable way forward that would contribute to a lasting peace, using community development methods and good practice as a change management mechanism.

A false dawn?

With the ‘yes’ vote of the Belfast agreement, press and media began a new round of documentaries talking of the ‘end game’. It was a difficult time for my community because the press and media hype at the time had a very destabilising affect; it eroded what confidence existed.

There was all the political talk of no winners and no losers, but you tell that to a community that has seen all the concessions going one way, Sinn Fein getting stronger, and knows that Provisional IRA men and women, murderers in the eyes of my community, are getting elected. It appeared that the British Government, Irish Government, the Americans and the international world were assisting their success.

In contrast, our community had no help to build any capacity at all and were being constantly demonised and criminalised by the press and media, in what can only be described as well organised coordinated attacks.

Being left behind

Our community was feeling left behind. The basis for the way forward in this new political dispensation for all the people in Northern Ireland was a ‘Shared Future’, based on inclusivity and equality. My community couldn’t see or visualise this new ‘Shared Future’. There was no one breaking our doors down to include us. If this was what they called peace, I’d hate to see what they meant by war!
The UPRG continued to move forward under extremely difficult conditions and at considerable personal risk, with elements in the UDA continuing to break the ceasefire. This period saw three Loyalist feuds, with more than a dozen people being shot dead, and interface violence appearing to ignite under what can only be described as very suspicious circumstances.

Zero sum politics

After some debate about the current situation, we all agreed that there were those in the Irish Republican community, and some Loyalists, who wanted to keep the violence going. It was our analysis that they wanted to destabilise my community so that we couldn’t or wouldn’t be allowed to participate in developing a peaceful way forward. These actions were not Machiavellian, or the work of MI5 or the British and Irish Governments. They were taken by local people who had their own agendas – agendas that didn’t include us. We call their approach and behaviour ‘zero sum politics’ – as long as we were doing badly they thought they were doing OK, instead of wanting to improve the lot of the whole community, regardless of political or religious beliefs.

This is a common problem in conflict transformation processes, where different groups or factions coming out of conflict seek to maintain power and advantage over their adversaries, even former allies, when peace and prosperity returns. Governments, especially fledgling governments that emerge as a result of a peace process, must guard against this. It has the potential to pull everything and everyone back years. Peace must be built on the maxim of inclusion, especially of those who are marginalised or isolated.

Lost out again!

By the time we had exposed those destabilising elements (and we are still identifying them) and set up the necessary structures to deal with them, the agenda had already been set for the post conflict period ahead. We had lost out again! This was a costly loss in terms of conflict transformation: to be able to be part of setting the agenda that would give my community the necessary buy-in to feel part of the new future. Once again we would be playing catch-up; once again we would appear the bad guys!

From defending to mending

The UPRG, with the now full support of the UDA membership, continued to work against the odds, but by this time we were feeling sidelined, left behind, thinking that we were not important – mere pawns in a bigger game, the problem child. We came to realise a number of important things: that we needed to manage change and all the challenges that would come with it; that we were in a place we didn’t want to be in – we needed to transform ourselves and it; and that being reactionary left us open to exploitation and meant we were easily destabilised. We had to move from a position of defending all the time and learn to be proactive, set goals, measure progress, strategise. Above all we had to begin to mend the damage, hurt and pain that had been inflicted on our people, not just by our enemies but sometimes by our own people. We had to move from a position of defending to mending.

Facing the challenge to manage change

So in 2004 a small team of UPRG members was set the task by the UDA, with the knowledge and experience we had gained so far, to identify a way forward again and engage the British Government to seek its support. We had a clean sheet to work from, but we were clear that if we were to achieve anything, make progress, our own government would have to be the key to kick-starting the process. We knew that the Irish Government would be willing to assist us but that our community would not countenance help from what at that time in the process was still viewed as the enemy. Whatever we did we would make sure that when we looked over our shoulders there would still be people there with us. We could not make the fatal mistake the UDP had made. It would be a waste of time.

After conflict comes criminality

Talks continued with whoever would talk to us. When we made progress and took a few steps forward there would always be something that happened, some violent incident on the interface or a leak to the press that would knock us back a few more steps. We soon realised that there were criminals in our own ranks, not just those who saw opportunities for their own constituencies but some who were prepared to go to any lengths to stop progress. They could see that if we made any headway they would lose their power base and in some instances that power base was very profitable. It was clear there were those who engaged, during the conflict, for political reasons but there were also those, albeit a minority, who engaged for criminal reasons. The next two years saw us working to identify those criminals and deal with them, and indeed that continues to this day. At the same time we had to demonstrate to our own Government, to the international world and most importantly to our own community, that we were sincere, that we could manage the process and that we could deliver.

The dogs in the street have learnt new skills

A major issue or barrier to successful transformation is the negative use of the press and media by those who have learnt the art of counter-insurgency techniques over the years of conflict, whether they be security forces, opponents, the dogs in the street or whoever. There are still those who peddle these skills and use them to criminalise and demonise my constituency and community. The problem is that this legacy of the past, this tactic or war, is still being used in peacetime, in the most discriminatory way, to halt forward movement and progress. This kind of attack doesn’t just hit its target but stigmatises a whole community and reinforces the ‘bad people’ syndrome, destroys community confidence and most importantly prevents people giving the essential support that is required for this community to move on into a new future. It destroys trust, prevents social capital being built and makes social cohesion impossible.

The last piece of the jigsaw

Against all the odds the UPRG began to make headway. The UDA leadership demonstrated a large degree of cohesion and this had a stabilising effect on the whole political scene. This progress cannot be underestimated. This was the largest paramilitary organisation in Europe at one time, and the most unstable and anarchic. We were beginning to see the fruit of years of work, to become proactive, stop being reactionary, set goals, measure progress and strategise. It was all coming together, the DUP were preparing to go into Government with Sein Fien in a power sharing assembly at Stormont and the UDA was offering to develop strategies for peace. It would prove to be the last piece of the jigsaw. This is what the Ulster Unionist party couldn’t deliver through the UDP and what made the Belfast agreement incomplete.

Leverage for peace

It was on this basis that the UPRG went to the British Government and put it to them that they needed to support this progress and help the UPRG and UDA to consolidate that progress. We believed we could convince the UDA to engage with all necessary structures if the government would support the UDA in a structured strategy to end all Para militarism, and all that came with it. The only thing that we couldn’t deliver would be decommissioning. They would need to talk to the UDA directly on that subject. What we could deliver was a stable community and participation of this constituency in efforts to build peace through meaningful engagement at all levels. This in turn would create a positive political climate for the DUP and Sinn Fein to form a power sharing assembly.

Our Government Says NO

If this had been ten years earlier, resources and support would not have been a problem – in fact they would have broken our arms for such a suggestion! Sadly the offer was turned down. We couldn’t believe it. Their explanation was that the governments could no longer do the things they did ten years ago: the Belfast agreement and 9/11 had changed everything for good. They had indeed done more for the Provisional IRA and UVF but things had changed forever.

What the government did do though, in recognition of the need to continue this vital work, was to suggest a series of meeting with the Social Development Minister at the time, David Hanson MP, together with his civil servants, to see if we could come up with a way in which the Loyalist community could buy into the new changes and strategies the government had embarked upon, in particular its Neighbourhood Renewal programme. This seemed possible, owing to the fact that Loyalist communities were, by and large, in the top ten per cent of the most deprived in Northern Ireland. It was in these areas that the most killings took place. It was from them that the most ex-prisoners and ex-combatants came. They were the front line. The social conditions in which these people lived were a major reason why they got involved in violent conflict in the first place, and deprivation was what Neighbourhood Renewal was designed to address.

It has always been our analysis that the UDA was a community response to political instability and that if we achieved political stability then the UDA would be absorbed back into the community from whence it came. It was different from a typical military organisation with central structures and control. This was one of the reasons why it was so chaotic. It was a reflection of the feelings in the community it came from and was a community organisation. Normal military approaches to demilitarisation didn’t apply. Thinking that they did has been the big mistake that peace builders, governments and politicians have made for years. The UDA must be dealt with by social means.

After two years of negotiating and debating with the Government on the way forward, the Civil servants agreed to develop a community development project that would deal with the myriad of social ills that impacted on this community. In the round, this community was identified and labelled as ‘Hard to Reach’: hard to reach because they are the last bastion of resistance to a united Ireland and the Provisional IRA. They are also the community who followed when the call came from our political leaders, in particular the Rev. Ian Paisley. They were always told to resist any change – it was a Government plot to sell us out – and have nothing to do with Human or Civil Rights: they are Irish Republican weapons to destroy us. But as we all see in the real politics being played out, the politicians moved on without this community. They have been left behind.
Of course the truth is that human and civil rights are the very components required for any community to play a role as equals in the 21st century. My community will be playing catch up, again.

Some people don’t want peace?

The meetings with the civil servants eventually bore fruit. It was agreed to fund a community development project entitled Loyalism in Transition and it would be a project contributing to the overall conflict transformation of the Northern Ireland society. It came to be known as the CTI or Conflict Transformation Initiative. We were warned that, come devolution and the appointment of a local minister, it would be challenged, especially if the Minister for Social Development was a member of the SDLP, an Irish nationalist, middle class and Catholic political party.

As ‘sod’s law’ would have it, the Minister appointed for Social Development was Margaret Ritchie, a member of the Catholic SDLP. Within days of getting into office she announced that it was her intention to ‘pull’ the project, unless the UDA decommissioned within 60 days.

She fulfilled her promise on the 31 October 2007. The UDA never decommissioned. Members of the UPRG met the Minister to relay the fact that this was a community development project and not a ‘money for guns’ exercise, and was certainly not a UDA project.

A member of staff from the project took the case to court to apply for leave for a judicial review of her decision based on four points. The Judge found that the Minister had a case to answer on all of those points and reinstated the project for full hearing. The Minister has requested the postponement of the Judicial Review three times and the full hearing will be held sometime in June 2008.
Is my section of the Loyalist community going to be allowed to play a part in building a new, peaceful Northern Ireland or does the existing process need losers and are we the losers?
The story continues…

We refer readers downloading this article from the CCTS website to the introduction to this issue (number 37) of the Review, which explains its context and origins.

John McMichael was a UDA Brigadier who was the first to present a new image for Loyalists: ‘clean-cut’, articulate, educated; a risk-taker who evoked debate on crucial issues and looked towards a political rather than a military future.

The Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) is not to be confused with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) founded in 1971 and led (until his forthcoming retirement) by Rev Ian Paisley.

	Our hope for years to come{1} A story from a section of the Loyalist community in Northern Ireland who are trying to live in peace, by Frankie Gallagher Peace – the ultimate goal: to boldly go where no one has gone before. It sounds like something out of Star Trek, and at times I have thought achieving peace was as distant as the light years in the movie. But sitting where we are sitting at present in Northern Ireland, with an Assembly up and running, politically inspired violence virtually non existent, the situation is very different from when I set out on this journey. It’s not perfect but it is a lot better with, dare I say it, hope for the future. Nonetheless, there is still along way to go. Looking into the abyss I got into this process over twenty years ago: the 22nd of December 1987 to be exact. I was at home after a tired night out, attending community meetings and trying to organise local people to take action on a myriad of social issues. I was just into bed when a knock came at the door. It was a local commander of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and he was in a terrible state. He said, ‘John McMichael{2} has just been murdered by the Provisional IRA. There will be hell to pay for this’. You could feel the rage in the air. The Ulster ‘troubles’ had taken us to another precipice. We were looking into the abyss, again! I knew the Loyalist community would not let this go. There would be action taken. That usually meant someone on the other side was going to die, probably more than one. It was the politics of an eye for an eye, which was blinding us all. At this stage in our troubled past I wasn’t very confident that things were ever going to change. It was depressing. I was told that I would be required to attend a meeting at short notice, so I should be ready to go. We bury our dead and the call comes The call came the day after John’s funeral. I had to go to a well known social club on the outskirts of Belfast. When I got there I was escorted up the stairs into what must have been a committee room. The room was filled with people, some that I recognised but mostly strangers. I waited in the wings making small talk and drinking tea. You could feel everyone was nervous; there was a tension in the air you could cut with a knife. Then the door opened up and a group of about ten people came in and sat at a prearranged top table. They introduced themselves as the Inner Council of the UDA. My heart was in my mouth. What were they going to say? I knew the rage in the Loyalist community had continued to grow. I thought, ‘This is it! We are all going for it. Our community has had enough of being murdered while our own Government stands by and does nothing’. A man at the head of the top table began to speak. He thanked us all for being there and promised not to keep us away from our families for too long. I thought this was it but didn’t know what to expect. To my total surprise and relief, he stated that we were there as a result of John being murdered and that we could not let him, his work or his memory die in vain. He said the Inner Council was determined to produce ten John McMichaels. His work and leadership would continue. We (all of us in the room) were chosen to develop the way forward. Have the terrorists won? I have described this moment because at that terrible time in our history I thought the Provisional IRA terrorists had won and that we were delving deeper into the abyss and then, out of one of our darkest hours (of which there were many), there was a light of hope still shining in my people. There were still those at leadership level who had the courage to rise above our collective adversity and seek something better for our children. I didn’t know it at the time but that is where my search for peace started. Thinking of John when the going gets tough is a source of energy for me to this day – and, believe me, my community and I have needed it. The School of Hard Knocks and the University of Life It was some years before I understood that what we were working at was conflict resolution and transformation: identifying problems that lead to violence and finding solutions to them. We should have been dealing with the causes of the conflict, but what we were doing was nothing more than fire fighting. We were banging our heads against a brick wall. We had no resources, no strategy and no hope. It always seemed that my community was excluded from any solution or process that would enable us to plan better and achieve more sustainable outcomes. We have jokingly referred to this work as going through the School of Hard Knocks and progressing on to the University of Life. It was a bit of a laugh but sadly it was true. We never got help from anyone and were excluded by those who were ‘in the know’. Education and training were a luxury and when we did manage to get on courses or were invited to seminars or conferences, you could easily spot us. We were stuck in the corner, like the proverbial pariahs. Critical mistakes This situation continued until the run up to the Belfast Agreement – also known as The Good Friday Agreement – in 1998 and the decline of the Ulster Democratic Party{3} which began shortly after. This party was set up by the UDA, to contest elections in a post-conflict era, capitalising on the feel-good factor that peace should bring. It was evident to some of us at that time that one of the failings of the UDP was that for a number of reasons they moved too far away from their membership and lost their base support. This was a serious mistake, if the aim was to try to move a whole people on and out of conflict, especially when that people had an armed group attached to it. You need to constantly look over your shoulder to check that the people are still with you. It doesn’t work any other way. It was after this, during 1999 and 2000, that another series of meetings was organised, much as had been done over a decade before, and it was decided to revive the Ulster Political Research Group, an ad hoc group formally set up in 1978 that would not contest elections, but would give political analysis to the UDA and identify ways of achieving a sustainable way forward that would contribute to a lasting peace, using community development methods and good practice as a change management mechanism. A false dawn? With the ‘yes’ vote of the Belfast agreement, press and media began a new round of documentaries talking of the ‘end game’. It was a difficult time for my community because the press and media hype at the time had a very destabilising affect; it eroded what confidence existed. There was all the political talk of no winners and no losers, but you tell that to a community that has seen all the concessions going one way, Sinn Fein getting stronger, and knows that Provisional IRA men and women, murderers in the eyes of my community, are getting elected. It appeared that the British Government, Irish Government, the Americans and the international world were assisting their success. In contrast, our community had no help to build any capacity at all and were being constantly demonised and criminalised by the press and media, in what can only be described as well organised coordinated attacks. Being left behind Our community was feeling left behind. The basis for the way forward in this new political dispensation for all the people in Northern Ireland was a ‘Shared Future’, based on inclusivity and equality. My community couldn’t see or visualise this new ‘Shared Future’. There was no one breaking our doors down to include us. If this was what they called peace, I’d hate to see what they meant by war! The UPRG continued to move forward under extremely difficult conditions and at considerable personal risk, with elements in the UDA continuing to break the ceasefire. This period saw three Loyalist feuds, with more than a dozen people being shot dead, and interface violence appearing to ignite under what can only be described as very suspicious circumstances. Zero sum politics After some debate about the current situation, we all agreed that there were those in the Irish Republican community, and some Loyalists, who wanted to keep the violence going. It was our analysis that they wanted to destabilise my community so that we couldn’t or wouldn’t be allowed to participate in developing a peaceful way forward. These actions were not Machiavellian, or the work of MI5 or the British and Irish Governments. They were taken by local people who had their own agendas – agendas that didn’t include us. We call their approach and behaviour ‘zero sum politics’ – as long as we were doing badly they thought they were doing OK, instead of wanting to improve the lot of the whole community, regardless of political or religious beliefs. This is a common problem in conflict transformation processes, where different groups or factions coming out of conflict seek to maintain power and advantage over their adversaries, even former allies, when peace and prosperity returns. Governments, especially fledgling governments that emerge as a result of a peace process, must guard against this. It has the potential to pull everything and everyone back years. Peace must be built on the maxim of inclusion, especially of those who are marginalised or isolated. Lost out again! By the time we had exposed those destabilising elements (and we are still identifying them) and set up the necessary structures to deal with them, the agenda had already been set for the post conflict period ahead. We had lost out again! This was a costly loss in terms of conflict transformation: to be able to be part of setting the agenda that would give my community the necessary buy-in to feel part of the new future. Once again we would be playing catch-up; once again we would appear the bad guys! From defending to mending The UPRG, with the now full support of the UDA membership, continued to work against the odds, but by this time we were feeling sidelined, left behind, thinking that we were not important – mere pawns in a bigger game, the problem child. We came to realise a number of important things: that we needed to manage change and all the challenges that would come with it; that we were in a place we didn’t want to be in – we needed to transform ourselves and it; and that being reactionary left us open to exploitation and meant we were easily destabilised. We had to move from a position of defending all the time and learn to be proactive, set goals, measure progress, strategise. Above all we had to begin to mend the damage, hurt and pain that had been inflicted on our people, not just by our enemies but sometimes by our own people. We had to move from a position of defending to mending. Facing the challenge to manage change So in 2004 a small team of UPRG members was set the task by the UDA, with the knowledge and experience we had gained so far, to identify a way forward again and engage the British Government to seek its support. We had a clean sheet to work from, but we were clear that if we were to achieve anything, make progress, our own government would have to be the key to kick-starting the process. We knew that the Irish Government would be willing to assist us but that our community would not countenance help from what at that time in the process was still viewed as the enemy. Whatever we did we would make sure that when we looked over our shoulders there would still be people there with us. We could not make the fatal mistake the UDP had made. It would be a waste of time. After conflict comes criminality Talks continued with whoever would talk to us. When we made progress and took a few steps forward there would always be something that happened, some violent incident on the interface or a leak to the press that would knock us back a few more steps. We soon realised that there were criminals in our own ranks, not just those who saw opportunities for their own constituencies but some who were prepared to go to any lengths to stop progress. They could see that if we made any headway they would lose their power base and in some instances that power base was very profitable. It was clear there were those who engaged, during the conflict, for political reasons but there were also those, albeit a minority, who engaged for criminal reasons. The next two years saw us working to identify those criminals and deal with them, and indeed that continues to this day. At the same time we had to demonstrate to our own Government, to the international world and most importantly to our own community, that we were sincere, that we could manage the process and that we could deliver. The dogs in the street have learnt new skills A major issue or barrier to successful transformation is the negative use of the press and media by those who have learnt the art of counter-insurgency techniques over the years of conflict, whether they be security forces, opponents, the dogs in the street or whoever. There are still those who peddle these skills and use them to criminalise and demonise my constituency and community. The problem is that this legacy of the past, this tactic or war, is still being used in peacetime, in the most discriminatory way, to halt forward movement and progress. This kind of attack doesn’t just hit its target but stigmatises a whole community and reinforces the ‘bad people’ syndrome, destroys community confidence and most importantly prevents people giving the essential support that is required for this community to move on into a new future. It destroys trust, prevents social capital being built and makes social cohesion impossible. The last piece of the jigsaw Against all the odds the UPRG began to make headway. The UDA leadership demonstrated a large degree of cohesion and this had a stabilising effect on the whole political scene. This progress cannot be underestimated. This was the largest paramilitary organisation in Europe at one time, and the most unstable and anarchic. We were beginning to see the fruit of years of work, to become proactive, stop being reactionary, set goals, measure progress and strategise. It was all coming together, the DUP were preparing to go into Government with Sein Fien in a power sharing assembly at Stormont and the UDA was offering to develop strategies for peace. It would prove to be the last piece of the jigsaw. This is what the Ulster Unionist party couldn’t deliver through the UDP and what made the Belfast agreement incomplete. Leverage for peace It was on this basis that the UPRG went to the British Government and put it to them that they needed to support this progress and help the UPRG and UDA to consolidate that progress. We believed we could convince the UDA to engage with all necessary structures if the government would support the UDA in a structured strategy to end all Para militarism, and all that came with it. The only thing that we couldn’t deliver would be decommissioning. They would need to talk to the UDA directly on that subject. What we could deliver was a stable community and participation of this constituency in efforts to build peace through meaningful engagement at all levels. This in turn would create a positive political climate for the DUP and Sinn Fein to form a power sharing assembly. Our Government Says NO If this had been ten years earlier, resources and support would not have been a problem – in fact they would have broken our arms for such a suggestion! Sadly the offer was turned down. We couldn’t believe it. Their explanation was that the governments could no longer do the things they did ten years ago: the Belfast agreement and 9/11 had changed everything for good. They had indeed done more for the Provisional IRA and UVF but things had changed forever. What the government did do though, in recognition of the need to continue this vital work, was to suggest a series of meeting with the Social Development Minister at the time, David Hanson MP, together with his civil servants, to see if we could come up with a way in which the Loyalist community could buy into the new changes and strategies the government had embarked upon, in particular its Neighbourhood Renewal programme. This seemed possible, owing to the fact that Loyalist communities were, by and large, in the top ten per cent of the most deprived in Northern Ireland. It was in these areas that the most killings took place. It was from them that the most ex-prisoners and ex-combatants came. They were the front line. The social conditions in which these people lived were a major reason why they got involved in violent conflict in the first place, and deprivation was what Neighbourhood Renewal was designed to address. It has always been our analysis that the UDA was a community response to political instability and that if we achieved political stability then the UDA would be absorbed back into the community from whence it came. It was different from a typical military organisation with central structures and control. This was one of the reasons why it was so chaotic. It was a reflection of the feelings in the community it came from and was a community organisation. Normal military approaches to demilitarisation didn’t apply. Thinking that they did has been the big mistake that peace builders, governments and politicians have made for years. The UDA must be dealt with by social means. After two years of negotiating and debating with the Government on the way forward, the Civil servants agreed to develop a community development project that would deal with the myriad of social ills that impacted on this community. In the round, this community was identified and labelled as ‘Hard to Reach’: hard to reach because they are the last bastion of resistance to a united Ireland and the Provisional IRA. They are also the community who followed when the call came from our political leaders, in particular the Rev. Ian Paisley. They were always told to resist any change – it was a Government plot to sell us out – and have nothing to do with Human or Civil Rights: they are Irish Republican weapons to destroy us. But as we all see in the real politics being played out, the politicians moved on without this community. They have been left behind. Of course the truth is that human and civil rights are the very components required for any community to play a role as equals in the 21st century. My community will be playing catch up, again. Some people don’t want peace? The meetings with the civil servants eventually bore fruit. It was agreed to fund a community development project entitled Loyalism in Transition and it would be a project contributing to the overall conflict transformation of the Northern Ireland society. It came to be known as the CTI or Conflict Transformation Initiative. We were warned that, come devolution and the appointment of a local minister, it would be challenged, especially if the Minister for Social Development was a member of the SDLP, an Irish nationalist, middle class and Catholic political party. As ‘sod’s law’ would have it, the Minister appointed for Social Development was Margaret Ritchie, a member of the Catholic SDLP. Within days of getting into office she announced that it was her intention to ‘pull’ the project, unless the UDA decommissioned within 60 days. She fulfilled her promise on the 31 October 2007. The UDA never decommissioned. Members of the UPRG met the Minister to relay the fact that this was a community development project and not a ‘money for guns’ exercise, and was certainly not a UDA project. A member of staff from the project took the case to court to apply for leave for a judicial review of her decision based on four points. The Judge found that the Minister had a case to answer on all of those points and reinstated the project for full hearing. The Minister has requested the postponement of the Judicial Review three times and the full hearing will be held sometime in June 2008. Is my section of the Loyalist community going to be allowed to play a part in building a new, peaceful Northern Ireland or does the existing process need losers and are we the losers? The story continues… We refer readers downloading this article from the CCTS website to the introduction to this issue (number 37) of the Review, which explains its context and origins. John McMichael was a UDA Brigadier who was the first to present a new image for Loyalists: ‘clean-cut’, articulate, educated; a risk-taker who evoked debate on crucial issues and looked towards a political rather than a military future. The Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) is not to be confused with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) founded in 1971 and led (until his forthcoming retirement) by Rev Ian Paisley.


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CCTS Review 37