UVF urged to destroy arms

Even though Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern saw the renunciation of violence as further strengthening the peace process, decommissioning chiefs, nationalist representatives and clergymen all called for a definitive destruction of the paramilitary organisation's weapons.

Confirmation that the UVF, a ruthless and deadly group responsible for hundreds of murders in Northern Ireland, is to assume a non-military, civilianised role came just days before the restoration of power sharing at Stormont.

The announcement has also led to fresh demands for the larger Ulster Defence Association, still heavily involved in crime, to go down the same route.

A statement read out by Gusty Spence, a convicted killer who founded the modern, outlawed version of the UVF in 1966, set out the organisation's new direction.

Recruitment, military training and targeting have stopped and all its so-called active service units de-activated, the leadership claimed. It added that all weapons had been put beyond reach - as opposed to beyond use - and that General John de Chastelain's Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) has been instructed accordingly.

With no further explanation about what had happened to its arsenal, loyalists insisted attitudes rather than the status of the guns were what mattered. But the IICD, which oversaw the destruction of the IRA's arsenal, expressed concern at the UVF's intention to deal with its arms single-handedly.

A spokesman for the body said: "Without the commission's involvement their action on arms does not meet the requirement of the decommissioning legislation and the agreement reached by the parties in the Belfast Agreement. We are prepared to meet with the UVF representative to discuss how we can work together in dealing with arms."

Those anxieties were shared by the leaders of the four main churches in Ireland, who made a joint call for the paramilitary grouping to move further and destroy all weapons. Sinn Fein's John O'Dowd welcomed the statement but added: "There is no commitment to removing UVF guns from Irish politics."

All concerns were shrugged off, however, by Billy Hutchinson, a former Assembly member with the UVF-aligned Progressive Unionist Party who served 16 years in jail for murder. "Guns have triggers and they need to be pulled," he said. "The guns have been put beyond reach. They are not a danger to anybody."