A pro-British paramilitary group in Northern Ireland said it had ordered its armed units to stand down after rival guerrillas opposed to British rule scrapped their weapons earlier this year. In a statement, the outlawed Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) said the move was in response to the Irish Republican Army’s (IRA) decision to give up the weapons that had sustained its campaign against British rule in the divided province. The IRA’s decision to disarm removed one of the biggest hurdles to a political settlement in the province, where 3,600 people died in 30 years of violence, half of them killed by the IRA.

“The leadership of the LVF have today ordered all their military units to stand down,” the group said in a statement. “This decision is taken as a direct response to recent IRA actions and statements. While we remain skeptical about their intent ... we believe there is sufficient evidence to allow for the exploration of a peaceful process within Northern Ireland.”The LVF’s move is the latest step on a tortuous path toward peace in the province. Ceasefires in the 1990s and a 1998 peace accord largely ended sectarian violence but pro-British and pro-Irish militants had been reluctant to give up the arms they said they needed as much to protect their communities as to fight.

Bitter feud ends

Pressure has mounted on pro-British Protestant loyalists – so-called because of their fierce allegiance to the British crown – to lay down their arms since the IRA said it was ending its campaign. Last month an independent arms watchdog said the IRA had scrapped its entire arsenal of illegal weapons. The LVF was set up in the mid-1990s by ousted Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) member Billy “King Rat” Wright, later shot dead by Irish republicans in Belfast’s Maze Prison. The LVF, responsible for a number of sectarian murders, has also been heavily involved in drug dealing in the province.

A “loyalist” source said the LVF’s statement could be followed by similar moves from other Protestant paramilitaries, including the UVF and the Ulster Defense Association (UDA). “It is good news,” the source said. “It could unlock a lot of things – perhaps not right away but maybe the process can be continued with the UVF and the UDA.”

Earlier on Sunday, negotiators announced the end of a murderous feud between rival Protestant paramilitary groups which claimed four lives over the past four months. The feud was called off after a week of talks between the LVF and the rival UVF brokered by a group of community and church activists in Belfast. “Those initiating the process had the encouragement of many within political and community life and the prayer support of individuals and churches,” the Reverend Mervyn Gibson, a spokesman for the negotiators, said in a statement.“We now believe that the feud has permanently ended.” The power struggle between the larger and longer established UVF and the breakaway LVF has left four men shot dead by the UVF since July and the exiling by the group of suspected LVF members from Protestant areas of the British-ruled province.

Kevin SMITH