Protestant terrorist group in Northern Ireland says its weapons will be “put beyond use”
November 11, 2007 9:26 am IntroductionUDA stands down military wing, Guardian, November 11, 2007
The loyalist Ulster Defence Association has announced that all active service units of its Ulster Freedom Fighters military wing will be stood down from midnight.
In an Armistice Day statement from the UDA leadership, read out at memorials to their dead colleagues, they said all weaponry would be put beyond use and all military intelligence destroyed.
They said they were making the momentous move because the military war was over and the struggle to maintain the Union was on a new and more complex battlefield.
The UDA sent out a general order to all members not to be involved in crime or criminality, and it said those who had joined its ranks for such purposes had to be rooted out.
The statement said: “The Ulster Defence Association is committed to achieving a society where violence and weaponry are ghosts of the past.”