Loyalist militia in Northern Ireland disarms

June 29, 2009

The Ulster Volunteer Force-- a Protestant paramilitary group that is believed responsible for over 500 killings in the 1960s through 1990s-- has announced that it has "completed the process of rendering all armaments irreversibly and permanently beyond use." Another loyalist group, the Ulster Defense Association, has pledged to complete the same process. Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh issued a statement welcoming the announcements, and urging "all paramilitary groups to decommission their weapons completely and to give the people of Northern Ireland, especially the young, further grounds to hope that the peaceful, normal society for which we all yearn is now in sight."

 

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Further information:

• N. Ireland's Ulster Volunteer Force says disarmed (AP)
• Statement by Cardinal Seán Brady (Irish bishops' conference)