Loyalists still arming
By Mick Naughton.
North Down has frequently been the location for the manufacture
of loyalist death squads arms and munitions and this was the case
again last Sunday when six prototype machineguns, a lathe,
grinding equipment, drills, a vice and `ancillary parts' were
found in a derelict farmhouse on the Comber Road near
Newtownards.
For years loyalists using techniques perfected in the light and
heavy engineering factories of East Belfast have manufactured
`home made' machine guns, particularly replicas of the Sterling
and Uzi sub-machine guns.
While crude in design they have been used in many indiscriminate
gun attacks, including the machine gunning of nationalist bars
and have been responsible for dozens of killings by both the UDA
and UVF.
Sunday's find is the latest in a long line of similar
discoveries. One of the most significant was close to
Ballynahinch in 1988 when over 1,000 Uzi replicas and 30 replica
Sterlings were found in a loyalist farmyard. Other parts were
later found in a nearby lake.
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