Republican News · Thursday 13 February 2003

Never again?

BY JIM GIBNEY

There was an understandable public debate among loyalists and particularly people, elected representatives and community leaders on the Shankill Road in Belfast about the immediate future for the people of the Lower Shankill following the humiliating collapse of the remnants of Johhny Adair's 'C' Company.

Or as wits disparagingly dubbed it, 'Seacat Company', the name of the shipping company that transported the fleeing loyalists to Scotland.

Lifetime community worker Baroness May Blood summed up the feelings of the people on the Shankill Road: "Adair's gone. We don't want another with a different face and name". Vox pops carried out on the Shankill showed a community with a burden lifted from their shoulders.

Their voices were a mixture of fear and elation but all welcomed the departure of Adair, his sidekick John White, and their enforcers. Unionist politicians who were noticeably silent while Adair wreaked havoc on his community over the last five years found their voices again.

The subtext of all the people's emotions could be summed up in the phrase 'never again'.

But how realistic a hope is it for the people of the Shankill, and in particular those, from the Lower Shankill, to live their lives free from the influence of the UDA?

The issues of concern to the people of the Shankill and further afield are about the criminal activities of the UDA and to a lesser extent the UVF. These activities include drug peddling on a huge scale, racketeering, prostitution, intimidation and, of course, feuding between loyalists which result in the deaths of those involved and those uninvolved.

For nationalists and republicans, it also involves the sectarian campaign of killing and attempted killings by the UDA in the main.

Into this mix we also have to put the interests of the various British military forces. So what are the PSNI Special Branch going to do with the UDA post Adair? What is MI5/MI6 going to do with their operatives in this organisation?

Are we at the stage in the peace process where the British securocrats, who have effectively used the UDA to serve their interests, are going to stop using them now?

A good start to this era would be truthful statements from those closest to the situation. So we have Paul Murphy, British Secretary of State, saying loyalists had to choose between politics and gangsterism, as if his forces are not responsible for the situation. Will Paul Murphy instruct his intelligence agencies to back off the UDA? Will he instruct the PSNI to isolate those involved in criminal activity and deal with them?

The same applies to those who now see their role as 'cleaning up the UDA's image', like Frankie Gallagher of the 'Ulster Political Research Group'. His early comments are not very encouraging. Over the last week he has been trying to beatify John Gregg as a peacemaker, as a man who tried to challenge Adair and died doing so. He has conveniently airbrushed Gregg's history as a sectarian killer and a tormentor of the Catholic people of North and East Antrim.

May Blood has good reason to fear that Adair's replacement will be every bit as bad as he was but the difference will be it will mostly happen off camera. Within minutes of White fleeing the Lower Shankill, Mo Courtney, a tried and trusted friend of Adairs a member of his 'C' Company and one of his henchmen for years was filmed throwing paint over one of Adair's much loved wall murals.

This was Courtney very publicly laying claim to Adair's 'throne'.

The other reality facing the people of the Shankill and other loyalist areas is that the UDA as an organisation is more or less a criminal conspiracy. The quality of life for the people of the Lower Shankill was on camera for all to see. But the UDA existed in other parts of the Shankill as well.

As North Belfast Assembly member Gerry Kelly said: "This is not about a good UDA and a bad UDA. It is about the UDA as an organisation."

d on cue arriving at Belfast's docks into the arms of the PSNI last Sunday morning was a lorry load of drugs valued at £3 million. The UDA is believed to be involved in this shipment.

Also at the start of the week they piped bombed the home of three pensioners with one of the largest and deadliest pipe bombs. It wrecked their home. Where? Tennents Street, Shankill Road.

It is going to take more than a desire, no matter how genuinely expressed, to release the UDA's grip on working class areas and push them into exclusively political activity.