Inside the UDA: Volunteers and Violence

242 Pages·2003·1.09 MB·English

by  Colin Crawford

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Inside the UDA
Volunteers and Violence
Colin Crawford
Foreword by Marie Smyth
P
Pluto Press
LONDON • DUBLIN • STERLING, VIRGINIA
Crawford 00 prelims 22/8/03 15:50 Page iv
First published 2003 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
and 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA
Distributed in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland by
Columba Mercier Distribution, 55A Spruce Avenue,
Stillorgan Industrial Park, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland.
Tel: + 353 1 294 2556. Fax: + 353 1 294 2564
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Colin Crawford 2003
The right of Colin Crawford to be identified as the author of
this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
ISBN 0 7453 2107 0 hardback
ISBN 0 7453 2106 2 paperback
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Crawford, Colin, 1948–
Inside the UDA : volunteers and violence
/ Colin Crawford ; foreword by Marie Smyth.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0–7453–2107–0 (hardback) –– ISBN 0–7453–2106–2 (pbk.)
1. Ulster Defence Association––History. 2. Northern Ireland––
Politics and government. 3. Paramilitary forces––Northern
Ireland––History––20th century. 4. Political violence––Northern
Ireland––History––20th century. 5. Northern Ireland––History,
Military. 6. Unionism (Irish politics) I. Title.
DA990.U46C726 2003
941.60824––dc21
2003011541
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by
Chase Publishing Services, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England
Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Towcester, England
Printed and bound in the European Union by
Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne, England
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In memory of Cassie, 2003
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Contents
Abbreviations ix
Acknowledgements x
Forewordby Marie Smyth xi
1 Introduction to the Conflict in Northern Ireland 1
800 Years of Troubled History 1
The Roles of the IRA and of the UDA/UFF in the
Conflict Since 1969 5
2 Researching the UDA 10
The Probation Service, Long Kesh and Political Prisoners 10
Specific Methodology 16
3 The UDA/UFF: History, Organisation and Structure 20
A Brief History of the UDA/UFF 20
A Paramilitary Organisation? 24
A Working-class Organisation? 30
Strategy and Tactics: Selective Targeting versus
Random Killing 32
Infiltration by the Police and the Security Forces 39
Collusion Between Elements of the British Security
Forces and Members of the UDA/UFF 42
From Paramilitaries to a Politicisation of the Conflict 46
4 Phase One: Beginnings – the UDA’s Chaotic Sectarian
War of the 1970s 51
Sam Duddy 51
‘Ken’ 63
‘Billy’ 76
John White 89
5 Phase Two: The 1980s UDA/UFF – from Infiltration to
Reorganisation 97
‘Terry’ 97
‘Jackie’ 112
vii
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viii Inside the UDA
6 Phase Three: The Mid-1980s UDA/UFF –
Travelling Gunmen and the Selective Strategy 127
‘Gary’ 127
Michael Stone 143
7 Phase Four: The 1990s – the Selective Strategy and
Retaliatory Sectarian Murder 154
‘Tommy’ 154
Johnny Adair 165
‘Gordon’ 173
‘Alan’ 183
8 Phase Five: The UDA/UFF 1993 – the Shankill Bomb
and the Greysteel Massacre 193
Combatant A 193
Combatant B 196
Combatant C 202
Combatant D 206
Conclusion 210
Bibliography 218
Index 221
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Abbreviations
ASU active service unit.
CO Commanding Officer.
DUP Democratic Unionist Party.
FRU Forces Research Unit. A British Security Forces Unit drawing
upon MI5, Army intelligence and Police (RUC) Special Branch.
INLA Irish National Liberation Army. A small republican terrorist
group.
IRA Irish Republican Army.
IRB Irish Republican Brotherhood.
IRSP Irish Republican Socialist Party.
LVF Loyalist Volunteer Force. A small but dangerous and fanatical
group, considered to be ‘outside’ mainstream paramilitary
loyalism.
MI5 Military Intelligence, Section 5.
PUP Progressive Unionist Party. The party which represents the
UVF/RHC politically.
RHC Red Hand Commando. Closely linked to the UVF, this is
considered to be a small but elite loyalist paramilitary group.
RIR Royal Irish Regiment.
RUC Royal Ulster Constabulary (Police).
SAS Special Air Service.
SASU special active service unit.
SDLP Social Democratic and Labour Party (of Northern Ireland).
UDA Ulster Defence Association. The largest of all the paramilitary
groups in Northern Ireland, and possibly in the Western
world.
UDP Ulster Democratic Party. The party which represented the
UDA/UFF politically.
UDR Ulster Defence Regiment.
UFF Ulster Freedom Fighters. The more militant ‘military wing’ of
the UDA.
UPRG Ulster Political Research Group.
UUP Ulster Unionist Party.
UVF Ulster Volunteer Force. The second largest loyalist paramilitary
organisation in Northern Ireland.
ix
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Acknowledgements
I should wish to thank the officers and men of the Ulster Defence
Association, the Ulster Freedom Fighters, the Ulster Democratic Party
and the Ulster Political Research Group for their help and for contri-
butions to this work. I was afforded a very special access to the
organisation which was greatly appreciated. I hope that this work
meets the expectations which were placed upon it, in recording a
history of the UDA.
Thanks also to my wife Gillian for her patience in giving me the
time and space to write and to finish this work.
Most of all, however, I should wish to thank my colleague and
friend Marie Smyth, of the Institute for Conflict Research. This work
may have remained unpublished had it not been for her academic
guidance, and more particularly her connections within the literary
and publishing world. Also to Julie Stoll in Pluto Press whose French
flair assisted greatly in the coherency of the book.
Finally, I should wish to thank all those many people, loyalist and
republican, whose political vision and courage are helping to bring
peace to our shared country.
x
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Foreword
Marie Smyth
Inthecontextofagrowingglobalinterestinnon-statemilitaryactors,
this book sets out to provide an account of the Ulster Defence
Association (UDA) and it more militant wing, the Ulster Freedom
Fighters (UFF), and their role in Northern Ireland’s troubles. It is
producedintheglobalcontextofGeorgeBush’swaragainstterrorism,
andgrowinginterestinunderstandingtheorigins,modusoperandi
andmotivationsofsuchorganisations.Someseekthisunderstand-
inginordertoovercomesuchorganisationsmilitarily.Othersseekto
understandthepoliticalandsocialcircumstancesthatgiverisetothe
formationandproliferationofviolentnon-stateintervention.
In the local context of Northern Ireland, the book appears at a par-
ticularly challenging time for loyalist politics in general, and for the
UDA in particular. In the wake of the Good Friday Agreement,
unionism and loyalism have faced the challenges involved in the
transformation of Northern Ireland politics, from direct rule to a
locally devolved assembly. This has required substantial changes in
unionist/loyalist and nationalist/republican political behaviour. For
Loyalists it has meant moving from a position where they shunned
republicans, refusing even to be in the same room as them, to one
where they sat together with them in government. For those within
the ranks of the paramilitaries, it has meant the transition – albeit
imperfect – from militarism to democratic politics. For the UDA, the
subject of this book, this transition has not been easy, for a number
of reasons. Perhaps most importantly, the organisation has enjoyed
a very limited amount of success in electoral politics. It has been
observed that unionist constituents do not readily vote for parties
with paramilitary links. Both political parties associated with loyalist
paramilitaries, the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP), which is associated
with the UDA, as well as the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP)
associated with the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), have struggled to
become electorally viable. The PUP, however, has met with more
success than the UDP, winning two assembly seats whereas the UDP
won none. The UDP eventually folded as a political party and was
xi
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xii Foreword
replaced with an interim organisation, the Ulster Political Research
Group (UPRG), whose task it was to reform, unify and revitalise the
political operation of the UDA and its political associates.
However, the disputes within the UDA, the UDP and latterly the
UPRG mirror the wider pattern of dissention and division with
unionism and loyalism in the post-Agreement period. Splits and
vitriolic disputes within the mainstream Ulster Unionist Party (UUP)
were marked from the early days of the Agreement by Jeffrey
Donaldson’s walkout at the time of the signing of the Agreement.
This was followed by the outbreak of a series of loyalist feuds, within
and between loyalist paramilitaries, the most serious of which was
between the UVF and the UDA from 2000 onwards. The result of
these disputes was the internal segregation of some loyalist working-
class communities, separating UVF and UDA supporters from each
other. Nor was life within the Ulster Defence Association unmarked
by division. (In September 2002, they expelled Johnny Adair, the
Commander of C Company in the Lower Shankill, and his associate,
John White, who appears in this volume.)
There are three kinds of substantive causes of these disputes: the
tension between militarism and politics; the tension between those
for and those against the Belfast Agreement; and the tension between
those motivated by personal gain and involved in crime, racketeer-
ing and drug trafficking.
MILITARISM VERSUS POLITICS
The first tension, between militarism and politics, is between those
who espouse militaristic solutions to political problems, in opposition
to those who tend to choose the political path. There has been much
debate in Northern Ireland among paramilitaries in general and their
supporters about the effectiveness of politics, compared with that of
violence. Some argue that violence works, that Sinn Fein would not
have had two ministers in the Northern Ireland Assembly had not the
Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombed and shot its way into the
political arena. There are other examples. One referred to by Mo
Mowlam in her account of her time as Secretary of State for Northern
Ireland was the infamous ‘lesser of two evils’ decision at Drumcree
(Mowlam, 2002: 97). Orangemen were allowed to march through a
Catholic estate at Drumcree in 1999, because the Chief Constable
argued that, if they were prevented, the violence that resulted would