LOYALIST paramilitaries now appear to have decommissioned most of their illegal weaponry and explosives, but reliable reports indicate that there is still some way to go before it can be categorically confirmed that all of the caches are completely out of the equation.
Any act of decommissioning is to be warmly welcomed in law-abiding society and, unquestionably, there has been significant movement over recent days by the UVF to dispose of a large quantity of its guns, ammunition and explosives under the watchful e
ye of General John de Chastelain and his independent commissioning body.
Decommissioning of arms by the UDA/UFF is much less apparent; indeed, it may not even have started in earnest and, with the Government deadline for complete disposal of all illegal weaponry looming, these paramilitaries may face criminal prosecutions if they continue to ignore the warnings.
Arms' decommissioning is, by its nature, a highly secretive operation and commissioners and independent witnesses can only relate to the stockpiles before them.
They may be told by the paramilitaries that this is the complete arsenal, but, in reality, they have little or no access to categorically checking it out and in this scenario a measure of smoke and mirrors comes into play, leading many people to be very cynical and cautious on acts of decommissioning.
A report in one newspaper yesterday indicated that the UVF in Belfast has held on to a sizeable cache of handguns, allegedly for "defence" purposes in the areas in which they operate. If this is true, the Government, the decommissioning body and the police need to be putting further pressure on those who control these weapons.
There is only one law-enforcement agency in Northern Ireland – the PSNI. Self-styled paramilitary organisations, republican and loyalist, are illegal; they have no lawful remit in our society.
Coupled with further acts of decommissioning that will totally erase all of the illegal weaponry, the next obvious step for the paramilitaries is to disband. Only then will people here be able to say that a return to normality is complete.
