Talk:Ulster Defence Association
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[edit] Drugs trade
ĄThe user at 65.95.27.101 added the sentence fragment "Which is untrue" after the statement that the UDA has been suspected of drug trade involvement (end of first paragraph). If the UDA has apologized for its involvement in the drug trade, why does this user assert the falsity of the original article?
In Colin Crawford's "Inside the UDA," which I have added to the list of Other Sources, he explicitly states that many UDA members were involved in drug trade and criminal activity, but this was not a systematic or systemic fact of the UDA. As with any organization exercising vigilante power, Crawford explains that there were of course individuals who used that power for self-gain through the drug trade. In addition it is true that much of the UDA's weaponry was bought with money stolen from banks. I think the section on Criminality is biased and incomplete, and does need to be rewritten using cited facts.
[edit] Inconsistencies
Para 1 says the UDA was made illegal in 1992, while Para 3 says 1991.
Also, since it mentions the fact that they are banned both in the UK and ROI, were they legal until the early 90s in both countries, or just the UK? Ben Bulben 17:11, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] DUP & UDA
Whilst I am no fan of the DUP and their brand of Bible bashing No Surrender Unionism I feel it is wrong to try and link them directly to the UDA.
Despite their staunch attitudes they are a democratic party that are openly opposed to all paramilitary organisations (Apart from the Third Force in the 80's or course).
It is also true that many loyalist paramilitaries were stirred up by "The Big Man's" (Ian Paisley Snr) bible bashing rhetoric, but to try and say that the DUP are associated with the UDA is misleading and even though it galls me unfair to the DUP.
The political groups properly associated with the UDA are well known.
In 1978 the UDA demonstrated an interest in politics and set up the New Ulster Political Research Group. This was replaced in 1981 by the Ulster Loyalist Democratic Party (ULDP) which advocated independence for Northern Ireland. In 1989 the party renamed itself the Ulster Democratic Party.
Disagreement over the Belfast Agreement between the UDP leadership and the UDA, and within the UDP itself lead to the pary being dissolved in November 2001. Its role has largely been taken over by the Ulster Political Research Group not the DUP. --Strangelyb 08:39, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
This article contains some cheap, biased shots - the linking of the South African arms importation with the DUP being the most ridiculous. Any statement to this effect must be supported by evidence / decent references.
[edit] Just one thing
I notice that on this page that there is no reference to Andy Tyrie who led the organisation from 1973 until 1988. Similarly the part the UDA played in the strike of May 1974 is very much underplayed, as they were the main reason the strike worked as well as it did (I was there at the time and remember it- in fact I doubt very much that anyone who was there could forget the sight of the barricades and the memories of the blackouts) Again there are a few factual errors in this piece- namely the link with the neo-Nazi and fascist groups. This had widely been reported but was in fact untrue, at least until the 1990s- if it was ever true at all. An interesting example of this was that when the National Front sent a delegation to Belfast to meet the UDA, Andy Tyrie sent Louis Scott- one of the few non-white UDA members- to greet them. The UDA was a working class organisation, set up originally to defend the Protestant working class people of Belfast who, at that time, suffered the same ridiculous levels of poverty (thanks to Northern Ireland's Parliament passing laws restricting rent levels, making it unprofitable for landlords to invest in their property) as the Roman Catholics in the next street. As such it had a class agenda rather than a racial one at its beginning (one of the reasons it was able to co-ordinate a strike in the first place was the fact that many of the original founders were involved in the trades Union movement)- the reason for contacting neo-fascist organisations was that they might be useful for the supply of funds and arms- other than that they were treated with disdain.
[edit] The U.D.A. was not exclusively Protestant.
The Ulster Defence Association was not an exclusively Protestant organisation. There was, in fact a contingent of anti-Sinn Féin/I.R.A. Catholics, who were very fiercely pro-British. - (Aidan Work 08:59, 30 December 2005 (UTC))
WHAT? OK you find me names, why would member of Northern Ireland's RC community support an organization which indiscriminately murdered close too 200 unarmed Catholic civillians simply because they were Catholic???
^^^^^^^^^^^ Makes a fair and intellegent point, any Catholic who were to join the UDA and kill their fellow man, would more than likely not be welcomed into the N. Ireland Catholic community, and for being Catholic not be welcomed in the proddy community (as you know most communities in N. Ireland were and still divided by religion.)
That could be said for any paramilitay/terrorist organisation in Northern Ireland, and indeed anywhere in the World. The actual facts of the article don't support it though, so it's simply hear say, bar one or two known names on both sides.
- Leaving aside alleged Catholic membership it was definately NOT exclusively Protestant in the sense that it didn't have any secularists, atheists, agnostics etc. The "Protestant people" they purported to be defending are essentially ethnically defined with religious belief as a high correlate and historical feature, but not necessarily strictly Protestant. Not dissimilar to the way in which Milosevic was supporting an Orthodox "ethnos" while he himself was actually an atheist. Unfortunately in Northern Ireland we don't have an ethnic label like "Serb" that does not have religious connotations.80.229.27.11 (talk) 08:20, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] citations needed
This paragraph needs some sort of citation.
The UDA/UFF's official political position during the Troubles was that if the Provisional IRA called off its campaign of violence, then the UDA would do the same. However, if the British government announced that it was withdrawing from Northern Ireland, then the UDA would act as "the IRA in reverse". Presumably this meant attacking British or Irish government or security force targets.
In fact, this whole article needs extensive citation.
[edit] a & an
In this instance I believe the grammar correction is itself incorrect. I quote from Wikipedia's A, an article.
"An An is the older form, now used before words starting with a vowel sound, regardless of whether the word begins with a vowel letter. Examples: a light-water reactor; an LWR; a HEPA filter (because HEPA is pronounced as a word rather than as letters); a hypothesis; an hour. In some circumstances, an is used before any noun starting with h, such as an hotel.
More examples: "a boy, a European, a j, a picture, a store, a table, a bottle, a window, a phone, a hyphen, a one-horse town" and "a united country, a usurper, a eulogy, a ewe, a U-boat" and "an entry, an f, an hour, an orange, an ape, an odor, an idea, an eagle, an honor, an umbrella, an unbeliever" and "a hotel, a house, a hill, a hymn, a honeycomb". [1]
"Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage is more descriptive than prescriptive, but it advises: You choose the article that suits your own pronunciation. Theodore Bernstein gives the straight vowel-sound-vs.-consonant-sound explanation but allows that you should indeed say "an hotel" if you think hotel is pronounced otel." [2]" [[1]]
Ulster is similar to an umbrella or an unbeliever therefore "an" rather than a united country or a usurper which has a defined U sound which indicates "a" as the prefix. --Strangelyb 09:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Citations
I've added a citations tag to the top of the page as there seems to be a large number of "citation needed" tags in the article. Presumably, once the POV issues are sorted out, these tags will disappear, as will the citations tag at the top of the article.
- May as well add this here rather than a new section. Direct link citations for the following are tricky due to the CAIN setup, but they can be sourced from this link:
- "The UDA was involved in some killings in the early 1970s, but most of its murders were carried out since the late 1980s." - If that was changed to UFF then yes, otherwise no. (Organisation and Year for the 2 variables)
- "Nevertheless, the UDA killed only two known republican paramiltaries in the conflict" (Organisation and Status Summmary for the 2 variables)
- "The majority of their victims were Roman Catholics with no political or paramilitary connections" - possibly remove political (Organisation and Status Summmary for the 2 variables)
- Any objections to me removed those three citation tags? One Night In Hackney303 06:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
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- And there's more:
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- They have been involved in several feuds with the Ulster Volunteer Force, which led to many murders. - obviously many is a totally irrelevant word, so I'll replace it with the CAIN figure.
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- One thing I've just noticed is that the article only uses the CAIN figures for the UDA, it doesn't include the UFF figures at all even though we don't have a seperate UFF article as both "UFF" and "Ulster Freedom Fighters" link here. So, are we better off having a UDA/UFF combined total or just adding the UFF figures to the article as well? One Night In Hackney303 06:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
No problem with any of the above. I hadn't seen that crosstab on CAIN before, very useful. Regarding combining the UDA/UFF figures, are we sure they have always been one and the same? Don't know enough about it myself. At some point in their history that may have been sufficiently different to warrent seperate articles. But probably not. Combine both figures here I would say, making it clear in the article that is what has been done. Stu ’Bout ye! 09:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
- The UFF were basically a sub-organisation within the UDA. Certainly in the 70s the UDA had a huge membership (approx 30,000 at one time allegedly) and was generally mostly involved in more defensive activites. Certain people within the UDA realised that an organisation that size wasn't streamlined enough for carrying out major attacks or murders, and the UFF was formed from people within UDA ranks. One Night In Hackney303 09:55, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
See the things where it mentions the UDAs history and there are no citations, I'm sure there must be sources for it on, for example, BBC news but using BBCs on-site search (appalling) or google using site:news.bbc.co.uk, I couldn't find anything, but I'm sure they should be easy enough to find in theory. Anyway, some of this stuff has been tagged since febuary. I think we should probably remove a lot of it by this stage if we can't find a source. I'm sure no one will dispute there have been a lot of loyalist feuds recently as well as drug dealing. There must be reliable news stories out there somewhere... -- Pauric (talk-contributions) 18:04, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Main activities
I've just spotted something in the lead I'm less than happy with - Its main activities were the killing of Roman Catholic civilians and to a lesser extent, Irish nationalist politicians - that's just woefully wrong. Certainly in its earlier years the UDA's main activities were more of a street based defensive force, albeit it with some other activities as well. This isn't really mentioned much in the article either. I'm not really aware of how significant (if at all) this role was as the years progressed, so I'm not overly comfortable adding too much to the article about it. Obviously the lead needs to provide a short summary of the article which it does at present, but this does need looking at in my opinion. One Night In Hackney303 08:29, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
- I think it should be removed. The actual figures are stated later on in the article. Also, all the paramilitary organisations detail how many deaths they were responsible for, except the PIRA page. This should be changed for consistancy I think. Stu ’Bout ye! 09:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
- I'm happy with removing it, but it still leaves the main article problem which I don't feel capable of solving. Apart from the 1974 strike there's actually very little about the UDA's activities other than the murders, so it paints a slightly unbalanced picture of the organisation in my opinion. One Night In Hackney303 09:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] POV & citations etc
I've been asked for input here regarding citations and "combined/seperate figures". I assume this latter refers to the UDA splinter group which has carried out murders, assassinations and other acts of terrorism. I would suggest that it be treated separately as other splinter groups of, for example, the Provisional IRA, are treated separately. The UFF is often seen as a more brutal or 'hardened' off-shoot. The Sutton 'Database of Deaths' lists them individually also. I don't think the article should be split, unless it becomes very sizeable.
The POV issues I have noticed in the article are as follows:
- Intro: "The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is a loyalist paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland, outlawed as a terrorist group in the UK and Republic of Ireland," — the term "terrorist" - Wikipedia is not consistant with regard to this word. Recently a Northern Ireland-related category concerning terrorist organisations became the only category to be renamed to a more PC, but less accurate, term. With this article, this organisation is attributed as being a terrorist group, whereas other articles, even within the NI-related sphere alone, are not consistant in this matter. My personal opinion is that they are all terrorist groups as they fit the definition. However, there should probably be some consistency, lest Wikipedia be regarded as pro-Republican for example. The groups and the members of them are either terrorists or they're not.
- Intro: "Its main activities were the killing of Roman Catholic civilians and to a lesser extent, Irish nationalist politicians." — this sentence is terribly POV. The couple of sentences which follow it merely make a bad thing even worse. The whole intro should be re-worded.
- Origin and development: "The Ulster Defence Union was formed in 1893 following a rally at the Ulster Hall where a manifesto was first published by the Ulster Defense Union led by Col. Robert Saunderson MP." This needs a citation. Who says that it was formed after a rally? Was it formed at the Ulster Hall, or was that just where this apparent rally took place? What was the rally about? Does this history of the UDU lead on to relevance regarding the UDA?
- Para2: "comprised of six hundred members from which an executive committee of forty would eventually form the Ulster Unionist Council which in turn became the Ulster Unionist Party." Who says? Where is this article in The Times? Do we know that the UUC became the UUP?
- Para3: "At its peak of strength it held around forty thousand members, mostly part-time." 40,000 at its peak? How do we know? I believe we need another authoritative source, by the way, as I suspect The Gaurdian to have a certain amount of bias in relation to Northern Ireland.
- Para3: "the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) (a cover name for the UDA) committed a large number of murders" Three things here - how do we know that the UFF is a 'cover name' for the UDA? How do we know that the UFF committed a large number of murders? Is "murder" non-POV?
- Para4: "In the 1970s the group favoured Northern Ireland independence, but they have retreated from this position." How do we know the group favoured independence? What form did this independence take (the word is ambiguous to someone with no knowledge, or scant knowledge of Northern Ireland)? How do we know they have "retreated" from their previous position? Is "retreated" a non-POV word?
- Para4: "The UDA was involved in the successful Ulster Workers Council Strike in 1974, which brought down the Sunningdale Agreement - an agreement which some loyalists and Unionists thought conceded too much to nationalist demands." This sentence should be re-written to indicate more strongly what is meant by "success". How exactly did the strike "bring down" the Sunningdale Agreement? Who says that "some" loyalists and Unionists thought the Sunningdale Agreement conceded "too much" to nationalist demands? Is the phrase "conceded too much" non-POV?
- Para5: "The UDA/UFF's official political position during the Troubles was that if the Provisional Irish Republican Army called off its campaign of violence, then the UDA would do the same." How do we know that this was the UDA's position? Is it correct to label the UDA and the UFF together as "UDA/UFF"?
I'll leave it there for the time being, but there is more possible POV and weasel wording throughout. -- Mal 16:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
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- Origin and development - not got a clue about that, can't find a source for it anywhere.
- Para2 - as above.
- Para3 - the 40,000 figure can be sourced from several other places - here, here and here. Loyalists by Peter Taylor gives a figure of over 50,000 on page 83. The UFF/UDA relationship can also be sourced by Taylor, pages 115-6. The "large number of murders" is problematic, but I think large is as equally problematic as murder. I propose changing "committed a large number of murders" to "killed (insert figure from CAIN) people"
- Para4 - Not capable of addressing the first point, but I'll take a stab at Sunningdale. The strike has its own chapter in Loyalists, pages 127-137. Bryan Faulkner (the architect of Sunningdale) resigned (along with the executive) after a particularly contentious TV address by PM Harold Wilson. The strike had already paralysed most of Northern Ireland, then Wilson stated:
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Yet people who benefit from this now viciously defy Westminister, purporting to act as though they were an elected government, spending their lives sponging on Westminister and British democracy and then systematically assault democratic methods. Who do these people think they are?
- Para5 - that can definitely be sourced, although I'd need to read through Loyalists to find you an exact cite as I can't find the page right now. For all intents and purposes UDA and UFF are one and the same in that context. One Night In Hackney303 21:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
goolcaptain; I've edited the main passage because it stated that 'The UDA was formed/armed by the Heath Goverment to wage war on the Catholic people of Northen Ireland' which just BEGGARS BELIEF! The UDA was formed because the IRA was murdering Unionists and was seen as a bulwark against them, striking back in kind. Anything else is Irish Nationalist self-delusion, unwilling to accept that Loyalist groups are an inevitable reaction to IRA violence rather than some form of nefarious conspiracy by the British establishment.
Aside from that the article is quite good.
[edit] UFF vs. UDA
For this article to be more helpful to people (like myself) coming to it from a position of ignorance, wanting to learn what these organizations are, it would be nice if the distinction between the UDA and the UFF was made clearer. Are they the same thing? If so, why the second name? Is/was the UFF a smaller operation within the larger UDA, formed for carrying out more secretive operations, as my impression has it? Is "UFF" just used to take credit for certain attacks or something? Or can the two terms be used interchangeably in all circumstances? Are all members of the UDA by definition members of the UFF too? Vice versa? If not, what IS the difference, organizationally? I'm very confused on this point, and I'm not alone. 216.231.46.147 21:52, 1 October 2007 (UTC) Here's an example, from the first paragraph: the UDA is initially described as a "paramilitary organization", but then further down the UFF is described as its "military wing". Do paramilitary organizations have NON-military wings? 216.231.46.147 21:57, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
