The outlawed Ulster Defense Association has resumed a credible cease-fire and is eligible to play a formal role again in Northern Ireland’s peace process, Britain announced Friday in a surprise move. The UDA, a brutal anti-Catholic organization that killed more than 400 people before calling a 1994 cease-fire, has been excluded from multiparty negotiations since October 2001, when Britain ruled that its truce was a sham. Britain’s governor for Northern Ireland, Paul Murphy, announced Friday that the government will resume normal contact with UDA representatives because of a significant decline in violence attributed to the group, which has an estimated 3,000 members across this British territory. Murphy conceded that the UDA remained heavily involved in illegal rackets and violent assaults on criminal opponents, and he vowed that “any criminal activity will be pursued relentlessly by the police.”Full Story
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