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Post by An Fear Dubh on May 23, 2008 7:51:34 GMT
I hope you have not been put off Harry as I am still interested to hear your views.
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Post by earl on May 23, 2008 9:16:16 GMT
The UVF was formed in May 1966 as a loyalist paramilitary group and named after the Ulster Volunteers of 1912. The UVF claimed what many acknowledge as the first victim of the Troubles, when they shot dead 28-year-old storeman John Patrick Scullion in west Belfast. Barman Peter Ward, an 18-year-old from west Belfast, became the second victim of a UVF gun attack. Victor Arbuckle, aged 29, was shot dead by Loyalists during street disturbances on the Shankill Road in Belfast in October 1969, the first RUC officer to die in the troubles. The UVF was also responsible for a series of attacks on power stations and reservoirs in Northern Ireland during 1969. It was hoped that this campaign would be blamed on the IRA, forcing moderate unionists to increase their opposition to the tentative reforms of Terence O'Neill's government.Your paramilitaries were around before the PIRA had formed and began it's campaign, so I'm not sure what you are saying here. Are you trying to insinuate that your community had squeaky clean bums until the PIRA showed up and gave yis bad ideas? And I'm not even counting the legal organisations on your side here, who were at intimidation since the creation of NI. the PIRA may only have been around since the 70's the OIRA have been around longer then the UVF byts thats niether here nor there. Fact of the matter is as long as republicans continue to try and jusitfy thier campaign of murder then personly i have no interest in dealing with them, we had a sectarian conflict in northern ireland perpututed by both sides. innocent people were targeted and murdered by both loyalist and republicans period. It sickens me that republicans still try and brush the death of innocents under the carpet as collaterall damage, as if thats makes it ok. The only way forward out of the conflict is honesty, all proganda has to be dropped all justification has to go, people were murderd end of story. You've misinterpreted me. I was in no way trying to justify the actions of the PIRA. I was pointing out the fact that loyalist terrorism was not born in reaction to the PIRA, but had existed before. I agree with everything else you say here. |
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Post by earl on May 23, 2008 9:19:29 GMT
The UVF was formed in May 1966 as a loyalist paramilitary group and named after the Ulster Volunteers of 1912. The UVF claimed what many acknowledge as the first victim of the Troubles, when they shot dead 28-year-old storeman John Patrick Scullion in west Belfast. Barman Peter Ward, an 18-year-old from west Belfast, became the second victim of a UVF gun attack. Victor Arbuckle, aged 29, was shot dead by Loyalists during street disturbances on the Shankill Road in Belfast in October 1969, the first RUC officer to die in the troubles. The UVF was also responsible for a series of attacks on power stations and reservoirs in Northern Ireland during 1969. It was hoped that this campaign would be blamed on the IRA, forcing moderate unionists to increase their opposition to the tentative reforms of Terence O'Neill's government.Your paramilitaries were around before the PIRA had formed and began it's campaign, so I'm not sure what you are saying here. Are you trying to insinuate that your community had squeaky clean bums until the PIRA showed up and gave yis bad ideas? And I'm not even counting the legal organisations on your side here, who were at intimidation since the creation of NI. Earl give me a break they were not my communities paramilitaries, and the IRA were around for an awful lot longer than the UDA, out of which sprang all the other paramilitaries. The UVF existed before the IRA. They also had armed themselves with the kaisers guns before the IRB and Volunteers did, so do you still want to continue this tit for tat? I can go all the way back to the Peep O'Day Boys if you wish. |
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Post by earl on May 23, 2008 9:25:20 GMT
The UVF was formed in May 1966 as a loyalist paramilitary group and named after the Ulster Volunteers of 1912. The UVF claimed what many acknowledge as the first victim of the Troubles, when they shot dead 28-year-old storeman John Patrick Scullion in west Belfast. Barman Peter Ward, an 18-year-old from west Belfast, became the second victim of a UVF gun attack. Victor Arbuckle, aged 29, was shot dead by Loyalists during street disturbances on the Shankill Road in Belfast in October 1969, the first RUC officer to die in the troubles. The UVF was also responsible for a series of attacks on power stations and reservoirs in Northern Ireland during 1969. It was hoped that this campaign would be blamed on the IRA, forcing moderate unionists to increase their opposition to the tentative reforms of Terence O'Neill's government.Your paramilitaries were around before the PIRA had formed and began it's campaign, so I'm not sure what you are saying here. Are you trying to insinuate that your community had squeaky clean bums until the PIRA showed up and gave yis bad ideas? And I'm not even counting the legal organisations on your side here, who were at intimidation since the creation of NI. I note you said PIRA, who BTW commemorates the failed border campaign in the 50's?? And that was how long before the uvf? The UVF were formed in 1912. The modern UVF in 1966. The PIRA were formed in 1969. They commemorate the border campaign carried out by the OIRA who discontinued active service and took up a purely political path. |
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Post by earl on May 23, 2008 9:39:08 GMT
Maybe if the loyalist paramilitaries weren't armed, people would be less afraid. But we all know where you stand when it comes to armed paramilitary organisations. Oh here we go again with your bitching routine. You are worse than my ex wife always trying to have your wee digs in with the usual sarcasm. Maybe you are trying to winde me up or maybe it is that spoilt childishness in you that makes you do this. See a post by me and do your best to go on the attack regarldess of my post. Try and stop the childish bitching and try to debate in an adult manner where possible. That's a good boy.  Correct me if I'm wrong WASP but you did state that you support loyalists keeping their weapons. Can you explain to me how you would resolve the issue of people fearing the paramilitaries, but still allow those paramilitaries to hold on to their weapons? |
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Post by earl on May 23, 2008 9:43:14 GMT
I hope you have not been put off Harry as I am still interested to hear your views. Ditto. I third that. What's on your mind Harry? How do you see the relationship between the PUL community and the organisations within it? |
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Post by Bilk on May 23, 2008 10:22:39 GMT
Earl give me a break they were not my communities paramilitaries, and the IRA were around for an awful lot longer than the UDA, out of which sprang all the other paramilitaries. The UVF existed before the IRA. They also had armed themselves with the kaisers guns before the IRB and Volunteers did, so do you still want to continue this tit for tat? I can go all the way back to the Peep O'Day Boys if you wish. This is just a ridiculous argument which is where we usually go with these things because we want to talk about rubbish rather than the actual thread. If you are going to equate the UVF of 1912, which went on to become a bonefide regiment in the British army and fought in the first world war. Then the IRA goes back to the "Bold Fienian Men" I think that goes a bit further back than 1912. Now lets just for once try to stay with the main topic of discussion. You started out saying 1969 now we have gone back to 1912. |
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Post by Bilk on May 23, 2008 11:08:23 GMT
Wasp, I think after how we all saw your distorted cut and paste job it is obvious who is the master at twisting things around to mean something else. I think Setanta was correct, I did not try to justify the actions of loyalist paramilitaries, you Wasp twisted that around. Nor did I try to justify paramilitary punishment attacks, what I was trying to show was how some republican actions were thrust upon republicans by their community rather than republicans taking an arbitrary decision of their own. And I have learnt that the community might call on republicans to deliver 'justice' [note the marks Bilk], but they have not properly thought through what this means. And when they see that 'justice' they recoil away. Bilk said, "My community, as will be proved by the number of them who came before the courts for their paramilitary activity, in a country your community believed had a one sided judicial system, did not shut up when it came to these people. They did not beat bin lids on the street when the forces of law and order came to arrest them. And they certainly didn't harbour them, or hide guns for them unless under duress, or they were one of them." "only the weapon of the loyalist paramilitaries, for the beatings, was a baseball bat" Are you saying that loyalists only used baseball bats to carry out 'punishment' attacks?? What about the people shot?? I take it Bilk this is your knowledge of your community? But this does not seem to tally with the court cases. People have been charged with possession of various armaments but not all of them say they were coerced. Very few testified against paramilitaries, and if it was just fear that held their loyalty surely one or two would have been brave enough to make a stand, via the courts. So who are these people who attend these community events organized by the loyalist paramilitaries? I think you are either deluding yourself or you do not want to admit the truth, this is the propaganda that we need to rid ourselves of, like He_Who_Walks_in_The_Wilderness spoke about. I have no problem facing my past and saying that I want to move away from that. We have to be honest with each other and with ourselves because the evidence is there that loyalist paramilitaries were harboured, weapons hidden and not all of them charged were members or under duress. No I did not say these evil bastards used only baseball bats, I used the baseball bats in comparison to the hurling sticks. They used guns too to blow off knee caps of kids who misbhaved, and shot the poor idiots if they did not obey "their" laws just the same as your evil bastards did. Don't try to get me into the youseuns were worse than usuns argument because you won't. Both sets of evil bastards were spawn of the devil, in fact that is an insult to the devil. Yeah like they are going to stand up in a court of law with the paras sitting grining at them from the public gallery, and say they were coerced, come into the real world will you. And I think I know more about my community than you do. I am basing what I know about your community on what you just told me. I had a different view of your community in the past than the picture you just layed out. But if only half of what you related in your opening remarks are true then my view of your community and how I once saw them will change. You see in my naievity I thought they were much like my community and other loyalist communities and were living in fear of the provies. Obviously I could be wrong and your community drove you to do what you did, I have heard it from the horses mouth. I am not going to get into details about which loyalists harboured what for whom and who were coerced. You will have your view on that and I will have mine. Mine is born out of living among my comunity as yours is. Your knowlege of my community is born out of what you believe, not from experience of any sort. I make no accusations about your community, because like I said, I thought your community were much like mine in that they were living in fear of the paramilitaries. You in your knowlege of your commuity have informed me differently. There were evil people in my community, they did dastardly evil things, but I can tell you in all honesty, they were, on the whole, not supported in what they did within the community. They certainly were not urged to carry out those evil deeds. Unlike your community, the vast majority of the unionist/protestant community saw the forces of law and order as their protectors. You and your community on the other hand detested those forces of law and order. And please don't drag me off to MI5/6, I don't want to hear it. They fought fire with fire, and they treated loyalist paramilitaries in exactly the same way as they treated republican paramilitaries. Now to be honest again, I don't believe what you say about your community, I really don't. I have known and worked with too many of them to allow you to blacken their name in the general manner that you do. I know the vast majoity were as sickened by what you were doing to people as mine where. And until someone proves otherwise to me I will go on believing that |
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Post by earl on May 23, 2008 11:53:36 GMT
The UVF existed before the IRA. They also had armed themselves with the kaisers guns before the IRB and Volunteers did, so do you still want to continue this tit for tat? I can go all the way back to the Peep O'Day Boys if you wish. This is just a ridiculous argument which is where we usually go with these things because we want to talk about rubbish rather than the actual thread. If you are going to equate the UVF of 1912, which went on to become a bonefide regiment in the British army and fought in the first world war. Then the IRA goes back to the "Bold Fienian Men" I think that goes a bit further back than 1912. Now lets just for once try to stay with the main topic of discussion. You started out saying 1969 now we have gone back to 1912. You began this tangent by stating the following and I quote: The only time my community welcomed the paramilitaries was when they first came together in the early 70's to, as they said then, defend my community.The UVF turned into a bona fide unit but that was not their original intention. I am merely challenging your assertion that your community was terrorist free until the 70's. |
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Post by Bilk on May 23, 2008 12:34:17 GMT
This is just a ridiculous argument which is where we usually go with these things because we want to talk about rubbish rather than the actual thread. If you are going to equate the UVF of 1912, which went on to become a bonefide regiment in the British army and fought in the first world war. Then the IRA goes back to the "Bold Fienian Men" I think that goes a bit further back than 1912. Now lets just for once try to stay with the main topic of discussion. You started out saying 1969 now we have gone back to 1912. You began this tangent by stating the following and I quote: The only time my community welcomed the paramilitaries was when they first came together in the early 70's to, as they said then, defend my community.The UVF turned into a bona fide unit but that was not their original intention. I am merely challenging your assertion that your community was terrorist free until the 70's. That is because I like to live in the real world, not one I know nothing about. And please tell me what Carson's UVF did that came amyway close to a modern day terrorist. They faced the British army with the weapons you spoke of, not the general public. And as I said before the rest is history. And the usual is happening, I have said umpteen times that no one side was worse than the other, they were both evil. But you and others on here still try to make it out everything was the big bad unionists fault. No one, and I mean no one, unionist/loyalist/protestant/nationalist/republican/Catholic had a right to take one innocent life in Northern Ireland. All the rest is window dressing and trying to pin blame. |
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Post by earl on May 23, 2008 13:29:53 GMT
Please quote me directly where I have blamed the unionists on this thread. I, once again state, in plain english that I was merely challenging your assertion that your community was terrorist free until the 70's. Anything else, and you are putting words in my mouth or imagining it.
Why are you telling me this? Do you think I believe otherwise? What have I said here to make you believe that I don't know this?
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Post by An Fear Dubh on May 23, 2008 14:50:22 GMT
I think my assessment is based on the evidence. Sinn Féin who are republicans have a large electorial mandate. That shows that they have community support.
While loyalist paramilitaries do not seem to be well organised in a political dimension and have only recently begun to put the primacy in political politics over militarism. The PUP have councilors and have therefore demonstrated that there is community support.
In the past loyalist paramilitaries were mistaken to leave and trust politics to the DUP and UUP, thinking that these parties would properly represent their class of politics. And because they did not is where this bitterness and disappointed feelings come from.
I am not looking for you to believe my analysis. But I am basing it on the evidence. If you want to make change to the cycles of the past you first have to accept the reality of how this was created. As this allows you to make the actions that will correctly move forward. If you base your strategy on false or blinkered analysis then you are building on sand.
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Post by Harry on May 23, 2008 15:42:27 GMT
I don't believe Loyalist Paras have ever recieved any real support from the PUL community. I can't speak for other areas of NI but it was always the case of the Paras themselves and their friends and relatives. Their support was close knit and mostly from those who gained from the actions of the UVF/UDA etc.
Its a difficult one and it may vary from place to place. I don't believe that Loyalists did what they did in response to calls from my community. Loyalists did what they did because those within the circle decided that was what would happen. It wasn't due to pressure from within the Loyalist community. My own view is that most of the PUL community would of seen the Police and army as the defenders of the community. Those convicted of crimes for the UDA/UVF etc would sometimes be looked down on from sections of the community as they were seen as the equalivent of the IRA.
Loyalist parties will never make any gains due to the history of the UVF/UDA. Most Unionists would never cast a vote for those who carried out violence in the name of Loyalism. Now i know and we all do the the shady dealings from big house Unionist parties and some of the antics they got up to doesn't really allow any room to lambast others because again in my own opinion they were sneaky in their methods. They sought to massage the paramilataries in secret but condemn them in public. I don't know if possibly quite a few members of the PUL community also did the same.
Most certainly an area where i personally feel that there was support for the Loyalist groups was in the dealing with the so called ' undesireables' within our community. Maybe alot of the issues come down to class differences but in my opinion there was a high volume of working class Loyalists who would of went to the paras to report anti social antics, rather than report it to the police. Now this seems like double standards. We saw the police as the defenders of the community but chose paras as a way of controlling the thugs. It is complex and again i'm simply trying to give my own views.
Fear was one of the main factors that the paras had over my community and its still very much the same, if not worse today. I know of nobody of would tout on the paras. It is not worth it. Maybe we are cowards for not standing up to them but most peole just want to get on in life and hope they never are faced with a situation where they may have to make that choice. So in general when a community was silent it wasn't out of support but most likely out of fear.
I personally saw the UVF etc as defenders of my community. I felt that the police and army had their hands tied and the UVF/UDA were the only ones capable of inflicting the same pain on the republican community as the IRA were inflicting on mine.
One thing i don't think that some Republicans understand is how much hurt was caused by killing Police and Soldiers. They were very much part of my community and most of them lived within my community so when they were killed it affected us greatly. Some republicans dehumanise it and fail to see past the uniform. for every uniform there was a human, with family and feelings. So when republicans try and justify things by saying they didn't target my community directly they fail to realise that this was a direct attack on my community.
to try and summarise and make some sense of it all. There were many within my community who would of felt the same as me. My view is that i would be in a minority, well at least openly. I can't answer if many more members of the PUL community secretly supported the paras but chose to try and keep the moral ground by publicly shying away from it. that is a question that i don't think will ever be truly answered. Alot of the actions of Loyalists couldn't of been carried out without support.
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Post by Wasp on May 23, 2008 15:50:17 GMT
afd it was you who left the bigger picture out, not me. Don't forget before you posted I posted the very paragraph that you did to back your arguement and remember that was before you posted. Unlike your posts my posts showed tghe bigger picture with support for both sides of the arguement. Accuse me all you wish but my original post is there for all to see and you used the same paragraph I used, so who is being fair and balanced and who is not???
Bilk I suppose we may just get used to the usual dissecting and twisting of our posts.
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Post by earl on May 23, 2008 16:10:03 GMT
I think my assessment is based on the evidence. Sinn Féin who are republicans have a large electorial mandate. That shows that they have community support. While loyalist paramilitaries do not seem to be well organised in a political dimension and have only recently begun to put the primacy in political politics over militarism. The PUP have councilors and have therefore demonstrated that there is community support. In the past loyalist paramilitaries were mistaken to leave and trust politics to the DUP and UUP, thinking that these parties would properly represent their class of politics. And because they did not is where this bitterness and disappointed feelings come from. I am not looking for you to believe my analysis. But I am basing it on the evidence. If you want to make change to the cycles of the past you first have to accept the reality of how this was created. As this allows you to make the actions that will correctly move forward. If you base your strategy on false or blinkered analysis then you are building on sand. I was under the impression that while the troubles were occurring, the SDLP were the largest nationalist/republican party and SF's share of the vote did not start to increase until it was obvious that there was a path to peace available. |
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