Loyalists: No betrayal on peace process
Loyalists tonight told the Taoiseach they would work to convince their community there would be no sell-out in the Northern Ireland political process.
David Nicholl of the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG), which provides political analysis to the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), also insisted loyalist paramilitaries would not spill blood on any other unionist political leader’s behalf.
After meeting in Dublin’s Government Buildings with Bertie Ahern, Mr Nicholl said: “We told the Taoiseach that we would work within our particular constituency of loyalism to keep the calm, to persuade people there is no sell-out plan.
“That there is no betrayal, that there will be no imposition of any further agreement. There is one agreement. People must sign up to it.”
The group was discussing current political initiatives to restore power-sharing in the North by the stated November 24 deadline.
Mr Nicholl said the onus now lay on republicanism and Sinn Féin to convince the unionist people of the North that they had abandoned criminality once and for all.
Mr Nicholl, who was speaking on behalf of the UPRG negotiation team, said DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley’s statement that he would never share power with Sinn Féin should be viewed in the light that he was addressing Orangemen at the time.
“It is the same rhetoric we have heard as loyalists for the past 35 years. What we would say in relation to that is, we have marched up the hill manys a time, and we have been let down manys a time,” he said.
“But loyalism is not going to fill the grave or fill prisons for the next 35 years on no-one’s behalf. If there is blood to be spilled then let Dr Paisley spill his own blood, because it will not be our bodies he is climbing over.”
