Hard Gospel Urges Paramilitary Group to Clarify Position on Arms

The Director of the Church of Ireland's Hard Gospel Project, the Rev Earl Storey, has given a cautious welcome to the announcement last week from a Northern Irish paramilitary group that it will renounce violence.

The Ulster Volunteer Force, a pro-British Protestant organisation, said last week that it was putting arms "beyond reach" and stopping military training. It also said it would "assume a non military, civilianised role".

Rev Storey said that the UVF's decision to stand down represented "significant progress and an important step on a journey" for the organisation but said that its stance on weapons was still "simply not good enough" in a community underpinned by the rule of law.

"'Putting weapons beyond use' is an ambiguous phrase at best. It is also unlawful in a democratic country. It is all the more disturbing when there is an implicit threat that dissident republican activity might cause a return to arms," he said.

"Such a threat is completely unacceptable in Northern Ireland, and needs to be withdrawn."

The UVF said in its statement that it had made the decision to renounce violence "in an earnest attempt to augment the return of accountable democracy to the people of Northern Ireland".

Rev Storey responded: "Complying with the law must mean no less than evidence that such activity has ceased."

He also called on the UVF to clarify its position with regard to people who have been threatened or exiled in the past.

"Abiding by the rule of law in this regard will be all the more important given the fatal consequences for 'exiles' who have returned home in the past," he said.

The UVF's statement comes as Ian Paisley's Protestant Democratic Unionists and Gerry Adams' Catholic Sinn Fein prepare to share power in Northern Ireland on 8 May.