Dissident Ulster Loyalist Campaign 1998

Dissident Ulster Loyalist Campaign 1998 - present

After the outcome of the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which was thought to end The Troubles, and led to the Provisional IRA decomissioning its weapons. The mainstream loyalist paramilitaries did not end their armed campaigns and continued attacks against catholics despite supposedly being on ceasfire, and smaller paramilitaries such as the Red Hand Defenders and Orange Volunteers formed after the Drumcree Parade dispute of 1998 in protest to the actions of the RUC and British Army blocking the Orange Order parade. These smaller groups were not on ceasfire, and did not have the same resources as the mainstream Loyalist paramilitaries. The dissident loyalist campaign also started as a reaction to the campaign from dissident republicans which still continues today but on a larger scale.
Like with Dissident Republicans, the campaign of violence from dissident loyalists is not on the same scale as during the Troubles, which resulted in the deaths of 3,500 people. To date, one RUC police officer, one former PIRA member, and 39 civilians have been killed. Many members of the mainstream paramilitries have also been killed in a series of major Loyalist Feuds of 1999 - 2005.
The campaign
Beginnings of the campaign
When the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998, paramilitries like the UDA publically supported it as it would not lead to a United Ireland, but groups like the Loyalist Volunteer Force took the same anti - agreement stance taken by the Democratic Unionist Party. The Drumcree dispute in 1998 (an incident where the Portadown Orange Order were prevented by the British Army and RUC from marching through the nationalist Garvaghey Road area) led to the formation of the Orange Volunteers and the Red Hand Defenders in response to the dispute. The Red Hand Defenders later killed Catholic RUC officer Francis O'Reilly in October 1998 , and solicitor for the Garvaghey Road residents Rosemary Nelson in March 1999 as revenge.. This then resulted in a massive feud across the Loyalist mainstream with a string of revenge attacks involving bth the organisations. This feud dragged on as long as until 2005. The UDA also had an internal feud between 2002 - 2003 which resulted in the deaths of many of its own members. As these feuds dragged on, the groups still committed secretarian attacks on Catholics, with the smaller organisations like the Red Hand Defenders and Orange Volunteers committing shootings, pipe bombings, and murder.
Ending of armed campaigns, 2005 - 2009
After the PIRA declared an official end to its armed campaign in 2005, the Loyalist Volunteer Force stated that they would be standing down aswell. In In February 2006, the Independent Monitoring Commission confirmed that the LVF-UVF feud was over as a result of this. Then in 2007, the same year as the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein agreed to share power in the Northern Irish Assembly, the UVF/RHC, and the UDA/UFF ended their armed campaigns with all of them declaring that they would retain their weapons, but "put them beyond use" and in 2009 the UVF declared that they had decomissioned their weapons and had been put "totally and irreversibley beyond use". Although the mainstream loyalist paramilitries armed campaigns had finally ended, The anti peace process Red Hand Defenders, Orange Volunteers and Loyalist Action Force continued attacks on Catholic and Republican targets. In 2007, a new loyalist paramilitary known as the Real UFF was founded by former UFF members in County Aintrim, and has been committing terrorist attacks there and across Northern Ireland ever since .
Decline in activity 2009 - Present
Since the ending of campaigns from the mainstream Loyalist groups, the dissident loyalist campaign has entered a period of decline with a mere incidents involving deaths in the last 3 years. One involving catholic civilian Kevin McDaid being lynched by UDA members in 2009 , and the UVF killing prominent loyalist Bobby Moffet in an internal dispute in May 2010 . The UVF's killing of Bobby Moffet,their high involvement in the Newtonabbey violence in 2010, and their orchistrating of the 2011 Northern Ireland riots (UVF youths invaded the nationalist Short Strand in East Belfast have put their claims of ceasefire and weapons decomissioning under scrutiny from the Independent Monitoring Commission .
As for the Dissident Loyalist groups, the Red Hand Defenders, Loyalist Action Force and Orange Volunteers appear to be entering obscurity as their activity continues to decline. The Real UFF, appear to be the most active loyalist group at present time constantly attacking nationalist targets in County Aintrim and beyond, their most infamous being the planting of a pipe bomb at a catholic primary school in County Aintrim.. Other than that, the PSNI say that in their aim to curb paramilitry style attacks, the high number of loyalist paramilitary style assaults between 2011/2012 (31) will be addressed. This rise in paramilitary style assaults is either the work of paramilitaries such as the Real UFF in certain areas, or simply gangs of protestant youths engaging in secretarian violence.

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