The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) is a loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed by Billy Wright when the Mid-Ulster brigade of the UVF, which he commanded, was stood down by that organisation's leadership in Belfast. Wright subsequently broke away from the UVF to form the new, rival organisation. The LVF is outlawed as a terrorist organization in the UK and Republic of Ireland. The United States has designated it a terrorist organisation also.[2] The LVF have killed 18 people. 13 were civilians, 1 was a former IRA member, and 3 were UVF members. The LVF have also killed one of its own members.
Break with the UVF
Billy Wright had been the leader of the mid-Ulster brigade of the UVF.[3] Internal differences between Wright and the UVF's brigade staff in Belfast came to a head in July 1996 during the Drumcree dispute. The body of a Roman Catholic taxi driver, Michael McGoldrick, a recent university graduate, was found dumped a few miles from Lurgan. Although no grouping claimed the murder, it was alleged it was Wright's men.[citation needed] Consequently the mid-Ulster unit was stood down by the UVF leadership, as it had breached the ceasefire the organisation had been observing while its representatives were in negotiations on the Belfast Agreement.[3]
Wright then took most of the unit's members with him and set up the LVF. Wright (who had previously been a lay preacher) is believed to have exerted a strong moral force among LVF members, for example, banning pornography in the LVF wing of the HMP Maze prison.[citation needed]
Although believed to be behind many atrocities in the mid-Ulster area—centred on the Lurgan/Portadown area, including many attacks on civilians, Wright was finally charged with menacing behaviour and sentenced to eight years at the Maze prison.[4][5] There he demanded a separate wing for the LVF prisoners. The authorities agreed and the wing became a gathering point for various dissident shades of loyalist paramilitaries, including many from Belfast and north Down.[6]
Death of Billy Wright
Wright was murdered on 27 December 1997 in an attack by members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) housed in an adjacent wing of the prison.
As Wright sat in a van waiting to be taken for a visit, three men scaled a number of roofs in the prison before running across a courtyard and shooting Wright dead.
The INLA claimed that the killing was in reprisal for Wright's sectarianism: neither of the two other LVF men in the prison van, one of whom was on remand for beating to death a Catholic teenager, was harmed.
That night, LVF gunmen killed a former IRA member.[7]
Political position
In March 1998, during the negotiations for the Good Friday Agreement, the LVF issued a statement expressing support for the stance of the anti-agreement Democratic Unionist Party, saying the party's leader, Ian Paisley, had got it "absolutely right".[8] Members of the DUP - including prominent member of parliament Rev. William McCrea - have appeared on public platforms with LVF leaders, including Billy Wright.[9][10]
In May 1998 it called a cease-fire and urged people to vote No in the referendum. The NIO accepted its cease-fire in November making its prisoners eligible for the early release scheme under the Belfast Agreement. Later, it handed over a small amount of weapons to the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. The weapons; four sub-machine guns, two rifles, two pistols, a sawn-off shotgun, 348 rounds of ball ammunition, 31 shotgun shells, five electrical detonators, two pipe bombs, two weapons stocks and five assorted magazines, were destroyed and recorded via video.
Wright's successor as LVF leader, Mark Fulton, was found hanged in Maghaberry prison in 2002. He is believed to have committed suicide.[11]
Activities
The LVF is the only paramilitary group from Northern Ireland to have killed a journalist, Martin O'Hagan, who was exposing their involvement in the heroin trade. The Secretary of State was moved to declare on 12 October 2001 that the government no longer recognised their ceasefire.[12] the LVF have killed only civilians and fellow loyalist paramilitaries, with the exception of the former IRA member mentioned above, according to Malcolm Sutton's tabulations.[1]
Following a particularly bloody feud with the UVF in the summer of 2005, and loyalist violence in Belfast city that September, the LVF announced in October 2005 that it was standing down following the IRA's previous standing down and disarmament [2]. In February 2006, the Independent Monitoring Commission confirmed that the feud with the UVF was over, but said that the LVF's involvement with organized crime and drug trafficking continued, describing it as a "deeply criminal organization". The LVF have killed 18 people. 13 were civilians, 1 was a former IRA member, and 3 were UVF members. The LVF have also killed one of its own members.
Public Inquiry
The British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Paul Murphy, announced a public inquiry into the murder of Billy Wright in November 2004, following a report on the shooting by retired Canadian Judge, Peter Cory. He was appointed by the British and Irish governments to investigate killings involving allegations of collusion by the security forces with paramilitaries on both sides of the Irish border. Judge Cory recommended independent inquiries into the killings of Rosemary Nelson, Robert Hamill, Pat Finucane and Billy Wright in Northern Ireland. Judge Cory also recommended an inquiry in the Republic of Ireland into the murders of Superintendent Bob Buchanan and Chief Superintendent Harry Breen in 1989.
Continued status
The twentieth IMC report stated that the group was small and without political purpose. Most of its violence was more criminal than paramilitary in nature. Its members who continue violent activity do so for personal gain and only associate with the organisation at large when it is expedient to do so. The report said that simple aggressive police work could damage the group's continuance.[13]
References
Further reading
