East Belfast UDA leadership call for an end to the violence

THE UDA leadership in east Belfast said recent violence on the streets was playing into the hands of Sinn Fein.

And it called for and end to recent rioting, saying politics, education and employment was the way forward for loyalist communities.

In an interview with the BBC’s Josephine Long for a documentary, the leader of east Belfast UDA, Jimmy Birch, said his members were under orders not to take part in the rioting.

On Saturday, 29 police officers were injured in what police described as some of the worst violence over five weeks of the Union flag protest.

Police responded with baton rounds and water cannon was deployed after officers came under a hail of attack from petrol bombs, fireworks, bricks and missiles.

The trouble started after nationalist youths from the Short Strand attack loyalist marchers heading back to east Belfast.

Hand to hand fighting started with rival groups before police intervened. Later, violence erupted on the Albertbridge Road and a car was burned out.

Last Thursday, Jimmy Birch attended the first meeting of the Unionist Forum at Stormont organised by DUP leader Peter Robinson and UUP leader Mike Nesbitt.

He was accompanied by UDA south Belfast leader Jackie McDonald who first mooted the idea of a forum during meetings with the two unionist party leaders in December.

Birch says UDA members have been told not to take part in rioting.

He says he does not support the violence and that it should stop. He says it plays into the hands of Sinn Féin.

“We are so predictable. They (Sinn Fein) are playing us – they’re like our band captain – they’re calling the tunes and we’re playing them,” he says.

“And every time they call the tune, we take to the streets, we wreck our own areas, we fight with the police, we burn our own cars and we stop our own people going to work and coming home from work and disrupt our own people’s way of life.

“It’s wrong, we need to take a step back and we need to stop being predictable,” he told reporter Josephine Long.

Jimmy Birch joined the UDA at 17, he is now 42 and a senior figure in the organisation in east Belfast.

He told reporter Long he has been “lucky enough” not to spend time in jail.

His 41-year-old UDA colleague David Stitt joined the organisation when he was 15.

He spent nearly five years in prison for armed robbery and possession of a firearm.

He was released under the Good Friday Agreement and these days is a leader of the UDA in north Down and Ards.

Both men work for the Charter organisation which seeks to help former UDA prisoners adjust to life on the outside.

They claim 2,000 men are members of the paramilitary group in east Belfast, north Down and Ards

Jimmy Birch acknowledges that the union flag decision at Belfast City Hall was a democratic vote and says politics is the only way the issue can be resolved.

And there are clear signs that the political path the UDA is taking in east Belfast is in the direction of closer engagement with the DUP. David Stitt says contacts with the party have been building over the past four years.

“We’ve been linking into the biggest political party that’s there on the loyalist side and we’ve been connecting with politics and that’s what people are saying we need – to connect with politics. So why don’t they connect? Why don’t they connect?

“People were asked the same thing as me four years ago to connect with politics and we connected with politics – so why didn’t everyone else? So instead of gurning about not connecting – connect. You know what I mean? And instead of creating another forum, stop unionism splitting up.”

The men also say that it’s time the loyalist community focused on education.

David Stitt told Long: ” We say now arm ourselves with education.

“Five years ago, two people started university within our organisation; this year 16 people.

“Sixteen young lads and girls started university, so we’ve been on that journey, we’ve been on the journey of education because education is the new power.”

Jimmy Birch and David Stitt say they were part of General Jean De Chastelain’s decommissioning process.

David Stitt says: “All the guns are gone. All the guns under our control are gone.

“Jimmy and myself were part of that process – the decommissioning process with General John De Chastelain.

“We were part of that process of taking the UDA’s weapons in east Belfast beyond use.”