Adair must go if feud is to end, says UVF

Despite renewed calls for mediation, the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Progressive Unionist Party have insisted there is no prospect of a resolution of the loyalist feud until the Lower Shankill UDA is disbanded.

Mr David Adams, of the Ulster Democratic Party, urged the leaderships of his party and the PUP to meet in an effort to chart a way out of the dispute, which has left three men dead, others injured and several families forced from their homes.

In the past week there have been attacks in Coleraine and Carrickfergus. Early yesterday morning, shots were fired at a house in Carrickfergus. No one was injured but it may be related to the continuing feud. Early on Saturday morning there was a further attack on the home of a PUP supporter in north Belfast.

Mr Adams said the UDP, which is linked to the overall UDA, and the PUP should initiate genuine talks to find a resolution to the dispute. He said the dispute could cause "great damage to loyalism" and the peace process. After he made his call, the UVF and the PUP insisted that until Johnny Adair's C company in the Shankill was disbanded, such talks would be pointless.

During a bands parade on the Shankill Road on Saturday, UVF and PUP spokesmen again said they had no quarrel with the UDA organisation, but that their feud was with the so-called C company.

There was a heavy RUC and British army presence on the Shankill for the parade in memory of UVF paramilitary Brian Robinson, who was shot dead 11 years ago by British army undercover members after he murdered a Catholic in north Belfast.

A small group of UDA supporters on the lower Shankill handed out leaflets to motorists claiming that the UVF was linked to drugs dealing. Further up the Shankill, UVF leaflets were issued making similar claims against leading UDA members.

More than 30 bands participated in the commemoration. At a mural to Robinson, a man read a UVF statement blaming the UDA C company for the recent trouble.

He said the dispute was not with the overall UDA organisation but with C company, which he said was heavily involved in drugs dealing in co-operation with the LVF. "The Ulster Volunteer Force today calls upon responsible and sincere leaders within the UDA/UFF to exert any positive influence they may have so that our people may be shed of this scourge," he said.

"The lower Shankill drugs barons have also been responsible for a litany of looting, pillaging and intimidating loyalists from their homes. Even republicans have never displaced this community on such a scale."

PUP politician Mr William Smith said talks with the UDP would be futile because it exercised no control over the UDA's C company, which comprised "loose cannons". He called on the UDA leadership to put pressure on the Shankill UDA "so that we can get back to a normal way of life here".