Ervine says loyalist ceasefire weakening

A LEADING loyalist spokesman has warned that the loyalist paramilitary ceasefire is becoming increasingly fragile. Mr David Ervine of the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) said the mood among the loyalist paramilitaries was worse now than after the IRA Canary Wharf bomb.

Mr Ervine said yesterday there were hard line loyalists who believed that if the IRA could try to gain political advantage through violence then loyalist paramilitaries should do the same.

He also accused politicians in the Republic of compounding the difficulties by "electioneering".

Mr Ervine said the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, had shown great insensitivity by admitting he had attempted to be instrumental in dealing with the parades issue in Northern Ireland.

Mr Ervine said such statements gave hard liners "the luxury of saying I told you there was Dublin involvement. He knew what he was doing. As to which constituency is he appealing, he certainly is not appealing to mine."

Politicians, he claimed, were "destroying us. The situation is not good. It is certainly not good when people like ourselves are beginning to get marginalised," he said.

In a number of media interviews yesterday, Mr Ervine said there was a growing sense of "doom and gloom" among elements within the UVF, UDA, and Red Hand Commando, particularly following last week's IRA bombing attempt at Hammersmith Bridge in London.

The mood among hardline loyalists was now worse than any time in the past 18 months, he said. "It has been created unfortunately by the attitude of constitutional nationalism, particularly in the Irish Republic," he said.

The suggestion that Sinn Fein should be allowed into talks with out an IRA ceasefire had particularly annoyed loyalists. "That suggests very much to loyalists that its all right, you can commit all the violence you wish and you, will be admitted to the process at the very same place at which you left it," he told UTV.

"It effectively suggests that there is no punishment for violence. On the other hand we have republicans committing violence for political leverage," he added.

"There are those who believe that if there is any merit in republicans engaging in violence, there is certainly merit in loyalists doing it," said Mr Ervine.

He told the Belfast Telegraph the situation in relation to the IRA "has us all in a degree of terror of the unknown".

"There is also a sense of betrayal towards the British government and slowly but surely they are beginning to believe that the IRA are not interested in any form of accommodation, but simply interested in victory.

"The temperature has undoubtedly changed for the worse. One can only hope that we can continue to lobby and can continue to create the arguments that suggest that one shouldn't do what one's enemy wants them to do," Mr Ervine added.