Many see LVF statement as a fig leaf to hide defeat, writes Dan Keenan, Northern News Editor.
The Loyalist Volunteer Force was perhaps that most dangerous of groups - a paramilitary force without a cause.
Portadown loyalists under the leadership of a clinical killer, Billy Wright, split from the Ulster Volunteer Force around 1996.
They are said to have fiercely resisted the calling of a joint UDA-UVF ceasefire which was declared by loyalist father figure Gusty Spence in October 1994 and which had the imprimatur (if that's the word) of the Combined Loyalist Military Command.
Wright and his followers in north Armagh believed that an effective counter measure to the IRA was to murder and terrorise ordinary Catholics. Such means, they believed, would force the IRA out of business through pressure from its own grass-roots. Amid the fury of the unionist reaction to Drumcree at the time, Wright's message won him popularity and not a little prestige.
This served to intensify the mutual hostility between Wright in particular, the LVF in general, and their former colleagues-in-arms in the UVF. Internecine violence was inevitable.
Despite having no political wing or clearly enunciated political demands, the LVF was, oddly, the first paramilitary group to put any of its weapons beyond use.
The move was widely regarded with suspicion and viewed as a transparent attempt to benefit from the prisoner-release scheme under the Belfast Agreement, which the LVF denounced.
In the only example to date of visible arms decommissioning, barrels were sawn off weapons before television cameras.
However, it soon became apparent that the LVF had no intention either of ending violence or "going political".
Its members have been linked to the murders of solicitor Rosemary Nelson and journalist Martin O'Hagan.
Wright was murdered by republicans inside the Maze prison on December 27th, 1997. That killing, the details of which were examined by retired Canadian judge Peter Cory, is now the subject of an inquiry.
The murder of its dominant central character left the LVF rudderless and even more unpredictable and ruthless.
Violent spats involving it and other loyalist groups - both the UVF and the UDA - were sparked over disputes linked to racketeering and drug-dealing and were also intensified by the original hostility which led to the split in the first place.
The most recent of such feuds erupted again last summer. Four men died, although many more attempted murders and shooting incidents were also recorded.
It became a vivid illustration of the UVF's relative strength that all the murders were carried out by it.
Families said to have been associated with the LVF were forced from their homes, most notably in late July when the UVF forced dozens to leave the Garnerville estate in east Belfast under the noses of the PSNI.
The feud caused problems within loyalism from the top down. Neighbour was set against neighbour in loyalist areas. Political sanctions were also levied against David Ervine's Progressive Unionist Party, which is aligned with the UVF.
Despite many calls on him to intervene, he pronounced himself unable to do anything to halt the violence.
The dominance of the UVF in the feud led to a lull in the killing in mid-August and the efforts of mediators began.
Few in Belfast believe that the latest statements - announcing an end to the feud and the call on LVF members to stand down - are anything more than a fig leaf to hide an LVF defeat by its rival.
Whatever the truth, neither Northern Ireland's Catholics, nor arguably the Irish and British governments, will mind.
January's report from the Independent Monitoring Commission is expected to dwell on an inactive IRA. If it also refers to significant scaling-down of loyalist activity, then the two governments will be yet more determined to push ahead with a concerted bid to restore the political process.