Group Says IRA Must Talk Disarmament Before It Will

An outlawed pro-British group said Wednesday that it will not talk to Belfast’s disarmament commission unless its Irish Republican Army enemies do so first, a position at odds with the latest plans to make Northern Ireland’s peace accord work.

The announcement by the Ulster Defense Assn.--the biggest paramilitary group in Northern Ireland, with more than 1,000 members in hard-line Protestant districts--was certain to complicate and confuse efforts to persuade others to compromise.

A plan brokered this month by American mediator George J. Mitchell requires the province’s major Protestant party, the Ulster Unionists, to drop its long-standing demand for IRA disarmament in advance of the formation of a new Protestant-Roman Catholic government for Northern Ireland.

The Ulster Unionists’ ruling council is scheduled to vote Saturday on whether to accept the painful policy shift.

As part of selling the move to skeptical Ulster Unionists, Mitchell’s plan calls for the IRA and the province’s two major outlawed pro-British groups, the UDA and the smaller Ulster Volunteer Force, to begin negotiations with the disarmament commission on the same day the government receives powers.

But Wednesday’s statement by the six-member command of the UDA said the group would not appoint a representative to meet the commission before the IRA’s representative began discussions.

Although the UDA didn’t say how long it would wait, any delay would violate the careful sequence of concessions proposed by Mitchell, who expected all three paramilitary groups to take disarmament steps together.

The UDA said recent statements by the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party “have cast some doubt upon commitments given by the IRA.” As a result, it said, it must “defer its decision” to meet the disarmament commission “until after the IRA has met its commitments.”

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams downplayed the significance of the announcement, saying he’d never expected the UDA to deal with the disarmament commission.