The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) has shifted dramatically from its position that it might never decommission weapons. The organisation is anxious to see disarmament, according to Mr Billy Hutchinson, who liases on behalf of the UVF with Gen John de Chastelain's decommissioning body.
The Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) politician said yesterday that the UVF wanted to decommission weaponry because it was "fearful" guns would fall into the hands of drugs and other criminal "cartels".
The question was when it "would feel safe" taking such an initiative, said Mr Hutchinson. This contradicts the previous UVF position that it might never hand over any weapons, even if the IRA did decommission.
"I have not met anybody in the UVF or the Red Hand who did not believe that the weapons needed to be put away," Mr Hutchinson told a pro-agreement meeting at Stormont yesterday organised by Alliance, the Women's Coalition, and his party, the PUP, which is linked to the UVF and the Red Hand Commando.
"They believe the weapons should be taken away in some shape or form. It's not a question that it should not happen, but when it should happen, and when they would feel safe for it to happen," he said.
Mr Hutchinson urged that the decommissioning issue should be taken out of the political process and left to the decommissioning body.
He said the British and Irish governments should ask Gen de Chastelain to present a report on the current stage of the disarmament process for subsequent discussion by the Assembly.
Mr Hutchinson was speaking during the meeting attended by about 50 business, trade union, and voluntary sector representatives. The broad consensus from the meeting was that the Northern executive should be formed, and that decommissioning should be tackled thereafter within the terms of the Belfast Agreement.
The three main speakers - Mr Sean Neeson of Alliance, Mr David Ervine of the PUP, and Ms Monica McWilliams of the Women's Coalition - urged those attending, and the wider public, to campaign for the agreement.
They said they should follow the example of the anti-agreement bloc and lobby for the full implementation of the agreement. "People should be making phone calls telling them to `get on with it', to `give it a try', to `use your leadership'," Mrs McWilliams said. Mr Neeson said the anti-agreement campaigners were seen to be making the "loudest noise". The pro-agreement sector should take a leaf from their book and individually and collectively write to politicians insisting that "this agreement is still very much alive".
Mr Ervine said people should write to the newspapers and lobby their politicians advocating the implementation of the agreement. He said the way to deal with decommissioning was not through "tokenist gestures", whereby paramilitaries would hand over some weapons in return for the formation of the executive. Politicians had to accept the concept of "deferred gratification" where, he implied, disarmament would happen after the executive was established.
Mr Mark Durkan, an SDLP Assembly member, said the Belfast Agreement achieved the "emancipation of hope" and the challenge now was to achieve "emancipation of opportunity" through the creation of the executive and the other agreement structures.
Meanwhile, Sinn Fein Assembly member Mr John Kelly has demanded that the posts of permanent secretaries of the proposed 10 executive departments be advertised rather than given to "existing civil servants".
"All 10 positions must be advertised publicly throughout the island and future appointees equality-proofed to reflect the new political reality which exists," he said.
