The loyalist paramilitary organization, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), said Sunday that it was standing down at midnight as it believed the war in Northern Ireland was over, Ireland's national broadcaster RTE reported, according to dpa. The organization said at a Remembrance Day ceremony in Belfast that it was going to concentrate on "developing communities through peaceful means," RTE reported. The organization pledged to put its weapons beyond use and to work closely with the decommissioning body set up under the Northern Ireland peace process. It also condemned crime and drug-dealing. "I warmly welcome the statement by the UDA, in particular its acknowledgement that the conflict is over and its commitment to achieving a society where violence and weaponry belong to the past," Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said in a statement. The UDA's bitter rivals in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) announced a ceasefire in 1994 but did not officially end their armed campaign for a united Ireland until 2005. The UDA and its military wing, the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), was formed in the pro-British loyalist community in the early 1970s to fight the IRA. It has been dogged in recent years by charges that it is involved in organized crime, especially drugs.
