N. Irish Protestant guerillas urge end to violence

Northern Ireland's largest Protestant paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), yesterday called for an end to the street violence that has raged in Belfast for three consecutive nights.

The call for calm comes as London reviews the status of ceasefires declared by pro-British guerilla groups ahead of 1998's Good Friday peace agreement aimed at ending 30 years of conflict between Protestants and a pro-Irish Catholic minority.

While a government decision deeming the ceasefires had been broken would be largely symbolic, it would signal a change of attitude towards the paramilitaries and close off negotiating channels for the militants.

Northern Ireland police chief Hugh Orde accused the UDA and another guerilla group, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), at the weekend of involvement in some of the worst rioting seen in the British-ruled province for years.

"The UDA in north Belfast calls on those who have been involved in the ongoing hostilities to call a halt to their activities," the group said in a statement. North Belfast was the scene of some of the worst unrest as Protestant mobs attacked police with guns and bombs following Saturday's re-routing away from a Catholic neighbourhood of a disputed parade by members of the Orange Order which supports British rule.

In three nights of rioting some 60 police officers were injured and 63 people arrested.

The UDA said yesterday: "We are instructing our own membership to avoid any confrontation on the streets and steer away from any acts of violence."

The UDA, believed to have a membership of several thousands, was formed in 1971 as an umbrella organisation for a number of Protestant guerilla groups including the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF). It was declared illegal in 1992.

The UVF was first set up as a Protestant militia in 1912 but its current incarnation dates from the mid-1960s. Blamed for countless attacks on Catholics and a number of major bombings during the Northern Ireland conflict, it has recently been locked in a bloody feud with rival Loyalist Volunteer Force.