Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF)
The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) was probably founded in 1996 following a split between the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) — the second-largest loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland — and one of its mid-Ulster brigade commanders, Billy “King Rat” Wright.
The split occurred due to Wright's and his supporters' disagreement with the UVF leadership's support for the peace process. This acrimony came to a head during the 1996 “marching season,” the annual period in late summer when the loyalist Orange Order stages parades throughout Northern Ireland — some following traditional routes which changing demographics lead past or through Catholic areas. One of the most disputed marches passes through Drumcree, a town on the turf of Wright's brigade. The UVF opposed the marches that year, fearing they might imperil the peace process. Wright and his followers berated this policy and threatened violence should the marches not occur. For his insubordination, the UVF leadership gave Wright the option of voluntary exile or “summary execution.” Defiant, Wright and his supporters renounced the UVF and, soon thereafter, founded their own splinter group, the LVF.
Born of intra-UVF feuding, the LVF's origins helped foster an aberrant pattern of violence; that is, as much tension exists between the LVF and other loyalist groups as exists between the LVF and its republican-nationalist enemies. Since the LVF's inception, other loyalist groups have viewed Wright and his followers as rogues or “spoilers” of the peace process. Some rival loyalists have suggested that Billy Wright had been an informant/operative for MI5 (British domestic intelligence). Also, the LVF is one of the only loyalist groups not represented in the Combined Loyalist Military Command, an umbrella organization founded in 1991 to coordinate the main loyalist paramilitaries' activities.
Unlike the larger, more venerable violent groups such as the Irish Republican Army's manifold nationalist-republican offshoots or the thousands-strong, loyalist Ulster Defense Association (UDA), the LVF has seldom used bombings to achieve their aims. The LVF has claimed only three detonations, two of these being small, makeshift incendiary devices. Instead, the LVF's behavior resembles the street-gang variety with some mafia-like tendencies. Specifically, most of the LVF's attacks tend to be turf-war reprisals against rival loyalists or murders of inconspicuous individuals of little or no political significance, meant to enrage the republicans and foil peace negotiations.
Except for a thin veil of pro-British rhetoric and the political impact intended by the timing of its attacks, most LVF killings more closely resemble bigoted hate crimes. The first murder associated with the LVF was that of Catholic taxi driver Michael McGoldrick. Occurring at the height of the Drumcree standoff, authorities assumed that Wright directed his gunmen to commit a random murder in hopes of intimidating the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and foiling the ceasefire. However, the confessions of LVF insiders suggest that the killing was intended to be Billy Wright's “birthday present.” Another murder with no direct political significance was that of 18-year-old Bernadette Martin, a Catholic murdered while in her Protestant boyfriend's home.
The murder of McGoldrick led eventually to the conviction of Wright under charges of ordering the murder. Wright was initially sent to Maghaberry prison then to the high-security Maze facility several months later. On Dec. 27, 1997, Wright was shot dead within the Maze by imprisoned members of the Irish National Liberation Army, a Catholic-republican terrorist group. Wright became a martyr to the LVF's cause, while his close lieutenant, Mark “Swinger” Fulton, took charge of the group.
Under Swinger Fulton, from January 1998, until June 2002, the LVF initially appeared to be softening —unilaterally declaring a ceasefire in May, 1998, and encouraging citizens to vote “no” in the 1998 referendum on enhanced autonomy. That December, the LVF became the first group to relinquish weapons to the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. Though not often publicized, it is understood in the Ulster area that the LVF's decommissioning (like that of other groups) was not as profound as many believed; the weapons handed over being few and decrepit.
Though the LVF was suspected of killings and drug-smuggling, the United Kingdom's Northern Ireland Office (NIO) recognized their ceasefire, making 1999 a quiet year for the terrorist group. January 2000 saw the reemergence of hostility with the UVF after that group blamed the LVF for the shooting of Richard Jameson. The LVF and UVF increased reprisals while the former began using a banner of convenience, the Red Hand Defenders, to claim attacks. Simultaneous developments stimulated conflict between the UVF and the UDA's “C Company” (a.k.a. Ulster Freedom Fighters or UFF when claiming an attack). Hoping to forge an alliance, LVF members approached C Company commander Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair, an old friend of Wright who had avenged his murder with attacks against the INLA and later helped carry Swinger Fulton's coffin. The LVF's increased feuding led the NIO to “specify” the group (i.e. abrogating its ceasefire).
In June, 2002, Swinger Fulton was found dead in his cell, apparently from suicide. After his death, his cousin Gary Fulton assumed command but was soon arrested himself and later accepted the leadership of ruthless LVF veteran Robin King. Camaraderie grew between the LVF leadership and Johnny Adair. Rumors abounded in late 2002 that 70-odd LVF members were defecting to join Adair's UFF. Robin King's hold on the LVF grew tenuous, leading British officials to suspect that the LVF and UFF might merge outright under Adair's leadership. However, Adair's brief but frequent arrests and prison sentences kept him in the authorities' spotlight, making him a problematic candidate to lead a unified LVF-UFF. Moreover, zealous reprisal killings eventually resulted in the death of an important UDA leader. Adair conjured the acrimony of the entire UDA who gave him the option of exile or death in late 2001. Instead, he was again incarcerated, remaining in prison at the time of this writing.
Currently the LVF is on the U.S. State Department's List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, although curiously, the UVF is not. The LVF is estimated to have 50 to 150 activists and about 300 supporters, making it a relatively small group. It is thought to possess modest weapons caches consisting of rifles, a few machine guns, grenades and an unknown amount of Powergel commercial explosives. It is one of only a handful of groups that has attacked towns bordering the Republic of Ireland, occasionally letting bullets cross that border. As a professed supporter of the status quo, the LVF was never pressured to be sophisticated in tactics or in organization. Leadership remains in dispute though Robin King, Gary Fulton, and two other prospects have adhered to a quasi-democratic process within the LVF to determine who prevails.
Drug-trafficking and racketeering have become the LVF's reason for being. Its increasingly criminal, almost mafia-like, character now compels the NIO and Police Service of Northern Ireland (as the RUC has been renamed) to negotiate less gingerly with the LVF. Tensions with the UDA and the UVF remain high. Surrounded by uncertainty, the LVF's next moves will be critical for its future.
Sources:
“Biographies of Prominent People,” Cain Web Service, cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/people/biography/dpeople.htm
“Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) Ceasefire Statement,” May 15, 1998, Cain Web Service, cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/peace/docs/lvf15598.htm
“Loyalist Volunteer Force,” FAS Intelligence Resource Program, www.fas.org/irp/world/para/lvf.htm
“Loyalist Volunteer Force,” International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, www.ict.org.il/inter_ter/orgdet.cfm?orgid=72
“LVF,” Scottish Loyalists, www.scottishloyalists.com/paramilitaries/lvf.htm
“LVF,” Terrorist Group Profiles, Dudley Knox Library, Naval Postgraduate School, library.nps.navy.mil/home/tgp/lvf.htm
“Paramilitaries - Loyalist Volunteer Force,” BBC News Wars and Conflict Fact Files, www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/troubles/factfiles/lvf.shtml
Timothy Curry, phone interview, August 2003.
Author(s): Eli Jellenc
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