Combined Loyalist Military Command

Template:IrishL The Combined Loyalist Military Command was an umbrella body for loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland set up in the early 1990s, recalling the earlier Ulster Army Council and Ulster Loyalist Central Co-ordinating Committee.

Bringing together the leaderships of the Ulster Defence Association, the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Red Hand Commandos, the CLMC sought to ensure that the groups would work towards the same goals. The group was made up of a number of ‘Liaison Officers’ who were senior figures from the paramilitary groups themselves, as well as from the Ulster Democratic Party and the Progressive Unionist Party (the RHC did not have a political wing).

The CLMC first tested the idea of a ceasefire in 1991 when it called a halt to all action from the 29 April to 4 July of that year. Although the ceasefire was not universally observed by all members it did indicate that the CLMC was open to the possibility of ending its campaign and a line of negotiation was opened afterwards with Robin Eames, the head of the Church of Ireland.

After a long process of consultation with members and activists across Northern Ireland, the CLMC called a ceasefire in 1994, bringing loyalists fully into the peace process. The ceasefire, however, proved difficult to maintain and in 1996 the CLMC was forced to distance itself from the murder of a Catholic taxi driver by a UVF member. They were further embarrassed by television pictures that year showing loyalists at Drumcree Church being led against the security forces by Billy Wright, at the time a UVF member. Wright was soon expelled for his renegade actions along with a number of his followers who soon reconstituted as the Loyalist Volunteer Force, continuing without ceasefire.

Despite no longer having full control of Loyalism, the CLMC carried on and supported the signing of the Belfast Agreement. However since then the CLMC has effectively ceased to exist as the UVF and UDA were embroiled in a loyalist feud over Johnny Adair and commitment to the Agreement has wavered. Overall control of Loyalism has largely been lost to the CLMC and, whilst it is still theoretically maintained, it is no longer the important body that it once was.

The subsequesnt Loyalist Commission (LC) represented the political work of the new McMichael-ite UDA politicos, known as the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG), and the Ervine inspired Progressive Unionist Party (PUP). Led by the UPRGs liberal but tough East Belfast faction, Frankie Gallagher, and Dawn Purvis the new leader of the Progressive Unionist Party (aligned to the equally liberal but loyal Red Hand Commando and Ulster Volunteer Force), the post-Ervine vacuum murders by the Duffy led CIRA-RIRA alliance were rendered ineffective when even the hardline Loylaist Volunteer Force refused to retaliate to several murders in March 2009.

Many duly credit the CLMC/LC with the final say in the Northern Irish peace process, in that they managed somehow to not only avoid retaliation to the March 2009 killings, but brought albeit unofficially on board, the to date un-aligned LVF.

At the Belfast peace rally of 12 March 2009 a body calling itself the Combined Loyalists for Peace appeared. UDA leader leader Jackie McDonald confirmed that groups thoughts on a BBC interview when he said loyalists would not be goaded into reaction adding that "clowns" would not spoil the loyalist peace strategy.

Bibliography

• H. McDonald & J. Cusack, UDA – Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror, Dublin, Penguin Ireland, 2004

Jonathan Galway-Jackson PgD (Conflict UU) BA (Hons) jonnyjok@hotmail.com