Arms
The group collaborated with the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) to procure arms. In June 1987 the UVF stole more than £300,000 from the Northern Bank in Portadown. The money was used to buy 206 Vz. 58 assault rifles, 94 Browning 9mm pistols, 4 RPG-7 rocket launchers and 62 warheads, 450 RGD-5 grenades and 30,000 rounds of ammunition which arrived at Belfast docks from Lebanon in December 1987. The weapons were then transported to a farm between Armagh and Portadown, to await collection by the three groups.
On 8 January 1988 as they attempted to transport their share of the weapons from Portadown to Belfast in a convoy of three cars, the UDA's share was intercepted at a Royal Ulster Constabulary checkpoint. 61 assault rifles, 30 Brownings, 150 grenades and over 11,000 rounds of ammunition were seized and three UDA men arrested. Davy Payne, the UDA's North Belfast Brigadier was sentenced to 19 years in prison and the two others to 14 years each. A UR member, Noel Little, a former Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldier and the Armagh chairman of the Ulster Clubs was arrested in connection with the find under the Prevention of Terrorism Act but released without charge.
Part of the UVF's share of the weapons was among weapons recovered in February 1988. A RPG7 rocket launcher with 26 warheads, 38 assault rifles, 15 Brownings, 100 grenades and 40,000 rounds of ammunition were found following searches in the Upper Crumlin Road area of North Belfast.
In November 1988 part of the Ulster Resistance share of the weapons was uncovered in police searches at a number of locations in County Armagh around Markethill, Hamiltonsbawn and in Armagh itself. Among the items recovered was a RPG7 rocket launcher and 5 warheads, 3 assault rifles, a Browning pistol, 10 grenades, 12,000 rounds of ammunition and combat equipment. Also discovered in the arms caches were parts of a Javelin surface-to-air missile and a number of Ulster Resistance red berets.
In September 1989 a 33 year old man from Poyntzpass and a 35 year old man from Tandragee were jailed to 9 years and 6 years respectively for storing and moving weapons and explosives on behalf of UR. In January 1990 a 32 year old former member of the UDR from Richill was jailed for 12 years for possessing UR arms and explosives.
The DUP subsequently claimed that they had severed links with the group in 1987.
Read more about this topic: Ulster Resistance
Famous quotes containing the word arms:
“There are some people who want to throw their arms round you simply because it is Christmas; there are other people who want to strangle you simply because it is Christmas.”
—Robert Lynd (1879–1949)
“His eloquence was of every kind, and he excelled in the argumentative as well as in the declamatory way. But his invectives were terrible, and uttered with such energy of diction, and stern dignity of action and countenance, that he intimidated those who were the most willing and the best able to encounter him. Their arms fell out of their hands, and they shrunk under the ascendant which his genius gained over theirs.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Happy for us, that when we find our constitutions defective and insufficient to secure the happiness of our people, we can assemble with all the coolness of philosophers and set it to rights, while every other nation on earth must have recourse to arms to amend or to restore their constitutions.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)