Irish American Information Service, Wire Services and Post Staff

The Ulster Democratic Party is to disband after a fallout with loyalist paramilitaries over backing for the Good Friday Agreement. Twelve years after its formation as the political wing of the Ulster Defense Association, the leadership announced Nov. 28 that it was folding "without rancor or ill-will."

The decision followed a series of splits and tensions over acts of violence by the UDA, even though they claimed to be still on ceasefire and supported the peace process.

A UDP statement said: "During the past months intensive discussions have taken place within the Ulster Democratic Party regarding the future electoral and representative viability of the party. These discussions are now at an end and it has been decided that, from this date, the UDP should be dissolved and therefore cease to exist as a political party."

The UDP leadership — including former leader Gary McMichael and David Adams - -aid in the statement that they would not make "any further media comment on this matter as further comment would serve no useful purpose."

Meanwhile, the leader of the nationalist SDLP, Mark Durkan, said he was disappointed to see the party dissolve.

"I would hope the dissolution of the UDP does not add further to the serious problems that are emerging at the hands of the UDA," he said.

Sinn Féin said an end to the UDP was worrying. Martin McGuinness, the party's Mid- Ulster MP and education minister at the Northern Ireland Assembly, said the UDA and republicans who rejected the Belfast Agreement should consider their actions. "The road which we are traveling, the road of the Good Friday Agreement and the road of the peace process is not one which are going to be easily shifted off," he indicated.

The Ulster Unionist Party's Dermott Nesbitt said "normality" was craved in Northern Ireland. "When the people of Northern Ireland voted in May, 1998, they voted for peace." He said dissent among rejectionists was dissent from what the people of the island wanted.

The statement added: "Former colleagues within the UDP having reached this decision without rancor or ill-will, wish to make it clear that they part on perfectly amicable terms." As part of the developing peace process at the time, the party played a significant role in persuading the UDA to declare a ceasefire in October, 1994, and at one stage had direct access to the political administrations in London, Dublin and Washington. But since the signing of the Belfast Agreement in April, 1998, the party has polled badly.

In January this year, major divisions emerged and in June the party failed to register for the local government elections. A month later, UDA leadership withdrew its support for the Agreement. Security chiefs believe paramilitary elements are now heavily involved in drugs and racketeering.

The father of leading party member Gary McMichaelwas one of a number of the party to have been murdered by the IRA. John McMichael, the UDP's first chairman, died when a car bomb exploded under his car at Lisburn, Co. Antrim in December, 1987.

Cecil McKnight was the party's chairman when he was shot dead by the IRA in Derry in June, 1991. And just before the Provisionals declared their first ceasefire in August,1994, they shot dead one of Gary McMichael's closest political associates, Ray Smallwoods, also in Lisburn. The current chairman, John White, served a life sentence for the murders of a couple killed in a frenzied knife attack at an isolated quarry on the outskirts of Belfast in June, 1973.

In October, the UDA ceasefire was declared over after Northern Ireland Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan delivered a report to the government confirming that the UDA had been directing months of rioting in north Belfast during which the police were attacked with guns and blast bombs. It had also been behind a pipe bombing campaign targeting Catholic-owned homes in the north of the city. Security sources said the UDA was also behind trouble on the Shankill Road.