Analysis: The UDA initiative over the weekend has more to do with ending its feud than ending its campaign, writes Dan Keenan
The rolling of the eyes by many nationalists and republicans at the UDA's decision to call 12 months of "military inactivity" was not solely due to that organisation's decision to entitle its "peace" initiative after the late John Gregg.
The Rathcoole leader, one of the most hawkish of the UDA's so-called brigadiers, was shot dead at the beginning of this month and Johnny Adair's renegade "C company" are believed to be responsible.
Catholic shoulders shrug at what they see as the irony of naming a peace initiative after a violent man who openly regretted failing to murder Gerry Adams.
After a prolonged and widespread campaign of attacks on Catholics in north Belfast and beyond in Co Antrim, and the murders of the likes of Danny McColgan, Gavin Brett and others, there is a scepticism among many about the UDA's word.
There are good grounds for this. UDA pronouncements are not held in high regard, not by ordinary Catholics and not by the British government, which ruled in the autumn of 2001 that its 1994 ceasefire had degenerated into a cruel fraud.
There was no political dimension to the UDA feud which erupted last September and culminated spectacularly in the re-imprisonment of Adair, the murder of Gregg and the flight of Adair's core supporters to Scotland under police protection. The series of murders and gun attacks was ideology-free and had more to do with personality clashes and turf wars among local bosses.
Much negative comment follows the decision not to decommission weapons until republican paramilitaries do, and the insistence that there will continue to be a bar on contacts with Sinn Féin.
It is also felt that the UDA apology for involvement in drugs and racketeering will be believed when it is seen to be true. The UDA has also insisted that what is the North's largest paramilitary organisation will not be stood down and no option will be considered until "the level of threat to the entire unionist/Protestant community has been eliminated". The UDA statement ends, ominously for some: "The Ulster Defence Association will, as always, be the last line of defence."
But for all the scepticism there are straws in the wind. The UDA will submit a new name to Gen de Chastelain's decommissioning body, and there is evidence that the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG) may attempt to fill the gap left by the failure of Gary McMichael's Ulster Democratic Party.
Frankie Gallagher, a councillor and spokesman for the UPRG, which opposes the Belfast Agreement, spoke at the weekend of a need for "a comprehensive, real and genuine settlement". He said there was a need to move beyond talk of a "process" which had struggled on since 1994. He made it clear it was his belief that, despite the UPRG's dislike of the agreement, there was no case for violence.
The UPRG statement also refers to working to defuse interface violence in Belfast and to encourage and foster "fresh proposals and initiatives from within the unionist/Protestant community".
Despite the view that the finding of a cache of UDA pipe bombs last week was something short of decommissioning, and that the weekend's pledges come from voices not normally believed, there are encouraging signs.
It is clear that the UDA and the political community from which it springs is intent on rebuilding and putting its feuding past behind it. The paramilitary group remains - but its tone has changed.