IN AN attempt to draw attention to the growing crisis facing the loyalist ceasefire, the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) last week issued a position paper directed at the political leadership in the Republic.
The PUP broadly reflects political thinking within the North's most dangerous loyalist paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).
The PUP's political education officer, Mr David Kirk, warned that southern political leaders were placing major strains on the loyalist ceasefire.
He wrote: "The loyalist community are very aware of the shifts in position taken by senior figures in the Republic. They are dismayed at the apparent eagerness to follow the Sinn Fein line.
"Surely, Irish nationalism will halt this mad rush to justify the Provo position. Any analysis of the situation will conclude that a form of `pan nationalism' which appears to excuse republican violence will impose immense strains on the CLMC [Combined Loyalist Military Command] ceasefire. Loyalist paramilitaries will equate bombs in London to bombs in Dublin".
Sources close to the UVF made it clear, as early as a week ago, that the organisation was on the brink of calling off its ceasefire.
It held a round of consultative meetings with its members to listen to the opinion of the membership. At all the meetings, the view was that the loyalists should call off the ceasefire, according to sources close to the leadership.
The threat to the loyalist ceasefire, however, has been misunderstood or misinterpreted.
Media reports quoting sources associated with the other main loyalist organisation, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), disputed the UVF's analysis and dismissed its threat to call off its ceasefire as either sabre rattling or as a result of internal tensions.
The UVF says it is not sabre rattling and that it remains a united and strong organisation. UVF sources say the only significant internal tensions in the loyalist camp have been within the UDA itself. They pointed out that earlier this year members of the UDA came close to killing a former UDA Inner Council member from south Belfast.
The mood within the UVF has swung significantly against the Republic in the past two months.
Even after the ending of the IRA ceasefire, with the Canary Wharf bombing on February 9th last, the loyalists maintained their lines of communication with the Government.
However, that ended almost two months ago after a meeting at Iveagh House at which members of the PUP held discussions with the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, and the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen.
The PUP insists the meeting was stormy and the Tanaiste highly critical of the British and unionist position on Northern Ireland. A Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman disputed this and described the meeting as "amicable".
The morning after the meeting the two governments announced the "proximity talks". The PUP believes it was, at least, discourteous of the Government not to have informed it on the previous evening of this initiative.
On its return to Belfast the PUP leadership, under Mr David Ervine, came under attack for maintaining direct links with a Dublin Government seen as increasingly sympathetic to Sinn Fein demands.
The direct lines of communication were cut.
The UVF view is that there is now broad sympathy within south&n political parties for Sinn Fein's position.
It is the loyalists' view that a "pan nationalist" approach to negotiations on the future of Northern Ireland will proceed with the assistance of IRA bombs.
Their view, close to that articulated by Mr Kirk of the PUP, is that if nationalism can make political advances through the use of bombs then so, too, can loyalism.
One figure said: "If that is what they want, they will wake up some day to a hole in O'Connell Street." The UVF is unconcerned at criticism levelled at it by other loyalists and unionists and is quite prepared to call off its ceasefire unilaterally, according to senior sources.
It is also insistent that it has the resources and ability to mount attacks in the Republic. It demonstrated this in May 1994 when it planted a 30kg bomb at the Window Scallans pub, in Dublin, during a Sinn Fein social function attended by a number of senior IRA figures in the city.
The bomb failed to explode but the bombers shot dead an IRA man standing at the door. If the bomb had exploded it could have brought down part of the building, killing dozens of people.
Later, the UVF planted another bomb on the Belfast Dublin train. The device partly exploded as the train pulled into Connolly Station, showering travellers with partially detonated commercial explosive.
A source close to the UVF last week said that if the IRA failed to return to its ceasefire and there were continued expressions of support for Sinn Fein's position from politicians in the Republic, a return to loyalist violence was "inevitable".