Red Hand Defenders

The Red Hand Defenders (RHD), believed to be a cover organization for members of the Ulster Defense Association (UDA) and the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), is a Northern Irish terrorist organization that has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on Roman Catholics, beginning in 1998. The image of the “red hand” comes from the coat of arms of an ancient Irish family; in modern times it was adopted by Protestants as a symbol of the northern county of Ulster.

Beginning in the late 1960s, Northern Ireland was the scene of a 30-year conflict between the province's Catholics, or Republicans, who wanted Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic of Ireland, and the province's Protestants, or Loyalists, who wanted it to continue as part of the United Kingdom. Both Protestants and Catholics fielded armed paramilitary groups that used violence to achieve their ends. In April 1998, the governments of Britain and Ireland signed a peace accord known as the Good Friday Agreement. The agreement laid out a plan to achieve political stability in Northern Ireland and included a provision that persons imprisoned for terrorist activities on behalf of the paramilitary groups would be released on a specific timetable.

Extreme members of both Loyalist and Republican organizations refused to recognize the Good Friday Agreement and split from the larger paramilitaries, forming their own terrorist groups. When the Red Hand Defenders emerged in 1998 and first began to claim responsibility for the bombings and sectarian killings, many observers believed them to be a splinter group. The Red Hand Defenders have claimed responsibility for several sectarian murders, mortar bomb attacks on Catholic homes, and the attempted bombing of a pub that served both Catholics and Protestants.

The Red Hand Defenders’ most prominent victim was the human rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson, who defended both Protestants and Catholics and had filed hundreds of briefs charging Northern Ireland's police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), with brutality. Nelson claimed she had received death threats from RUC officers. On the early afternoon of March 15, 1999, she returned to her car after dropping off her daughter at school; a bomb attached to the undercarriage exploded, blowing off Nelson's lower legs and trapping her in the car. She died two hours later. A spokesperson for the RHD called local newspapers to claim responsibility. However, the sophistication of the device and Nelson's antagonistic relationship with the RUC led some to question the claim and to further speculate that the RHD was merely a cover name used by members of the larger Loyalist groups. Suspicion fell on the Ulster Defense Association (UDA), which was associated with a group called the Red Hand Commandos in the 1970s, and the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), the last Loyalist organization to declare a cease-fire.

In January 2002, the Red Hand Defenders claimed responsibility for the killing of a Catholic postman, Daniel McColgan; other sources have implicated the UDA in the attack. The RHD then issued a warning to Catholic civil servants and teachers, stating that they were now considered legitimate targets. The murder and subsequent announcement are believed to be related to a dispute between Protestant residents of the Glenbryn neighborhood and Catholic parents whose children attend the nearby Holy Cross primary school. On January 16, 2002, the Red Hand Defenders announced they were revoking the warning, apparently in response to public condemnation by the UDA leadership. A further announcement was [Page 503]made that the group would disband, but just a few months later it claimed responsibility for a nail-bomb attack on the home of a prominent Republican.

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