Fresh loyalist tensions have emerged in east Belfast just months after the UVF stood down its leadership in the area.
A dispute has erupted on social media ahead of a commemoration for two UVF men killed in a premature bomb explosion almost 50 years ago.
The event in memory of Joe Long (33) and James Cordner (23) is to take place at Pitt Park, off the Newtownards Road, on Friday.
The pair died after a bomb they were carrying exploded at Corporation Street in Belfast in February 1977.
In a statement, Action for Community Transformation (ACT) Initiative (Central) urged loyalists not to attend the event, which has been organised by the rival East Belfast ACT Initiative.
The ACT charity, which was founded “to facilitate the civilianisation” of the UVF, gained charitable status in 2012.
The latest fall out came just months after it was reported that the UVF’s leadership in east Belfast had been stood down, including its alleged former commander Stephen ‘Mackers’ Matthews.
Matthews denies any link to either criminality or the UVF.
The UVF’s east Belfast unit has in the past been linked to drug dealing and other criminality, including murder.
In its post the ACT Initiative (central) said its rival East Belfast grouping has “no association” with the “regional” initiative.
The group made an allegation against the organisers of the commemoration and suggested that those who backed the principles of the dead UVF men “should offer no support for this proposed event”.
“The Act initiative is currently undergoing a restructuring process in east Belfast whereby the community contribution of Long/Cordner and others will be honoured appropriately at future events,” the statement said.
Responding the East Belfast ACT said: “The individual provocateurs involved are well known to the good people of East Belfast ... and attempts to incite trouble will continue to fail, just as they have in the past.”
And it added in a statement: “Any attempt to misrepresent this organisation will not go unchallenged or uncorrected.”
The East Belfast statement denied it any involvement in criminality and said it supported the PSNI.
In a statement on Thursday evening, the families of the two UVF men said the memorial was being organised by East Belfast ACT “at our direct request”, and that they were “disgusted at the attack launched against the event”.
They added the dispute had “besmirched the names of the families, former comrades from the 1970s and supporters of this long-standing event”.
Dr Aaron Edwards, a leading expert on loyalism and author of ‘UVF: Behind the Mask’ said: “Whatever decision was taken has not been as effective as the UVF leadership might have thought.
“Certainly the UVF central leadership is concerned about the growing proliferation of drugs in that part of the city and the bad light that it casting on the rest of the organisation, that still has not been resolved.”
