The Ulster Unionist Assembly member, Mr Peter Weir, has said the British government's continuing silence on Provisional IRA violence is an effective sanctioning of murder.
"I am deeply angered at the deafening silence of ministers over recent IRA activity. They have turned a Nelsonian blind eye to consistent IRA activity from punishment beatings to shootings, from arms importation to the murders of Andrew Kearney, Eamonn Collins, `Speedy' Fegan and Charlie Bennett.
"One wonders if Mo Mowlam was transported to the Western Front in 1917 would she declare that no violent activity was taking place? It seems nothing will ever constitute a breach of the IRA ceasefire.
"In effect, the government is saying that so long as the IRA doesn't make it too obvious or claim direct responsibility, it can carry on murdering members of its own community at will.
"Government silence . . . is in effect government sanction of murder. Effectively, the government will be complicit in the IRA campaign of cleansing nationalist areas of anyone they do not like. It is time for the Northern Ireland Office to end its silence and stop others being silenced for ever."
Meanwhile, the Alliance president, Dr Philip McGarry, has said decommissioning violence is more important than decommissioning weapons.
He said the Provisional IRA seemed to believe it could murder people while claiming, for the purposes of the Belfast Agreement, that its ceasefire was intact.
"The Alliance party has always taken the view that decommissioning is important in terms of building trust.
"However, the upsurge in paramilitary activity over recent months has made it clear decommissioning the activists is much more important than decommissioning weapons," he said.