Salon Newsreal | Northern Ireland: Who will police the police?

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NORTHERN IRELAND: WHO WILL POLICE THE POLICE? | PAGE 2 OF 2
While the Belfast Agreement mandates police reform over two years, there is no reining in of the broad repressive powers granted the RUC. As Nelson points out, "When someone is picked up by the RUC and taken to a detention center, the right to a fair trial dies right there." A person can be detained up to seven days with no charges preferred and can be deprived of legal advice for 48 hours. Interrogations often continue day and night, with legal counsel barred from the proceedings. And under the Criminal Evidence Order, a client's right to silence can be used in court to corroborate any evidence the police present.
In the weeks leading up to the accord, evidence of the full range of RUC abuses began to emerge. In a report to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the U.N. rapporteur to Northern Ireland, Dr. Param Cumaraswami, described how the civil and political rights of RUC detainees were systematically suspended. In particular, the U.N. report cited the degree to which lawyers for nationalist political prisoners are targeted by the RUC for harrassment, surveillance and death threats.
Coming on the heels of the U.N. report is a book called "The Committee," by Irish investigative reporter Sean McPhilemy. The book, published in the United States by Roberts Rinehart, is an expansion of a 1991 British television documentary and it reveals how high-ranking RUC and British Army officers, along with Ulster Unionist businesspeople, clergy and politicians, worked together to select nationalist targets for assassination by loyalist hit men.
Whether and how far the RUC should be reformed is one of the most contentious issues in the referendum campaign. Nationalists, who for years have been plastering the North with signs reading "RUC: 93 Percent Protestant, 100 Percent Loyalist," see no solution short of disbanding the RUC and building an entirely new police force. Unionists largely believe the RUC to be an effective bulwark against terrorism. Many "no" votes in Friday's referendum are expected to come from Unionists who fear that the RUC is going to lose not only its recognizability but even its name. Ronnie Flanagan, chief constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, recently enthused to London's Daily Telegraph that "it makes us proud" to have "a title conferred by royal charter. There are few policing organizations in the world that enjoy that privilege."
Flanagan is also bucking any suggestion that former paramilitaries might be allowed to join a newly configured police force. This is as unrealistic as it is shortsighted: Apart from the violence emanating from "The Troubles," the streets of Northern Irish cities have been and continue to be astonishingly safe -- and the credit for this goes not to the RUC but to the paramilitaries who constitute the grass-roots law enforcement in their respective communities.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently made a move that may help precisely because it provides an equal-opportunity irritant: He named Chris Patten, Britain's final governor in Hong Kong, as head of an independent body looking to reform Northern Irish law enforcement. Patten is a former Conservative Party MP, so it's hard to imagine a large nationalist constituency cheering his appointment. But Unionists could find as much to be worried about: Patten is a Catholic, who as a junior minister to Northern Ireland once supported the predominantly Catholic Derry City Council's shortening of its name from Londonderry. And there are other factors that make him an interesting choice: While Patten had the thankless job of lowering the British flag on Hong Kong, he did so only after instituting wide-ranging democratic reforms there that infuriated Foreign Office mandarins who'd been accustomed to running the island like a fiefdom.
But the huge task of transforming the notoriously sectarian RUC into a representative, accountable policing body with widespread community support will require more than the unusual talents of a maverick Tory Catholic. There will need to be a vigorous international presence, even though many Unionists still object to any such idea as "outside interference." They might want to look to South Africa, whose relatively rapid evolution to postapartheid policing required not only considerable outside financial support for training purposes but also community-policing expertise from the U.S., Japan and elsewhere. Nor was the Mandela government too proud to call upon outside civil liberties scholars to help rewrite South Africa's criminal laws.
The good news about Northern Ireland is that the 30-year-old war appears to be over. While there will likely be further deaths and acts of destruction caused by the marginalized rejectionist fringes on each side, the Northern Irish people, Protestant and Catholic, are overwhelmingly opposed to a resumption of war. Recently, when the Protestant demagogue Rev. Ian Paisley tried to address the international press corps about the evils of the settlement, young and middle-aged loyalists drowned out his hellfire rhetoric with shouts of "Dinosaur!" and "You sent one generation of loyalists to prison, you won't be sending another!"
The sense on the streets of Northern Ireland is not only that a settlement is a good thing, but that citizens at the grass roots are confident they can sustain it. That feeling will remain only if the day-to-day justice issues are dealt with intelligently and swiftly. If it remains business as usual at Royal Ulster Constabulary headquarters, and Rosemary Nelson's clients continue to emerge battered and bloody from police interrogation, then the euphoria and the hopes will quickly evaporate.
SALON | May 20, 1998
Margaret Spillane writes frequently about culture and politics for the Nation and other publications.
Ireland: Peace in our time? Join the discussion in Table Talk.

O N+O T H E R S I T E S Background on the peace accord at ABCNEWS.com T A B L E+T A L K Things are getting hot in the Lone Star state! Weigh in on Texas politics in the Politics area of Table Talk D A I L Y+Q U O T E Jesus ad campaign: "You're going to hell" R E C E N T L Y Kenneth Starr's sex appeal By Todd Pitock The independent counsel may be pursuing truth and justice. But he also may have an eye for some of the more down-to-earth things in life (05/19/98) The anatomy of a virtual conspiracy By Peter J. Ognibene Unable to defeat him at the polls, President Clinton's foes use the press to spread rumors, allegations, speculations and lies (05/18/98) A country amok By Jonathan Broder Indonesia is past the point of peaceful change (05/15/98) "A weapon so powerful, it will destroy the world" By Sarita Sarvate The nation of Buddha, the Veddas and Mahatma Gandhi wants to be a nuclear giant (05/15/98) Indian roulette By Jonathan Broder The world's largest democracy goes nuclear, and gambles that it can survive the sanctions coming down on its head (05/14/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		NORTHERN IRELAND: WHO WILL POLICE THE POLICE? \| PAGE 2 OF 2 While the Belfast Agreement mandates police reform over two years, there is no reining in of the broad repressive powers granted the RUC. As Nelson points out, "When someone is picked up by the RUC and taken to a detention center, the right to a fair trial dies right there." A person can be detained up to seven days with no charges preferred and can be deprived of legal advice for 48 hours. Interrogations often continue day and night, with legal counsel barred from the proceedings. And under the Criminal Evidence Order, a client's right to silence can be used in court to corroborate any evidence the police present. In the weeks leading up to the accord, evidence of the full range of RUC abuses began to emerge. In a report to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the U.N. rapporteur to Northern Ireland, Dr. Param Cumaraswami, described how the civil and political rights of RUC detainees were systematically suspended. In particular, the U.N. report cited the degree to which lawyers for nationalist political prisoners are targeted by the RUC for harrassment, surveillance and death threats. Coming on the heels of the U.N. report is a book called "The Committee," by Irish investigative reporter Sean McPhilemy. The book, published in the United States by Roberts Rinehart, is an expansion of a 1991 British television documentary and it reveals how high-ranking RUC and British Army officers, along with Ulster Unionist businesspeople, clergy and politicians, worked together to select nationalist targets for assassination by loyalist hit men. Whether and how far the RUC should be reformed is one of the most contentious issues in the referendum campaign. Nationalists, who for years have been plastering the North with signs reading "RUC: 93 Percent Protestant, 100 Percent Loyalist," see no solution short of disbanding the RUC and building an entirely new police force. Unionists largely believe the RUC to be an effective bulwark against terrorism. Many "no" votes in Friday's referendum are expected to come from Unionists who fear that the RUC is going to lose not only its recognizability but even its name. Ronnie Flanagan, chief constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, recently enthused to London's Daily Telegraph that "it makes us proud" to have "a title conferred by royal charter. There are few policing organizations in the world that enjoy that privilege." Flanagan is also bucking any suggestion that former paramilitaries might be allowed to join a newly configured police force. This is as unrealistic as it is shortsighted: Apart from the violence emanating from "The Troubles," the streets of Northern Irish cities have been and continue to be astonishingly safe -- and the credit for this goes not to the RUC but to the paramilitaries who constitute the grass-roots law enforcement in their respective communities. British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently made a move that may help precisely because it provides an equal-opportunity irritant: He named Chris Patten, Britain's final governor in Hong Kong, as head of an independent body looking to reform Northern Irish law enforcement. Patten is a former Conservative Party MP, so it's hard to imagine a large nationalist constituency cheering his appointment. But Unionists could find as much to be worried about: Patten is a Catholic, who as a junior minister to Northern Ireland once supported the predominantly Catholic Derry City Council's shortening of its name from Londonderry. And there are other factors that make him an interesting choice: While Patten had the thankless job of lowering the British flag on Hong Kong, he did so only after instituting wide-ranging democratic reforms there that infuriated Foreign Office mandarins who'd been accustomed to running the island like a fiefdom. But the huge task of transforming the notoriously sectarian RUC into a representative, accountable policing body with widespread community support will require more than the unusual talents of a maverick Tory Catholic. There will need to be a vigorous international presence, even though many Unionists still object to any such idea as "outside interference." They might want to look to South Africa, whose relatively rapid evolution to postapartheid policing required not only considerable outside financial support for training purposes but also community-policing expertise from the U.S., Japan and elsewhere. Nor was the Mandela government too proud to call upon outside civil liberties scholars to help rewrite South Africa's criminal laws. The good news about Northern Ireland is that the 30-year-old war appears to be over. While there will likely be further deaths and acts of destruction caused by the marginalized rejectionist fringes on each side, the Northern Irish people, Protestant and Catholic, are overwhelmingly opposed to a resumption of war. Recently, when the Protestant demagogue Rev. Ian Paisley tried to address the international press corps about the evils of the settlement, young and middle-aged loyalists drowned out his hellfire rhetoric with shouts of "Dinosaur!" and "You sent one generation of loyalists to prison, you won't be sending another!" The sense on the streets of Northern Ireland is not only that a settlement is a good thing, but that citizens at the grass roots are confident they can sustain it. That feeling will remain only if the day-to-day justice issues are dealt with intelligently and swiftly. If it remains business as usual at Royal Ulster Constabulary headquarters, and Rosemary Nelson's clients continue to emerge battered and bloody from police interrogation, then the euphoria and the hopes will quickly evaporate. SALON \| May 20, 1998 Margaret Spillane writes frequently about culture and politics for the Nation and other publications. Ireland: Peace in our time? Join the discussion in Table Talk.