Police Commission must take off the blindfold
There is deep concern among nationalists that Chris Patten's
Commission on Policing will fail to get to grips with the role of
the RUC in creating and maintaining the conflict in the Six
Counties. The Policing Commission's unwillingness to explore the
history of human rights abuses carried out by the RUC can only
hinder the establishment of the truth necessary to avoid
repeating the mistakes of the past.
In effect Patten's Policing Commission is blindfolding itself to
the reality of the `policing' experience in the Six Counties over
the past three decades and far beyond.
It is absurd to propose that ``future policing arrangements'' can
be adequately explored and pursued without at first taking into
account why such new arrangements are necessary and what is wrong
with the present arrangements. The obvious danger is that one
creates a future based not on the reality of experience but on
myth and wishful thinking.
The establishment of truth and confronting past injustices are
accepted and essential parts of a conflict resolution process.
They are vital elements in building a peaceful and stable future.
The reality of the RUC as the armed wing of unionism; its record
of human rights abuses; its involvement with loyalist death
squads; its practice of shooting suspects on sight, of torture
during interrogation, of scandals, cover-ups and whitewash must
all be throughly examined as part of the remit of the Commission
on Policing.
Without that sort of thorough examination the Commission can only
stumble blindly into the future. If they don't look into where
the current situation came from they can't possibly figure how to
move forward. It's time to take the blindfold off.
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