10.9.1999
By Republican News
The report of the Patten Commission on policing has received sharply mixed reviews since its publication on Thursday morning.
Mr Patten placed his commission's report firmly in the context of the terms of last year's Good Friday Agreement, which set the commission the task of developing a policing service which would be acceptable to both communities.
While unionists reacted with an immediate and vehement rejection of the document, Sinn Féin said it would not respond in a "knee-jerk" fashion but would consult its membership and other community activists.
But the British and Irish governments, the RUC's Chief Constable and the nationalist SDLP immediately hailed the document which they claimed would help create a greatly improved police force for the Six Counties.
Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness said "the jury is out" on the Patten recommendations. Policing spokeswoman Bairbre de Brun said the party had always taken time to consider any proposals.
"Sinn Féin always takes time to look at important questions, and Chris Patten himself asked people not to knee-jerk," she said.
"Sinn Féin looked very carefully at the Good Friday agreement and came to a positive conclusion, we looked very carefully at the proposals at Hillsborough and came to a negative conclusion, but at neither stage did we knee-jerk."
Much of the 128-page report was accurately leaked in the days prior to its publication. But it is the name change to the 'Northern Ireland Police Service', one of the more cosmetic of the 175 reforms outlined, which appears to be causing the most distress to unionists. Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble described the proposals to change the name and the force's emblems as "a gratuitous insult" to current and former RUC members.
The document is turgid and is largely concerned with the minute details of the force's recommended structure and operation. But an indignant David Trimble surprised many by slating the report as the "most shoddy piece of work I have seen in my entire life".
Later, speaking on British television, Mr Patten responded: "When he considers that remark . . . I don't think he will regard that as the wisest thing he has ever said." He added: "The bottom line is this report is about more effective policing and we won't have that if the police are a political football being kicked from sound bite to sound bite."
It may be a year before the main proposals in the Patten report start to be implemented.
Initially Britain's governor in Ireland Mo Mowlam will consult with the North's political parties to hear their views on the report. She said she hoped to complete initial consultations by the end of November. A full implementation plan will then be published in December.
She said: "In line with the report, some changes can be made without legislation, some as soon as legislation is in place, others will take time ----years---- to complete."
'Transformation'
The Patten Commission appeared determined to make a break from the past by simply referring to it as little as possible. The document astonishingly makes no mention whatosever to the RUC's dark history of collusion, shoot-to-kill, or the harassment, intimidation and violence directed against Catholics for the past thirty years.
As people began to digest the document's contents, it was the failure to refer to these most basic of nationalist concerns which presented the biggest surprise on Thursday.
Meanwhile, unionists were coping with the trauma of seeing their front-line forces in Britain's war against the IRA "transformed", in the words of Chris Patten. Members of the RUC who died in the conflict were seen by relatives as having been "betrayed" by the British government.
"Patten has allowed himself to be diverted into a gratuitous insult to the RUC and the community by stripping the service of its name and badge and flag," said David Trimble. "What is likely to happen as a result is that the community will be so outraged that it will reject the report as a whole. There is a chance that minds will close and the report will become even more contentious."
He said the only fundamental change needed to the RUC was the recruitment of many more Catholic officers. "In order to achieve that, it is necessary to put an end to the intimidation and social exclusion of Catholics who join the police force."
Predictably, anti-Agreement unionist hardliners moved quickly to capitalise on the confusion and fear which the prospect of reform has brought to their community.
A hardline lobby group within the Ulster Unionist Party attacked the report as a "disgraceful attempt to appease those who have brought misery to this country through terrorism".
An anti-Agreement unionist campaign to oppose the Patten Report has already begun, with the name change selected as the main focus of attack. But it is the substantive reforms, less easily condemned in a sound-bite, which are almost certainly their real target.
Ian Paisley announced the setting-up of two working parties to consider their strategy for opposing the Patten recommendations. The DUP leader said: "We are totally dedicated to the destruction of this report."
According to the plan, the police, currently 93% Protestant, will become just over 70% Protestant by the year 2010. While this is unacceptably slow for nationalists, it is terrifyingly fast to those unionist politicians who seek to maintain a white-knuckle grip on the Six Counties.
Perhaps more disturbing to unionists is the plan to create 29 district policing boards covering the North's 26 council areas and north, south, east and west Belfast. Many of these would be controlled by nationalists and would have, at the very least, a strong hand in negotiating an acceptable policing presence in their areas.
Most of the decision-making power in the new arrangements would flow from the new 19-member Policing Board, comprising ten members from the Belfast Assembly, selected according to party strength, and nine members from other areas of the community.
Although unionist politicians now sit (unhappily) on local government and Belfast Assembly committees alongside republicans, the prospect of unionists sharing the administration of a Six County police force with "Sinn Féin/IRA" is still difficult to imagine. While only two of the 19 board members would be Sinn Féin representatives, even this small presence could prove sufficient for unionists to attempt to sabotage the body.
Some commentators have already pointed out that any failure in the Policing Board could undermine many of the Patten reforms, which require high levels of planning, accountability and consultation among the Chief Constable, the Policing Board, and the Secretary of State (or her successor after devolution).
Convincing Catholics
While Catholics have already been urged to join the new NIPS by the nationalist SDLP and the Dublin government, virtually all will express reservations. The RUC is certainly not being disbanded, and nationalists have yet to be convinced that its blood-stained chapter in Ireland's troubled history is finally closed for good.
For every encouragement to nationalists, there is often a slap in the face on the next page:
There is to be no ban on members of the Protestant marching orders and similar oath-bound organisations—but membership of these organisations must be revealed. Elsewhere in the report, it is clear that officers without sectarian leanings will be preferred in appointments to key policing positions.
There is a great deal which will not become clear about the Patten report until it is agreed and implemented, and the "devil in the details" has yet to be exorcised.
But it will take some convincing for nationalist youths from Republican areas of Belfast, Derry or Lurgan, to dress in the bottle-green of their former enemies and uphold British law on Irish streets alongside those who have oppressed and attacked themselves, their family and friends.
Sinn Féin said it would study the Patten proposals carefully to establish how far they go towards achieving "a proper, democratically, accountable policing service", a spokesperson said. "We also intend to scrutinize the British government's position bearing in mind its failure so far to implement critical sections of the Good Friday Agreement over which it has direct control.
"We will engage in a wide-ranging internal discussion with party activists and supporters. We will talk to the community and to the victim support organizations, to human rights groups and with the two governments.
"In due course the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle will decide on Sinn Féin's formal and definitive response to this matter. We would urge everyone else interested in creating the conditions for a lasting peace to similarly take a responsible approach and the necessary time to properly assess this report.
"Clearly, one of the acid tests by which Patten will be judged will be whether or not nationalists and republicans feel confident enough and have peer approval to join whatever service emerges. I am sure that no nationalist will rush to join until absolutely convinced that they will be participating in a new democratically accountable policing service."