More than British PR needed
BY SEAN Mac BRADAIGH
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All the other participants to the process have withstood
criticism and challenges from within their own ranks to do what
they are doing. It's time Tony Blair's government did the same.
The pursuance of a security-led agenda is incompatible with
building the peace process
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Following four months of a highly disciplined IRA cessation, the
only token British gesture towards demilitarisation in the Six
Counties was Mo Mowlam's announcement on Tuesday that daytime
British army foot patrols would cease in nationalist West
Belfast.
So minimalist is this move that it amounts to no more that a
British government PR exercise.
There is no excuse for British army foot patrols in West Belfast
or anywhere else in the Six Counties. The presence of British
soldiers merely serves to insult and antagonise the nationalist
population; it has no alleged security function. British soldiers
are certainly not protecting the people who live in nationalist
areas, rather they make the community feel permanently insecure
in their own homes and on their own streets.
Tuesday's announcement was aimed at giving the illusion of
movement on the ground in the absence of any substantive changes.
The intent is entirely transparent to nationalists on the ground
in the North, so its only real effect can be with people in the
26 Counties and abroad.
The British army still patrols the streets and countryside of
many other nationalist areas across the Six Counties. In some
cases they patrol areas they never patrolled before the IRA
cessation. Nationalists are still being stopped, searched and
harassed by the British army. House raids and searches are
continuiung. British military bases are still being built upon
and fortified. Children in nationalist communitites are still
growing up with foreign soldiers on their streets. Their earliest
experiences are still that of living in a militarised zone. The
people of South Armagh are currently subjected to the most
militarised conditions in the North, with previously unknown foot
patrols saturating the area, the busiest helicopter traffic in
Europe ferrying soldiers in and out, the military comandeering
farm land and GAA pitches and unequalled electronic surveillance
of the population. The nationalist community are those who are
benefiting the very least from the current absence of armed
conflict.
Coupled with the move on British foot patrols in West Belfast was
Mowlam's announcement of a series of policy objectives for the
RUC - another PR exercise, this time around one of the world's
most notorious paramilitary police forces. The announcement
indicates that the British government is still intent on
maintaining the fiction that the RUC can be made acceptable to
the community.
This ploy should be placed within the context of last week's
events in Armagh and Lurgan and of the vindictive campaign of
intimidation by the RUC against young nationalists in these
areas.
Mowlam should not be wasting her time and everyone else's by
setting targets for the RUC. The British government would be far
better placed admitting that the true nature of the RUC is that
of a sectarian, counter-insurgency force designed to meet the
needs of a political order which the current peace process should
be designed to end. This means moving decisively away from the
use of blunt tools such as the RUC to impose the one-dimensional
law and order of a state which has been exposed as an abject
failure.
The lack of real movement forward on the ground in the North is
of course mirrored by the complete lack of movement in the talks
process. The same forces who are responsible for ensuring that
the role of the British army remains high-profile in the Six
Counties and that the RUC is not tampered with are also at work
in ensuring the minimal progress in political talks. So far the
securocrats in the British military and political establishment
have succeeded in slowing progress to such a level that the
process is standing still. The danger which needs to be faced up
to is that if it remains static rigor mortis will inevitably set
in.
The onus for turning this situation around rests with the British
government. All the other participants to the process -
nationalists, republicans and unionists, have shown courage,
determination and at this stage fortitude in remaining at the
talks table and with the peace process. They have each of them
withstood criticism and challenges from within their own ranks to
do what they are doing. It's time Tony Blair's government did the
same. The pursuance of a security-led agenda is incompatible with
building the peace process. Blair must decide whether, if he
really is on the side of progress, he is wiling to face down the
nay-sayers, the spooks and the right wingers in his own
establishment. For progress to be made it is inevtiable that this
stand will have to be taken sooner or later. The time for Blair
to make that stand has come.
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