RUC PR stunts fool no-one
by Sean Marlow
In the aftermath of the siege of Garvaghy Road and the massacre
of the Quinn children in Ballymoney, there has been much comment
on the fall-out:- the self-inflicted damage to the Orange Order,
the dignified response of the nationalist community as
exemplified on Belfast's Lower Ormeau Road and the re-evaluation
of the Orange Order and Unionism by some surprising sections of
British public opinion.
One aspect, however, that has been overlooked has been the rather
obvious attempts by the RUC to rehabilitate itself in the eyes of
the British government and the wider public in Britain and
Ireland. The Quinn children were hardly cold in their graves
before Les Rogers and his Police Federation were rushing off to
Tony Blair to tell him what a great fore the RUC is and how it
should remain the RUC and really shouldn't be changed at all.
Even before that, the RUC PR machine was busy at work. TV cameras
and press photographers were brought into hospital wards and
injured officers were asked about how they had done a great job
in standing up to the Orange hordes at Drumcree.
d it IS true that the RUC did not mutiny as they did in 1996,
when they forced the march down the Garvaghy Road. No doubt their
behaviour this year was largely due to the Good Friday Agreement
with its commitment by both governments to equality and a
complete review of the RUC.
Even then, the inherent sectarianism of the RUC soon became
obvious as the Orange siege developed into naked sectarian
violence. As in 1996, loyalist roadblocks were set up as the RUC
stood by in Antrim and Down (the refusal of nationalists to give
their business to Orange leaders who had stopped them getting to
work seemed to put some manners on them in Tyrone and Fermanagh).
In some cases the RUC even assisted in these illegal roadblocks
by diverting traffic away from a few kids standing in the road.
More serious was the RUC's (lack of) response to the orgy of
burning of the homes of Catholics living in areas vulnerable to
cowardly intimidation. Not one loyalist was arrested in
connection with the 300+ attacks on Catholic houses, schools and
churches until the reaction to the horrific killings of the
little Quinn boys shamed the RUC into action. Even after the
Ballymoney deaths, many nationalists are being driven from their
homes with little hindrance from the RUC.
The same story goes for the RUC treatment of street protests.
Everyone can vividly remember the residents of the Garvaghy Road,
the Lower Ormeau Road and Newtownbutler sitting down in a purely
peaceful way to protest at Orange marches only for the RUC to
wade into them with batons and plastic bullets to clear the
roads. Contrast this with the kid-glove treatment of the numerous
Orange parades over the past two weeks.
In Portadown itself, the standoff at Drumcree is in direct
defiance of the Parade Commission's directive to disperse and
thus is totally illegal. Yet all sorts of petrol bombers, blast
bombers and gunmen had unimpeded access to the area while a
humanitarian food convoy to the besieged residents was stopped by
the RUC and searched three times, enabling Loyalist thugs to
attack it and smash car windows.
The RUC is going to have to do a lot more than engage in PR
stunts to convince their victims in the north that it is a
genuine police force.
It could make a start by getting rid of all those officers who
passed information to Loyalist death squads, who engaged in
shoot-to-kill operations, who tortured prisoners in interrogation
centres, and who shot innocent children with plastic bullets. OK,
I know that there wouldn't be many left, but all the better to
start afresh and create a new policing service.
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