British exposed in police commission row
by Laura Friel
``Too clever by half,'' was how one American columnist summed up
British antics around the appointment of members of the new
commission on policing in the Six counties.
Writing in `Ireland on Sunday', Niall O'Dowd accused the British
of trying to ``put one over'' by selling Kathleen O Toole, a
Catholic Irish American from Boston, as an appointee selected to
represent the nationalist community, an agreed candidate between
both the British and Irish governments and approved by the
mainstream Irish American community. In fact, O'Toole has been
drawn from a pool of Irish Americans who have been ``assiduously
cultivated'' by the British, her nomination was not approved by
Dublin and she is relatively unknown in Irish American circles.
Regardless of the many qualities O'Toole may offer to the
commission, her former associations are with the British
government and RUC rather than northern nationalists. O'Toole's
associations include former NIO Secretary of State, Patrick
Mayhew, and RUC Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan.
Currently Secretary for Public Safety in Massachusetts, O'Toole
began her career in the Boston police department and has
previously worked with the RUC on a number of projects. British
duplicity has been further exposed with the publication of
confidential notes taken by the British Secretary of State's
private secretary summarising the minister's contacts with
Dublin, America, the SDLP and Sinn Fein in the 24 hours prior to
the announcement of the appointments. Mowlam is shown riding
roughshod over nationalist concerns and railroading the Dublin
government by announcing the appointments before a request for
further consultation had been met. The document shows a clear
rift between the Dublin and British government, unease within the
Irish American lobby, misgivings within the SDLP and anger within
Sinn Fein.
By any standards it has been an inauspicious start to the
implementation of the Good Friday document. To be chaired by
former British Tory minister Chris Patten, other appointees
include Peter Smith a barrister and former secretary of the
Ulster Unionist party, Maurice Hayes, previously one of the
highest ranking Catholic civil servants in the NIO, Clifford
Shearing, Director of the Centre of Criminology at Toronto
University in Canada, Gerard Lynch, an academic at John Jay
College, New York and chief executive of British Telecom in the
Six Counties, Lucy Woods.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)