Republican News · Thursday 24 July 2003

British Army firing more plastic bullets

The British Army fired five times as many plastic bullets in 2002 as it did during the previous 12 months.

The startling increase was revealed in an annual report by Jim McDonald, an independent assessor of military complaints procedures. McDonald made a number of recommendations, including the use of videos to determine if the use of plastic bullets was justified.

The British Army fired a total of 85 plastic bullets in 2002, compared to 17 the previous year. While the rise is being blamed on "an upsurge in rioting at interface areas", republicans are suspicious the increase has more to do with PSNI attempts to have the British Army fire the weapons on their behalf.

It was recently revealed that members of the PSNI face an immediate investigation if they fire the deadly weapon, but British soldiers do not. Instead, they can fire at will and face only an internal army investigation.

Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew said nationalists have long suspected that the British Army would be used by the PSNI to fire plastic bullets. "When the office of the Police Ombudsman was established, Sinn Féin stated our view that the PSNI would, in future, direct the British Army to fire more plastic bullets as a practice to dodge accountability mechanisms," says Gildernew. "These figures are an indication of this."

"Sinn Féin's is absolutely opposed to the use of plastic bullets and has campaigned for many years on this issue. We have made the continued use of plastic bullets a crucial part of our discussions with the British government."

British soldiers were spotted with plastic bullet guns in North Belfast during the Twelft weekend, as Orangemen and their supporters marched through the nationalist Ardoyne area, but not one of the more than 1,000 riot-geared PSNI officers on the scene could be seen with the weapon.

McDonald, in his report, went on to remark that, although the overall number of complaints against the British army had fallen by 21 per cent, the number of formal complaints recorded in 2002 was 25 - an increase of five from the previous year.

McDonald says that in spite of this increase, it was a considerable reduction from the late 1990s, when the average was 70 complaints a year.