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One
of the nonsenses of the peace process - and there
have been many - is that the PSNI boss, Hugh Orde,
is an apolitical sort of cop. A myth cultivated by
his PR team and facilitated by the British is that
political policing went out with the old RUC name
and that under Orde a new brush is employed on terms
equivalent to any police force confronted with a crime
problem; policing is ostensibly subject to the requirements
of the law rather than the whims of politicians or
the vagaries of politics.
Yet
the timing of some of Orde's policing interventions,
or the refusal to intervene in certain cases, suggests
that far from being the cops' cop he enjoys being
portrayed as, he is very much what the US public used
to call a G-man - the government's cop. In that much
he is merely following a long established British
state practice for dealing with political problems
in Ireland over the last three and a half decades.
Just
as the violent struggle that raged here throughout
the 1980s produced its man for the moment, the peace
process has done likewise. Jack Hermon, a hard-nosed
no-nonsense peeler, was quite comfortable overseeing
and defending some of the most intense and controversial
forms of policing that Western Europe has witnessed
in decades. The Thatcher government's war on republicanism
required brute force. Hermon provided it, even if
on occasion he was capable of insight that would lead
him to urge a more restrained response - as during
the 1981 hunger strikes. The Blair government, no
less intent than winding up republican armed activity
than the Tories, has acquired a cop every bit as useful
to it as Hermon proved to the Tories. Only on Blair's
watch the game plan to eradicate republicanism is
pursued more like chess than boxing; taking the man
is considered appropriate only if it serves some broader
strategic objective.
In
Ballymurphy this week a number of homes were raided
allegedly as part of a wider PSNI investigation into
the human rights abuses that have continued to be
a feature of this community despite the peace process.
Four men were arrested and were out on the streets
again before most people even realised they had been
scooped. Some idiot in the PSNI press office, thinking
he too could contribute to the many 'historic' events
that have graced our self-obsessed little zollverein,
informed the public that the arrests were in connection
with 'historic punishment assaults.' At the same time,
by way of adding a backdrop of a province wide coordination
to the Ballymurphy arrests, a Derry man was charged
in relation to the armed assault on North West republican
Mickey Donnelly six years ago. On the day, the PSNI
activity maximised a welter of adverse publicity for
Sinn Fein.
The nationalist party, predictably silent when the
homes of republicans it doesn't like are raided, was
as predictably vociferous when the homes of those
they favour suffered a similar fate. Such selective
silence leaves itself open to be interpreted as a
'failte romhat' to those intent on searching homes
in West Belfast, in the full knowledge that any anticipated
Sinn Fein furore would be seen as smacking of double
standards; mere wind bagging, put out solely for the
optics. Newly elected Stormonteer Fra McCann complained,
'I would challenge anyone to explain the differences
between this morning’s operation and those carried
out in this area by the RUC over many years.' Waken
up and smell the coffee, Fra. The PSNI were raiding
republican homes in this area in July and Sinn Fein
had the following comment to make:
'
...................................................................'
Pastor
Niemoller - who was he, what would he know about Ballymurphy?
Punishment
beatings have been with us for more than a decade
now. During the first Provisional ceasfire in 1995
a spokesperson for the organisation said that it had
carried out eight attacks during its cessation. An
understatement, but acknowledgement at least that
the Provisionals were involved. Since its second cessation,
the Provisional movement has declined to volunteer
any information about its involvement in violently
policing anti-social elements within the community.
Nobody, apart from Billy Leonard perhaps, believes
that the punishment is self-inflicted. But then cops
always did believe that nationalists beat themselves
up just to discredit the RUC. Yet the decision by
the PSNI to move just prior to the Good Friday Agreement
entering review, suggests to many people that policing
is being used for very specific political purpose,
in this case putting Sinn Fein in the uncomfortable
glare of the spotlight and making it appear unreasonable
in the face of DUP demands that its associated militia
disbands before there will be any resumption of the
power sharing executive. It heavily resonates of October
2002 when the Stormont offices of the party were raided
prior to the collapse of the executive, allowing the
Unionist Party leader David Trimble to take the moral
high ground and effectively escape censure for the
collapse. As one commentator of the day put it, 'conventional
wisdom has it that Mr Trimble won and Mr Adams lost.'
Whatever evidence existed against Sinn Fein - and
it seems much weaker now than claimed at the time
- the timing suggests that political rather than independent
policing imperatives were the determinant. As David
McKittrick wrote in October 2002:
Few
doubt that republicans have been involved in political
espionage. But questions remain about an investigation
that ran for 13 months, culminated in a search of
a political party's offices at a most sensitive
time and brought down a government.
Elsewhere,
Orde's reputation as the apolitical cop doesn't bear
up to scrutiny. The drugadiers of C Company in the
Shankill could only manage three months in Bolton
before they had their collar felt by British cops.
Yet they could openly parade their wares in Johnnyville
for years without the slightest hint of police concern.
Orde cannot be credited with the Bolton operation
but he must carry culpability for permitting the drugs
trade to flourish in Belfast as a result of operating
within political constraints devised by the NIO, which
favoured cultivating political strands within the
UDA. Moreover, journalists who adhered to the public's
right to know principle and made life uncomfortable
for politicians had their doors kicked in during the
early hours and found themselves the involuntary guests
in one of Mr Orde's custody suites. And yet not one
arrest, nor one house search in pursuit of the UDA
killers of Gerard Lawlor.
Policing
in the North of Ireland is as politically driven as
ever. Hugh Orde no more sets the context for policing
than Pat Bradley did for elections. Both were functionaries
operating in a very partisan environment structured
by the British. In the absence of any republican threat
to the British state, it is much easier to disguise
policing as professional and dispassionate. We may
not inhabit a police state but political policing
is still a feature of our society. Our society's defining
political characteristic, the peace process, is being
policed by its dominant cop, Hugh Orde.
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