The pictures of Gerry Kelly of the broken hand holding back furious
republicans at Ardoyne on the Twelfth night will live as one of the
images of our time. The Chief Constable's response might have been as
memorable if he had talked on TV. Hugh Orde was genuinely grateful to
Kelly for "saving the necks of the outnumbered police officers and
soldiers," I hear. But hopes of a wonderful new relationship between
police and Provos are premature. Kelly remains a leading opponent of
Sinn Féin's joining the Policing Board, according to Orde.
The Ardoyne flashpoint showed all too clearly the dangers of Wild West
policing for everyone, yet narrow politicking on policing and parades
continues. If the DUP's refusal to talk directly to Sinn Féin is a big
problem, so is Sinn Féin's refusal to talk to the police. The SDLP's
wobble over remaining on the Policing Board showed poor judgement before
wiser counsels prevailed.
Each side has its own sticking points holding back progress. Sinn Féin
seem to require full devolution of justice and policing powers before
they engage with Orde. Orde himself will not easily budge from refusing
to allow the nine remaining border watchtowers to be dismantled until
he's convinced that the IRA is standing down. To avoid outflanking by
Sinn Féin, the SDLP sometimes demand even-handedness too inflexibly. The
DUP and the Unionists are resisting key reforms like the closure of
symbolic but redundant police stations like Andersonstown and are
balking at scrapping the police reserve. A clash on the reserve's future
looks likely when the Patten force level of 7,500 is reached soon and
Orde at last pronounces the regular PSNI fit for the job, after less
than five years of 50:50 recruitment.
Orde is making sweeping cultural changes too, directing a reformed and
integrated Special Branch away from "intelligence gathering in order to
break up groups and save people's lives," to "intelligence gathering to
lock people up." Police techniques for analysing available evidence
have improved so much that he has hopes of a prosecution case on Omagh
by the end of the year. He also wants to see tougher extortion laws for
tracking money laundering scams and longer sentences from judges who are
thought of as too remote from the community's real needs.
But fundamentally, the old story hasn't changed. The grip of
paramilitary criminals will not relax without "evidence, evidence and
more evidence" and too many people are as unwilling or as frightened as
ever to talk to the police. Full public consent for the police remains a
pipe dream.
As a high flyer with at least one big promotion left in him, our
45-year-old Chief Constable is speaking out as lot more. "Deal with the
past or the present - which?" is a challenge Orde has issued to all
comers for drawing a line under the Troubles. Orde clearly wants to see
a much bolder initiative than Paul Murphy's idea of relying on "telling
the stories" of victims. Ideally a general amnesty would let security
forces and paramilitaries alike off the hook, with 1998 the year of the
Agreement, taken as year zero. But that formula seems too crude. For all
parties to agree, an eventual amnesty might require a special prosecutor
going through all 2,000 cold cases, with a time limit for prosecutions
set by a Statute of Limitations. In such a climate, the police
ombudsman's powers for investigating the police past would go.
Putting police reform at the top of the agenda was a gamble that's
starting to pay off; it's one area not completely blighted by political
deadlock. But the police cannot succeed on their own. Other elements of
justice and security have to fall into line. The end of the Stevens
investigations has to be in sight. The Cory public inquiries including
Finucane must proceed and stand as the last of their kind. MI5's role
must be defined and open to scrutiny. The paramilitaries must
acknowledge that their narrow definition of ceasefire is no longer
tenable. And that admission must be their last major act as active
paramilitary organisations before ceasing all operations. It's an agenda
full of pitfalls, but nothing less will do.
