Fourthwrite .......................Issue No. 9

To whom is the Garda accountable?

The subject of policing has tended to focus on police reform within the six counties, and rightly so, but with recent revelations suggesting serious malpractice within the Garda Siochana. There is a case to be made  that the debate on policing should be extended to include the South too.

The recent scandal  in Donegal has provided for alarming reading. Revelations came to light claiming that the Garda manufactured weapons finds, subsequently attributed to republicans, bugged legal interview rooms in Letterkenny, used paid informants to manufacture evidence and engaged in an orchestrated campaign of harassment against a family in the village of Raphoe whom it was claimed were involved in the murder of a local cattle-dealer.

Activities of the Garda in relation to the McBrearty family led to an Oireachtas investigation. Both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in turn seized on the scandals in Donegal to call for reform within the force, but given past response to claims of Garda wrongdoing, these calls could only be regarded as gamesmanship. The Garda have, it could be argued, operated immune from an acceptable level of accountability since inception of the force in 1922.  

The activities  of the so-called 'Heavy Gang' (in essence the murder squad during the 1970's) which were condemned by Amnesty International, have never been properly investigated. During this period, when successive Justice ministers called for a 'crackdown' on republicans in particular, the practice of Garda brutality toward suspects became the norm. These practices were beyond doubt extended to cover 'non-subversive' cases, and indeed were it not for the Kerry babies scandal during the early 1980's the antics of the 'heavy gang' would have gone totally unnoticed by the those vested with power in the Oireachtas.

When we add into the equation the existence of a totally ineffective complaints procedure, the Dowra affair involving collusion with the RUC in obstructing justice, several unresolved cases involving the use of lethal force against civilians and republicans alike, the increasing use of 'stormtrooper’ tactics, by the emergency response unit in particular, the fudging of the investigation into the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, Garda attendance at the recent PR crusade by Ronnie Flanagan concerning the Omagh bomb inquiry; it becomes patently clear that a serious case is to be answered not only by the Garda themselves, but especially by those in high office charged with the dispensation of justice in the south.

 Is it right that the emergency response unit can enter the home of parents of a suspected republican in their 70's wielding shotguns forcing them to lie face down on the floor of their home as was the case in Kildare a few years ago? Is it right that members of the same unit can gun down John Carthy, a civilian suffering from depression in Abbeylara, in response to a call for help from his family?  Is it right that Gardai in the late 1990's can import over £100m million of cannabis in Urlingford as part of a 'sting' operation and once rumbled then claim the operation as a successful drugs find without anyone in authority batting an eye-lid?

These are high profile scandals and complaints suggesting Garda wrongdoing in relation to these incidents have often been dismissed by the force with a common arrogance as no more than the whines of criminals or republicans. Indeed, a force once lauded as accepted by the community finds itself isolated and regarded with suspicion by communities across the south, particularly in urban areas. In the latter the Garda are viewed by many people with an increasing suspicion. In many cases the views of ordinary people in these areas cannot be dismissed as irrelevant complaints from dole-cheats criminals, republicans or spongers.

One example of how community frustration was exacerbated occurred in 1999. Then working class communities in Dublin were subjected to a multi-agency welfare fraud investigation only to find themselves waking up to Garda checkpoints with those manning them checking their vehicles for tax and insurance, while several high profile white collar fraud cases involving corporates and politicians went almost unnoticed by the force.

Public perception counts for a great deal when it comes to effective policing, and no rational person can suggest that society does not need effective policing. However, as has been the case in the south, public perception of the Garda stands at an all-time low. The force needs to address this imbalance, but for this to happen there first needs to be a willingness among the hierarchy of the force to accept that mistakes have been made. To date this willingness has not been forthcoming.

At a political level much needs to be done. The south has yet to ratify into domestic legislation the European Charter of Human Rights (ECHR), pressure groups and the legal profession need to become more proactive in helping ordinary people with grievances they have against the force. We must always be prepared to question the Garda practice of using 'stool journalists' or crime correspondents who very often sensationalise as opposed to investigate the area of crime and the Garda response to such.

The South does not need a police force that seeks the advice and input of the FBI, a force itself tarnished. Neither does it need a police force that regards itself as above public scrutiny or justified in snubbing investigative requests from the Oireachtas. When scandals come to light, as is inevitable in any organisation, a clear willingness must be demonstrated by the force to punish the wrongdoers instead of shifting them to another position or continuing their pensions while in retirement, as has proved the case with those retired from the 'heavy-gang.'

 All political parties  must be prepared to back their calls for reform with a degree of substance. There needs to be a combined as opposed to party political effort to eradicate Garda corruption instigated with urgency. The political classes can start by ending Garda obstruction of the John Carthy inquiry, opening up the Garda complaints procedure to an independent body, and calling for the charged with leading the force in Donegal during the McBrearty and subsequent scandals to be indicted before the courts on criminal charges. Only with these and similar developments can the people be expected to afford confidence to what has become in very many eyes - a discredited force.

Policing the North

The old songs are the best

Some years ago a packed meeting in Belfast heard reports from representatives of both the Rosemary Nelson campaign and the Stephen Lawrence campaign. A large number of young people attended the meeting, attracted by the similarities between the murder of a Human Rights lawyer by Loyalists and the allegations of RUC involvement and the murder of a black teenager in London followed by allegations that police racism had sabotaged the case.

 It was a dramatic and emotional meeting, however it lost much of its punch when speakers from the left-wing group which organised the meeting insisted in a number of interventions that the lesson of these cases was that police forces everywhere where the same, equally corrupt.

 This was absolute nonsense. Cops are cops everywhere, but the old slogan  "SS RUC" expressed a reality. The RUC are a sectarian police force guarding a sectarian state. Any nod towards democratic rights or legal norms trail far behind the need to preserve the sectarian logic of the state. Instead of restraining the Orange mobs in the pogroms that followed the early civil rights marches, the RUC led them. Those who battered demonstrators and murdered innocent civilians were not a source of embarrassment to the force. Rather, they were promoted to the leadership of the RUC. It has proved impossible in the course of the troubles to say where the RUC ended and the death squads began. At the height of the troubles sectarian killings of Catholics civilians by loyalist paramilitaries were a nightly occurrence. It was the RUC that dreamt up the term "motiveless murders". The loyalists killed with impunity. Not only were the RUC unable to catch them, they were unable to work out the fact that the sectarian killings were happening in the first place! Stories abound to this day of RUC handlers running death squads and, when the loyalist paramilitaries tried to bring down the Good Friday agreement, they did so by plastering the walls of East Belfast with an the endless torrent of intelligence documents on Catholic civilians supplied by the RUC. Even at the lower level of Orange marches the tendency is to present it as a community dispute and ignore the fact that the marches are preceded by a police force that imposes a curfew and interns people in their own homes.

When socialists are trying to put forward a coherent and principled position on the police they do so by putting the police in an historical and material context.  For most of human history there were no police and we anticipate that in a socialist society founded on justice and equality there would be no police either.  Karl Marx explained that police forces arose out of shortage of basic needs and class society.  A good analogy is a queue for food.  The police appear to stand outside the queue and to act to preserve order but, of course, they are acting on behalf of the capitalist masters of society who have unrestricted access to resources and they themselves are granted privileges to ensure their loyalty to the state.  In any conflict over resources they act to repress the working class and protect the rights of the capitalists.

As the working class grew in size so it became less and less practical to rely on brute force.  More and more the capitalists stress "the rule of law" and try to convince everyone that the police are impartial.  This imposes some restrictions on the police right to arrest and torture, but, as we see in the US and in Britain in the aftermath of September 11th, the 'rights' of workers can be removed at the drop of a hat.  Socialists therefore support reform of the police and the extension of human rights, but without ever believing that this should lead us to support the state or the police. 

How does this apply to the Good Friday agreement and the new Police Service for Northern Ireland (PSNI)? The difficulty here is that the report at the heart of the new institution - the Patten Report - is not in fact a reform. The report never addresses the sectarianism of the RUC. Instead it addresses a perception by Catholics that the RUC represent a different culture. Many of the Patten proposals focus on changing the symbols of repression, so we get a new name, are promised a new cap badge and we are told that courthouse symbols will be made politically neutral.

 In the nature of things the Unionists then complain that the water is too thick and that it should be watered a little more, so many of the symbols revert back to their natural state with the blessing of the British.

There is of course, outstanding one major change that has been promised and that would make the continuation of the old RUC impossible. That is the promise of 50% recruitment of Catholics. The problem is that in order to get the new non-sectarian RUC many years down the line you have to support the existing structures. Any serious analysis of the history of the North or even of the history of the Good Friday agreement would suggest that the new organisation will be still-born - in any case it would be still a colonial force as with the old RIC. The reality is that the sectarian state will still require a sectarian police force.

Sinn Fein tried to steer a middle course of reform. They took pains not to fall out with the Dublin government, the SDLP and the Catholic Church when they all supported the new force and pledged loyalty to the leadership of the GAA when they also supported the police. Sinn Fein are of course deeply involved in community restorative justice, which was intended to be an adjunct of the new police force when it is fully installed. Currently they are lobbying for a long list of clauses and sub-clauses, which, they argue, will transform the PSNI into a police service for all.  Then Sinn Fein will feel free to call on young nationalists to join the new police force. What all this amounts to is a defence of Patten.  I have already pointed out that Patten was not a reform in the first place, so a reform of a non-reform is unlikely to succeed. It also ignores the fact that there was a first Police Act that established the final authority of the British over the police no matter what changes are made to any other bills.

Socialists and republicans should stand for disbandment of the RUC. We would support reforms such as disarming the police while pointing out that no true reform will be possible as long as the sectarian state remains and requires a sectarian force to defend it.  Never in any campaigns will there be any requirement on socialists or republicans to support the police.  Even if by some miracle the RUC/PSNI were to be converted into the ordinary decent ‘filth’ that staff a normal police force they will remain the main mechanism for the repression of the working class and no militant would dream of joining Sinn Fein in offering to advise any young worker to join the RUC/PSNI.

The summer in Ardoyne give us a before and after picture of the new police force. Before the summer the old RUC reacted to loyalist intimidation by banning Catholic children and their parents from walking to school. After the summer the new RUC/PSNI defended the loyalist's cultural rights to carry out the sectarian intimidation while at the same time allowing the Catholic children the right to walk a gauntlet of abuse, spit, balloons filled with urine and blast bombs on their way to school. What can one say to this? I say:

SS RUC! DISBAND the RUC/PSNI