If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Take a look around and enjoy reading the discussions. If you'd like to join in, it's really easy to register and then you'll be able to post. If you'd like to learn what this place is all about, head here.
Comments
Kaz, The majority of Irish people I meet in the approx 3 yrs I spent in NI were great, friendly people and I love the country it's beautiful.
Normal people of both religions were fine and like anywhere just want to get on with life.
The terrorists on both side are beyond contempt.
>>> Gerry Kelly MLA on policing in the 6 Counties
First of all let me be clear and succinct. Nobody wants a civic
policing service more than those who suffer from bad policing.
Nationalists & Republicans in the 6 Counties have suffered, under
the hands at the RUC for generations. The RUC is, and has been
the paramilitary arm of unionism. It is, and has been involved
in every possible act of oppression from sectarian abuse and
intimidation on the street, abusing human rights, beatings,
systemised interrogation and torture through to collusion and
killings. These are facts, irrefutably highlighted by a whole
range of international Human Rights organisations like Amnesty
International. What is even more important perhaps is that they
have done all of this with impunity; without let or hindrance.
Some have even been promoted to spite or perhaps because of their
record of suppression.
So, not surprisingly in the negotiations surrounding the Good
Friday Agreement the demand for a new, accountable and
representative police service was key.
This became a requirement of the Good Friday Agreement signed up
to not just by Sinn Fein but also by the 2 governments and all of
the other parties Unionist and Nationalist.
The rest, as they say is history. We had the Patten
recommendations. Sinn Fein took the position that if the Patten
Report was implemented in full there may be a basis for a new
policing service and that in these circumstances we would not be
found wanting.
At times the debate appeared to be complicated. The detail was
voluminous. But lets not be blinded by the volume of detail.
Herepis where we are at this point. The police Act that was
passed by the British Parliament is not Patten and is not the New
Beginning to Policing that the people in the North and throughout
Ireland have the right to expect. Indeed no one is claiming that
we have achieved the new beginning not the British Government,
not the Irish Government or the SDLP and certainly not us. All
accept, that there is a gap to be closed between what was agreed
and what the British Government are currently proposing.
Sinn Fein has spelt out publicly, and in detail, where the Act
and the current British proposals fall short.
But perhaps the easiest and clearest way to judge where we are at
is to ask 10 questions as to when will we have a new beginning to
policing.
1. When all members of the police service are bound by one new
Human Rights oath as required by Patten.
2. When and how will abusers of Human Rights be screened out of
service in new policing structures?
3. When will lethal plastic bullets be banned?
4. When the composition of the police service is representative
of the makeup of the community it polices.
5. When the ethos of the new police service means nationalists
and republicans can serve as equals in a new police service.
6. When the truth is told about shoot-to-kill, collusion and
torture.
7. When the Special Branch is made subject to democratic
accountability and its position as a aforce within a forcepi is
ended.
8. When the use of repressive legislation is ended.
9. When the law, that is the Police Act, gives the Policing Board
full independent powers to hold the police service to account.
10. When the police service is answerable to and a part of the
local community.
Unfortunately, and to my regret the present British Government
proposals fail in each and every one of the 10 reasonable
criteria.
It is regrettable also that in these circumstances the SDLP and
the Irish Government have chosen to support the British
Government position on policing.
Their support of the British position and the SDLP decision to
take seats on the Policing Board has effectively sundered the
broad consensus that had emerged on this issue. It is in my view
a mistake of mammoth proportion. The argument is that we should
trust the British Government to bring in the necessary amending
legislation. 30 years ago the British Government said to trust
them on the UDR - The SDLP did so, and found to all our costs
that they were wrong. If the British Government had been trusted
on the Police Bill when it went into Westminster for the first
reading then we wouldpive had a greater mountain to climb. The
reason we demand the legislation, the reason we want to see the
script is because the British Government has proven that they
cannot be trusted in this area.
Let's be clear, the British Government are not honest brokers.
The only party involved in the policing debate, which has the
power to do anything about this, is the British Government. All
power to give effect to amending legislation to achieve what was
agreed on Good Friday rests with the British Government - not
with the Policing Board or the Oversight Commissioner. This is
solely a remit of the British Government.
For these reasons Sinn Fein has not nominated to the Policing
Board. Sinn Fein is calling on young people not to join the
Police Force.
Those with a stated commitment to a New Policing Service who join
or nominate to the Board at this time are, in my view making a
mistake.
The issue of Policing is central in any society, the more so in a
society attempting to emerge from conflict into a new beginning
of all all kinds, and especially when the RUC has been used for
so long, indeed for generations as a partisan tool of conflict
and division by unionists and the British government alike.
Amending legislation is necessary to achieve the threshold of
Patten. As for as Sinn Fein is concerned the negotiations
continue till we achieve a new beginning to policing. It is not
a matter of trust. It is a matter of seeing it happen (in black
and white). We do not and will not accept: -
(1) 2nd class status for our Ministers
(2) 2nd class status for our elected representatives
(3) 2nd class status for our voters
Neither will we accept a second-class or second rate police
force. We should leave this Ard Fheis today as activists ready
to campaign vigorously against recruitment to this present
paramilitary police force and ready to campaign for the proper
policing service required by the Good Friday Agreement and by the
people of Ireland.
Diesel
88888888
Oh yeah, really interested in progress. Not.
Why do you keep posting it here ? a link for people to goto would do.