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Laurence White: This is why nationalists are plagued by dissidents
Friday, 28 November 2008
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The fanaticism of the dissident republicans out there seems to know no bounds. This week the Continuity IRA threatened to kill nationalist community workers who co-operate with the PSNI in north Belfast.
The threats, conveyed to a priest, were not the usual warning to Catholics not to give information to police. ‘Tout’ is a very ugly word in republican circles, even though there seems to have been plenty of them in operation over the years.
No, the threats were even worse. They were directed at community workers who take part in multi-agency initiatives involving the police. So, for example, if a community group had a teacher and a police officer around to help teach nursery kids about road safety, that would presumably qualify as a multi-agency initiative.
The Continuity IRA is well used to issuing threats. In July it threatened to kill Customs and Revenue staff and workers at the Vehicle Licensing Authority. Civilian workers in the police force have also been threatened by dissidents.
The problem for the dissidents in their present insane campaign is that they have little or no public support. People have tired of violence. Republicans now sit in government in Northern Ireland, even if that was never a stated long-term objective. Nationalists are relatively happy with their lot.
So if the dissidents cannot persuade people to back their ‘cause without a rebel’ they have to try the time-old tactic of threatening them.
It is the same with their desperate attempts to kill police officers, especially Catholic police officers. That is how the Provos way back in the early 70s drove Catholics out of the RUC and UDR. They shot a number and the rest got the message. Both forces ended up with negligible numbers of Catholics in their ranks.
But in the last decade the percentage of Catholics in the police force has risen from just over 8% to around 24% and, it is hoped, will reach 30% by 2010/11. A recent survey in the New Lodge Road area showed that many people are quite happy to call on the police to sort out anti-social behaviour and other types of crime.
Those findings probably helped provoke this latest threat. For the dissidents went into a fury when Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness visited an injured policeman in hospital. The officer had suffered serious leg injuries when a bomb exploded under his car near Castlederg in Co Tyrone.
A MI5 officer told members of the Northern Ireland Committee at Westminster that the sight of Mr McGuinness (left) visiting the police officer led to dissidents redoubling their efforts to kill a |policeman. And he warned that the threat against Catholic officers is at its highest ever level and that more attacks are planned. So it is obvious that the threats of the dissidents are not idle threats. They may be small in number and may be riddled with informers, but the dissident groups are quite determined to cause as much mayhem as possible.
And they know that the greatest threat to them is a community united in support of the new police force. In the past the RUC had, by and large, support from only one side of the community. Today republicans and nationalists have both signed up to support the police, giving the community the lead and confidence they needed to respond positively.
They have all come too far and endured too much to be cowed now.
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Posted by christmas tree farm va | 16.12.08, 05:30 GMT
I think that a lot of these commentators forget that one of the most senior police officer's. Chief Constable Sir James Flanagan 1973-1976 the most brutal time during the troubles was a catholic.
So the nationalist communitys argument that the RUC was biased against catholics is completely shot out of the water.
Now that things are back to normal and the IRA has surrendered.
You might see a catholic Chief Constable of the PSNI
Posted by DGN Man | 05.12.08, 14:11 GMT
Well said Andrew.
Posted by dwyer | 03.12.08, 19:50 GMT
Who stopped Catholics from joining the then RUC (and now the PSNI)? Why, I believe it was that group of nice young men of the ira, who threatened and shot suspected catholic police men/women.
Well Jim & Des. Whats it gonna be? Support law and order, or support a group of terrorists preventing ordinary Catholics from securing a job in these tough economic times?
Posted by mickey | 02.12.08, 16:58 GMT
Irish Catholics in America have had enough of these dissident rogues!
Posted by D | 02.12.08, 00:46 GMT
Heres some fresh thinking leonard...the police want the best people for the job, not the perfect ratios of nationalities and religions in the country they serve. Just because there would only be 30% catholic in the psni doesnt mean there would be 70% unionist, what about neutrals, other faiths, other nationalities that occupy the country. Do you want to see 2% of the police as imigrants from with poor english just to keep it exactly representitive of the comunity they serve?its time for real fresh thinking, why should there even be a distinction between catholic and protestant, why not just people. Having to state religion when applying for jobs just reinforces the divide by highlighting the difference. Wake up
Posted by andrew | 01.12.08, 10:33 GMT
What fantasy island did you grow up in? You obviously were never on the receiving end of RUC 'Fair play' and Equal treatment', or you would definitely be telling a different story.
Posted by Des | 01.12.08, 04:27 GMT
Come off it Cathal,I grew up in N Ireland too.If the Ruc were all one sided,how many, Unionist,Loyalists were put in prison, have a look at the figures. Yes there was incidents,on both sides,that the Ruc were not proud of,but on the whole,they were a bunch of very brave men.
Posted by UNIONCRUISER | 30.11.08, 17:22 GMT
no organisation stopped catholics from joining the RUC more than the organisation itself,its make-up and its attitude to those it classed as second class citizens,which was the catholic working class community.The RUC were a power to itself and nothing else and were not accountable or made accountable by their masters in london...now that that body of people are gone nationalists,if given the chance can help create a new future on the island of ireland,one that is equality and human rights based,and one that not only
Posted by cathal mc namee | 29.11.08, 14:23 GMT
The Provos were not the reason there where very few Catholics in the RUC and UDR. Both of these organizations where sectarian in nature controlled by unionist politicians.
And it was on the insistence of the British government, by way of Patten, that things changed in policing.
Unionists fought tooth and nail to prevent their little police force from becoming democratic.
The work environment for Catholics in the old RUC was less than welcoming. And not by the Provos as you state, but by their non Catholic follow RUC officers.
Posted by Jim | 29.11.08, 11:55 GMT
I am a Nationalist and I am "not relatively happy with my lot". I am unhappy that he thinks that in 2010 Catholics will form 30% of the PSNI. for his information in the 2001 census Catholic/Nationalist total was 40% and Protestant/Unionist was 45.7%. In the Observer of May 2007 it said that at the next census in 2011 Catholic/Nationalists would be in the majority. Therefore why should I be happy that in 2011 when the Nationalists are in the majority, 70 out of 100 policemen will be Unionists . It is time for fresh thinking on this issue.
Posted by Leonard | 28.11.08, 21:55 GMT