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Civilianise This

13/06/07

The head of British policing in Ireland has said that not only will his paramilitaries remain routinely armed on an indefinite basis, they will actually be provided with extra weaponry in the form of so called ‘stun guns’.

Responding to a question at last week’s meeting of the Six-County Policing Board, RUC/PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde said, “the notion of an unarmed police service (sic) is, quite frankly, a non-starter.”

Orde continued: “My assessment is that we are where we need to be.”

The Six-County Policing Board effectively operates as a rubber-stamping body for the Chief Constable and is powerless to counter-act any measures he sees fit to implement.

The introduction of the so called ‘stun gun’, which has the full support of Orde, is the brainchild of current British Home Secretary and former Direct Ruler of the six counties John Reid.

Human-rights campaigners have been highly critical of the weapon, which temporarily paralyses the victim with a 50,000 volt electric shock.

Most notably, Amnesty International has documented scores of fatalities involving the use of ‘stun guns’ by police forces in North America.

The weapons are to be introduced next year for use in ‘public order situations’.

Meanwhile, the harassment of nationalists by the RUC/PSNI continues.

In west Belfast, a local man, accused of driving while disqualified, was told that no charges would be brought against him if he provided unspecified information to Special Branch. The man refused and decided instead to contact the media about the incident.

In Ballymena, nationalist residents were prevented from getting to their homes or attending a mass service by overly-zealous members of the RUC/PSNI on the night of an Orange march on June 2.

The residents were impeded from going about their business despite the fact the march was not in the vicinity at the time.

éirígí spokesperson Daithí Mac An Mháistír said the comments of Hugh Orde were revealing.

“When he talks about ‘being where we want to be’ in relation to the RUC/PSNI, Hugh Orde destroys the idea that there can be some form of rolling policing reform in the Six-Counties.

“His comment that – ‘the notion of an unarmed police is a non-starter’ – further reveals the militarist ethos of the force he controls and the inability of the Policing Board to hold him to account in any way.

“Even the limited and inadequate reforms envisaged by the Patten Commission are expendable if they are deemed to inhibit the ability of the RUC/PSNI to act as defenders of the British state in Ireland.

Daithí also expressed concern at the prospect of stun guns being in the hands of as repressive a body as the RUC/PSNI.

“Instead of disarming the RUC/PSNI are in fact rearming. They have already demonstrated through their reckless use of plastic bullets that they are capable of achieving the desired lethal result from so called ‘non-lethal’ weapons.

“When police forces talk about dealing with ‘public order’ situations they are invariably talking about quelling dissent and spreading fear – that is the context in which these weapons will be used.

“Is this new face of ‘civic policing’? Where the RUC/PSNI adds ‘stun guns’ to its existing stockpile of plastic bullets, machine guns and armoured personnel carriers?”