September 8, 1999. Copyright 1999. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

RUC FACES WHOLSALE REFORM

LONDON, September 8, Graphic News: NORTHERN IRELAND is braced for an upsurge in sectarian violence following the publication of the Patten report which recommends wholesale reform of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).
Sinn Fein has added to the political tension by announcing plans for anti-RUC rallies across the province, including vigils outside police stations in Belfast and Londonderry.
The 128-page documentÕs 175 recommendations Ð which include a new badge, oath of allegiance, uniform and a new positive recruitment policy towards Catholics Ð will anger unionists, but have not met nationalist and republican demands for disbandment of the 92 percent Protestant, 13,000-strong force. 
ÒWhile the RUC should not be disbanded, it should henceforth be named the Northern Ireland Police Service,Ó said the report by a commission headed by Chris Patten, Britain's last governor of Hong Kong.
The report also puts a heavy emphasis on recommendations that Northern Ireland should be policed with a new human rights-based approach.
But among proposals which will now be put to a heated review and debate process were calls to replace the Northern Ireland Police Authority with a new police board which will include members of all parties entitled to seats in the Assembly Executive Ð including Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican ArmyÕs (IRA) political ally.
ÒProvided the peace process does not collapse and the security situation does not deteriorate significantly from the situation pertaining at present, the approximate size of the police service over the next 10 years should be 7,500 full-time officers,Ó the report said.
In a peacetime situation the issue of whether officers should be armed will be reviewed, holding centres at Castlereagh and Gough barracks should be closed, police stations should be made Òless forbidding,Ó and officers should have their names and numbers clearly marked on their uniforms. 
The report Ð which has already hurt Northern IrelandÕs troubled peace process Ð is so sensitive that U.S. mediator George Mitchell, recalled to the province to chair a review of the Good Friday Agreement signed last April, returned to the United States on the eve of its release after initial consultations with rival parties and British and Irish government officials.
Publishing his report Mr Patten said that its key objective was to ÒdepoliticizeÓ policing. He said: ÒPolicing in Northern Ireland has suffered, often with disastrous consequences, from being a political issue, and from being associated with the dispute about the state itself.Ó
/ENDS 
Sources: Reuters, BBC World