Britain Aims to Get More Catholics in N. Ireland Police

Hoping to stave off another crisis in the Northern Ireland peace process, the British government announced Wednesday that it will overhaul the province’s Royal Ulster Constabulary and rename the largely Protestant police force in an attempt to draw more Roman Catholics.

The RUC, as it is called, will lose its “royal” designation next year for a more neutral name: the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The force will be reduced by nearly half, while new recruitment will aim to increase Catholic membership from its current 8%.

Catholics have long viewed the RUC as a counterinsurgency force to impose British rule in Northern Ireland, but Protestants there see it as a bulwark against the Irish Republican Army in the province’s bloody three-decade-long sectarian conflict.

The police reforms, long sought by Catholics, follow recommendations issued in September by an independent commission led by Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong.

The timing of the announcement by Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson seemed geared to encourage the IRA to begin disarming by next month--a deadline imposed by Protestant leader David Trimble.

Trimble set up a government in Northern Ireland with the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein, in December after promising his Ulster Unionist Party that he would resign if paramilitary disarmament had not begun by February. He handed party leaders a postdated resignation letter and told Sinn Fein: “We’ve jumped. Now you follow.”

The move infuriated Sinn Fein leaders, who argued that Trimble had no right to impose a unilateral deadline on the 1998 Good Friday peace accord, which states only that disarmament must be completed by May 2000.

There has been no sign of disarmament and no hint from retired Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, head of the independent panel overseeing “decommissioning,” that the IRA has taken any steps to get rid of its guns. British officials have indicated that they are worried about a new crisis.

Trimble, who has struggled to maintain his party’s support for the Good Friday accord, would probably face a revolt if he continued in government without at least a token hand-over from the IRA. His resignation as first minister in the fledgling coalition government would surely lead to a breakdown in a peace process that aims to end the conflict between pro-British Protestants and Catholics who want to see the province united with the Irish Republic.

While delivering on promises to reform the police, Mandelson on Wednesday pressed the republicans on disarmament in a speech to Britain’s Parliament.

“It is not acceptable for some parts of [the accord] to be implemented and other parts to be overlooked,” he said. “If [disarmament] is to be completed by May this year, an early start is absolutely necessary.”

Mandelson paid tribute to the RUC’s “courage, resilience and professionalism” in his announcement, but the reforms angered many unionists and police in Northern Ireland who consider them a sop to “Irish terrorists.” Unionists hold the more than 300 RUC members killed in the conflict to be martyrs to the cause of remaining part of Britain.

Last year, Queen Elizabeth II awarded the RUC the prestigious George Cross for its bravery, an effort to bolster morale and soften the blow of reform.

Mandelson said the RUC had “inevitably, if unfairly,” become identified with Protestants and that the sweeping changes were necessary to make the force acceptable to both communities. He said he is seeking to stop the force from being a “fulcrum for antagonistic debate.”

The revamped police force will be gradually reduced from about 13,500 full-time officers to 7,500, assuming there is no deterioration in security in the province. Meanwhile, future recruitment will be split equally between Protestants and Catholics.

“There will be no question whatsoever of ex-terrorists joining the service,” Mandelson said.

He acknowledged that Catholics had been deterred from joining the RUC by IRA threats and said the overhaul meant it is time for Catholics to support the police.

In addition to a new police oath and code of ethics, Mandelson said all officers will receive human rights training--an idea that drew sneers from unionists and conservatives in Parliament.

But unionists reserve their fury for more symbolic issues such as the name change, which Ulster Unionist spokesman Ken Maginnis called “humiliating.”

Les Rodgers, the chairman of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, said that “the loss of the name is an act of appeasement which does not command widespread support in Northern Ireland. It is a vengeful, destructive measure.”