Gregory Campbell MP is at it again on the radio.He believes the police should move in forcibly at every potential crime scene , all guns a-blazing, batons swinging, especially if they have advanced knowledge of a crime to be committed and even more so if the target has a nationalist or republican tinge to it.Fair enough, Mr Campbell has built a career on utterances like this .If questioned very closely , he will always be partial though. He will never say that it would make some sense to treat the unionist community in the very same way if that was the case.He didn’t make a sound throughout the first few weeks of July when a policeman had his ear torn off in Belfast during a mad riot of his red, white and blue brethren.
Should the police gather evidence after the crime has been done or should they always bull in willy-nilly and make arrests immediately? Personally, I think they’d be on a losing game right away if they did that.Going on years and years of past experiences, it would be like ringing a Riot Bell…instant entertainment for anyone who enjoys a bit of a ruckus…and there are plenty of them about.They do love a good old riot in Norneverland and the police know enough by now not to encourage any of that exuberant craic. It always got out of hand in the past and only encouraged even more fun and games on the streets.
Of course there is a distinction, sometimes blurred , between good old ordinary crime with good old ordinary criminals and the crimes committed as part of a “Cultural Agenda”.You simply can’t have our policemen sitting about watching men in domino masks and striped jumpers robbing banks as they sit and take notes and photographs while eating their dough-nuts while sipping coffee.
I think this tactic of evidence -gathering has been developed over many years of dealing with riotous behaviour. The police force in Norneverland must have more experience of this kind of thing than any other police force on the planet.Everyone knows that had the police come out in force during an INLA- associated funeral where masked men fired shots and marched in a para-military display, there would have been mayhem with much violence.That’s what usually happened in the past and it has resulted in outright madness. The same could be said about UDA wreaths at funerals or flags on lamp posts. Better to scoop up the practitioners in the calm light of dawn when there are fewer of them to deal with .Like the old saying about revenge.It is surely always better to serve it as a cold dish and without too much emotion.
Of course , para-military groups have no real chance of making any further changes in society here when they had already spent many years reaching our current state of political affairs. it was a case of going around in circles for forty years or so, killing and bombing , to get to what we have now….a totally unworkable form of government of two distinct halfs pulling against each other.No amount of more bombing , shooting or killing is about to change that any time soon..
There have been so many instances of laws being broken in Norneverland over the years where the police have always ignored the crimes being committed when they feel like it .The thinking seems to be that it is better to sit in their cars, or possibly land-rovers in the past.There was a feeling of lawlessness in the land that was avidly encouraged by politicians and there is no doubt that in the past the police force was partial , which is why it has since been reformed into a new force. Many unionists miss that old partiality and Mr Campbell seems to be one of them.
Of course, there are many in this land who are basically lawless . They have always broken laws when they have felt like it. Should that be the unionist community breaking the laws or the nationalist community breaking those same laws. Shots are fired at funerals ; illegal flags are flown everywhere when it suits an agenda ; people have been brought onto the streets en masse to prove a political point .Everyone has done it.
Every year we know that the laws are about to be broken as summer comes in.They call it traditional now …a tradition of law-breaking . Stolen pallets and illegal tyres are regularly burned on bonfires every summer and everyone involved in the building and burning of bonfires , the painting of kerb stones and flying of illegal flags , are basically outlaws. Even families who attend these bonfires are complicit in breaking the laws , with much al fresco illegal drinking..
In these circumstances it is a bit rich to protest that laws have been broken when laws are cherry-picked to be broken anyway. If you drove very quickly past a bonfire , you’d probably be arrested and fined for speeding or because you had a faulty brake light. That’s how topsy-turvy things are in this enchanted land .
Then when the summer rolls to a close, things gradually go back to strange normality .The end of the Marching Season.
Far be it for me to stand up for Gregory Campbell but I think you should get your facts correct. What he and many Unionists wish to know is, why the difference in policing of Loyal Order parades and Republican parades? I’m not just speaking of those that are contenious but all of them, e.g. a quiet, non-contenious Sunday service parade to a Church. Police are equipped with Camcorders and people are photographed, merely taking part in the parade. No such attention at Republican funerals or parades, as evidenced at the week-end. One Land Rover sitting in a side street filming the left side of the face of those illegally parading in paramilitary garb. Not face on to help the facial recognition software or body shape etc that the Police have access to. No, don’t upset the Republicans seems to be the viewpoint of the Chief Constable and his Officers. Then to add further annoyance, Chief Hamilton insults those complaining with his tweet, ‘the clue is in the land rover’. No mention of the position of it and the cop peering out from behind it and not a camcorder in sight. .
Fair bit of nonsense here. There was no outcry/coverage/police presence at the UDA funeral on the same week. And Yes there were people dressed as paramilitaries.The police have arrested/held people in connection to Peggy O’Hara’s funeral already, no arrests of loyalist yet.
Bottom line is who really cares how people want to honour their dead at a funeral? Leave the dinosaurs like Gregory behind. The days of attacking funerals are over, if they weren’t we would have the return to war again. Is this really what the loyalist want?
The nickname for Pennsylvania is The Keystone State and there is a Belfast in the same state.Could this latter town and Belfast, Ulster 6 be,perchance, in any way twinned?
It would appear that the tactics and the strategies of the latter’s police force has been in the past (and may well still be in the prez) betimes based the critically acclaimed tenets of the Keystone Kops.
The Kerbstone Kops
They never in straight lines run down the Falls
More fun to zig-zag, bouncing off invisible walls
Mack ‘The Craic’ Sennet
Is q.free to act the jennet
A pact of no biz at all of our Senate or of An Dail’s.
The fuss being kicked up over the Derry funeral by the usual suspects stands in contrast to the total silence by the same suspects over last week’s illegal UDA paramilitary funeral in Belfast after one of their members was killed apparently by his own sword.
But there was no silence from the police, as they facilitated this illegal display by an illegal organisation. Not only that the PSNI ensured there would be no pictures of paramilitary displays or those loyalist bigwigs and unionist politicians in attendance.
The police decided to censor the event by instructing all media outlets not to go near the event or take any pictures.
This would seem to indicate that our ‘impartial’ PSNI have carried out the instructions of illegal paramilitaries – is that part of their remit?
So why are Curry Campbell and his fellow bigots not on the airwaves complaining about this illegality and telling the police his they should be taking direct action?
And all the while there is not a peep from Sinn Fein, SDLP or Alliance! Shame on them all.
Hello William. The funny thing is …I’ve just watched the UTV six o’ clock news and it was replete with a full report on that funeral and the gun- salute prior to it during the week. There was much marching with theatrical foot stamping as they marched, as though they’d all rehearsed their parts. To me it looks archaic and out of its time and was merely a bit of self-puffery much as the various flag flyers do.Apparently the dead woman requested all of this as part of her funeral arrangements.She wasn’t around to see the fix it put the police in so they probably thought it best to step back and let it blow over, just as they mostly try to get the Marching Season over with without too many casualties for their employees.
I have no idea where the film shown originated but it’s probably on YouTube by now. I’d also imagine that the police have a fair idea who they are dealing with already and will put two and two together in the fullness of time when things are a bit quieter.I can’t really see how they could have achieved much more in the circumstances. Obviously these are all minorities, possibly extended families , that the police are dealing with .
I would ask where any of them get weapons to flaunt when they are supposed to be de-commissioned anyway.That would be a fair enough question …just like i’d ask where all those pallets come from.. Nobody in Sinn Fein supports them as far as I can tell and they say so at every opportunity.Displays like this will achieve little anyway.
It is not going to upset the majority of republicans supporting Sinn Fein what the police do to anyone who was in the INLA or in any new micro -groupings currently using violence…. like the recent bombers in Lurgan. The IRA , for example ,you’d have to accept ,is long gone .There was a very definite cut-off point and yet many cannot accept that simple fact .Anyone who had been involved in it are either dead or old men now.The idea of violence for political gain in Ireland is long past its sell by date.
I actually think that for the most part the police are doing the best they can but are more ham-strung by the actions and non-actions of politicians from the DUP who want them to respond as attack dogs.it’s long since been proven to be an inflammable tactic for the most part..
I think you misjudge the feeling in Derry. This seems to be a popular action and is seen by many as a fitting send off for a well respected Derry republican. The people who did this risked getting hefty sentences but were prepared to do it out of respect for the women who suffered and lost a lot during the conflict. Also you shouldn’t mix up INLA with the other groups.
“Anyone who had been involved in it are either dead or old men now.The idea of violence for political gain in Ireland is long past its sell by date.”- Not true Many people involved in the IRA could be in their 30’s. And the idea that violence is past its sell by date is a bit silly, It was never in date but the conditions present caused it to come into date. It could come back into date if unionists get their way or Britain pushes it that way.
Well Emmett. you have a very jaundiced view of our future. What I would say is that now being in my 60’s and having lived through all of that happened since the early 1950’s , I have some perspective and these are very different times we are living in.I have to add i wouldn’t wish for any of us to live through anything like them again.There are many who will romanticise conflict and bully themselves up with tales real or imaginary of past bravado but the reality was very paranoid and very different.It was dirty and messy ,carried out in much grubbier times.
The IRA de-commissioned their arms and weaponry .In July 1997 which is exactly eighteen years ago they instigated a ceasefire which has stood from then until now. Apparently they then destroyed a list something like ,1,000 rifles,3 tonnes of Semtex,20–30 heavy machine guns,7 surface-to-air missiles ,7 flamethrowers,1,200 detonators,20 rocket-propelled grenade launchers,100 handguns,100+ hand grenades…..All this was varified before an international audience . there was some carping that there might be more arms, but it is obvious that everyone involved thought that the time for them was past anyway so best get rid of them.No amount of shooting and tooting was going to change any damn thing anymore.So anyone who actually used any of these weapons or was about to use them , hasn’t done so, for some twenty years because their use was pointless.
In these times of ISIS and international terrorism , it is now nearly impossible to board a flight without being strip-searched first, so the idea of having the enthusiasm and the finances to gather up even more arms…and have the public and social enthusiasm to do it…..all to simply go through a similar cycle of violence and craziness, to get right back to this same spot sounds like simple madness.In that respect , Sinn Fein have more of an inkling that this strategy simply will not work.They know it won’t simply because they had a right old go at it and it failed in the end.Thuggery, spying, gangsterism , feuds and all the rest were what eventually brought it to an end.That is exactly what will happen every time.
If any of the former active members of the IRA still have a hankering to shoot and bomb, it’s been many years since they have done so.What would be the point anyway? You say , Emmett that these past members could be in their 30’s…well they must’ve been very young starting because there’s been no real action since well before the de-commissioning of weapons.That action went on since 1969 for some 25 years and stopped.
As for unionists “getting their way”, even though they hardly believe it themselves, they are getting their way.We’re all getting the “way” we agreed by a majority vote.The only way Ireland will be re-united will be by popular, agreed consensus throughout the island . That is actually what everyone agreed to and it will happen if that comes to pass. The idea is to convince everyone that it is a really good idea.
In these times it is a lot easier to get weapons which is why it is important to make sure that people aren’t pushed to the fringes. Granted you have lived longer than me but the history of Ireland is longer again and I can see patterns and cycles going back 100s of years. It only takes an extreme UK government to put us back to square 1. It is easier to acquire weapons today. There are so many more suppliers and insecure borders and states. The ISIS threat makes it easier for other groups to go under the radar. I don’t think unionist have got their own way at all. I realise how grubby and bad the situation was and I am glad I that peace emerged just as I was becoming an adult. I don’t have a negative view of the future at all, Peggy O’Hara’s funeral was about the past as is every funeral. My point stands if you want to push and challenge or denigrate anyone involved in the funerals you are damaging the peace process. As for the “Thuggery, spying, gangsterism , feuds and all the rest were what eventually brought it to an end” that doesn’t really describe the situation and is a very biased version of what went on, I’d say it is offensive to anyone who suffered or made sacrifices. But again that is a matter of perspective, if you weren’t on the end of British thuggery and gangsterism then it is difficult to understand what could motivate someone to take up arms, but then that sums up the history of the British Empire.
Should also point out that the IRA did not stop recruiting in 1969, I’s guess that 17/18 year old where joining into the late 90s, remember many weren’t sure the British where committed. After the guns fell silent the IRA would have maintained operational status, sort of a standby mode. Hence their could be lots of ex PIRA members who are now in their 30s.
Given the state of cameras on every corner in all parts of the UK, I find it hard to believe that there is any disparity between the parades and what is being videotaped. just because there isn’t a camcorder apparent doesn’t mean there aren’t digital images from beginning to end. but that’s my impression of how UK is now wired up. But getting to Harry’s post – calmer tactics on the part of the police in spite of Mr. Campbell’s complaint, helps keep a fractious situation from becoming an all out riot regardless not much happens in spite of any filming – A return to that strange sense of what passes for normal in wee Ulcer occurs until the next season.
I do recall the case of Robert Hamill when the cops in the land rover viewed his kicking and beating death on the street. I think there should’ve been intervention to the point where his life could’ve been saved. had they at least gotten out of their car – would that have helped?
Sarah, in the case of Robert Hamill, no, it would not have helped him had the cops got out of their Land Rover, as there is evidence that those same ‘officers’ were co-operating fully with the killers, and so, by their actions, can also be regarded as Robert’s killers.
Regarding the Robert Hamill killing, killing Sara.That was a case that was much discussed .Any reasonable person would say it was a policeman’s duty to intervene in a street assault in front of him, rather than sit back and watch a thuggish display of brutality.
Was that a frightened group of policemen , hiding inside their vehicle, protecting their own skins from a horny-handed mob of killers doing an awful deed, or was it simply a case of the police siding with those killers? That kind of question was why the old RUC were disbanded.A huge section of the community they served had no trust in their impartiality. ….a simple fact really…but it was the way things were because of a series of incidents over the years.Had that not been the case they would not have been disbanded after all. Is this new police force more even-handed than their predecessors or merely more of the same? Many think they’ve gone completely to the other end of the spectrum and have become a bland grouping with no wish to offend anyone and in doing so are bound to offend those who want them to wade into their opponents.
In the past most of the police force came from the heartland of the unionist community.it was “their” police force, with only a handful from the more conservative nationalist spectrum.I think they possibly preferred that arrangement.
On the ultra-nationalist side they will never have any truck with any police force because they represent the “State” to them and that’s a state of affairs they will never want or be happy with . On the other hand , political nationalists like the modern 21st century Sinn Fein and of course the SDLP have signed up to this new police force for the foreseeable future and are prepared to attempt to effect eventual political changes in a purely political way , while that police force attempts to work in a more balanced way than has been their perceived modus operandi in the past.
Many are having problems with this modern way of doing things and the police appear to be treading warily as they too figure it out for themselves..
Well Emmett , with the threat of ISIS in the forefront of political thought in the UK, they really wanted some sort of conclusion to the Irish situation, especially after the 9/11 incident in 2001. They might not want to jeopardise the uneasy peace we have now. As you say , people pushed to the margins are much more volatile but there is not the same level of degradation that there was in the 1960’s to ignite this whole thing …and in the whole of Irish history there has never been urban warfare sustained over such a long period of time . A generation grew up in the thick of it and we all lost people we knew on every side. Since then there is a whole new generation with no memory of the mayhem at all.The constantly bombed shops and pubs…the killing of neighbours.My next door neighbour’s father was gunned down in the street just around the corner from where i lived back then. Her brother also was killed. I’ve also known others who i went to school with or knew from my teenage years who are now very dead.
None of it would be conceivable to any young people living today. Conditions in people’s homes were much poorer..even the food we ate was different .We are in very different times and if anyone thinks it is worthwhile to get killed or kill to change anything now , they’d need stronger reasons than the generation before them had.Things are very different politically too so I can’t see the UK government upsetting any apple carts by sending in troops without something very radical happening.They have a much better idea of how the land lies now and their sights are set on the Middle East problem in any case.
I agree with everything you say (apart from the reference to urban conflict- remember there was never significant urban areas pre-1800 and when there was they were characterised by the lack of Catholics). Again I don’t think we should assume that things won’t slip, we need to push for peace and we need to engage many people in that process. The history of Ireland has shown that one generations’s experience of conflict will not put the next generation off. Young people will not listen to older people saying ‘it was terrible’ this is the weakest deterrent there is. We need to prevent conditions from arising again. Remember economic stability is not guaranteed anywhere. Britain could have an extreme, cruel government again. The PSNI could become lapse. With the funeral I know some of the people involved have lost a lot as well. Let’s not assume they all want to drag us back to the past. If we let the PSNI attack that funeral we would have a major escalation of the conflict. To try to belittle the farewell to Peggy O’Hara and hurl insults at the people involved is a huge mistake for anyone interested in peace. No harm was intended to anyone at this funeral. If the Queen’s laws prevent people from covering their faces and attending a funeral then I don’t think I have much respect for the law. I don’t think anything the INLA did at that funeral constitute breaking their ceasefire.
Just a couple of observations….William what constitutes ” Paramilitary garb” ? Would the OO and the bands they pay to accompany them not be wearing the said same ? Did this marching ensemble , accompanying a coffin , cause any more grievance than an affront to your sensitivities ? Has Gregory “broken-mouth” got lost in a time warp , does he believe that the PSNI are the RUC and still at the beck and call of Unionism ?….Firing a couple of fresh air shots over a coffin , although maybe regrettable , hardly constitutes an uprising . I believe that these micro republican groups ,undoubtedly being led by the nefarious M15/6 , are an embarrassment and only give raison d’être to their also illegal Unionist counterparts !
here’s some information about the orange order’s pseudo-military dress code. Refusing to restrict/change it was one of the reasons they were dead set against the Hass talks https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/dr-haass-criminalizes-the-orange-order/
You really put a lot of work into those posts ben…very informative ,I must say