END DAMNING LEGACY OF FAILURE
End damning legacy of failure
The latest assessment of the role of the RUC Special Branch in the case of the 1998 Omagh bombing atrocity should provide pause for reflection. The front-line officers in the security services not only failed to prevent the bomb which annihilated 29 people and two unborn children; they frustrated at every turn the subsequent investigation, according' to the assessment of Dan Compton of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. That, by any measure, is a damning indictment of a "police force within a police force".
The Compton Report bombshell comes amid several assessment of the security net that still rings the North in an iron curtain of battlements and watchtowers. More than four years after the signing of the Agreement, and approaching a decade since the first IRA ceasefire, the security infrastructure still resembles the Golan Heights. The gung-ho "boys with toys" who insist on encroaching in the most provocative way on peaceful communities throughout the North, insist that there is still a threat to the peace. Yes there is. The threat is the military presence which acts as a daily irritant, goading recalcitrant elements to do their worst again.
The latest security assessment, we are told, suggests that the Real IRA the moronic renegades who plunged Omagh into death and destruction on that day in August has shifted its power base north of the border. We are told of units operating in Derry and Strabane, in West Belfast and of course, of a still growing threat in South Armagh. It all sounds so wearily familiar and, as one SDLP MLA commented, that refrain has become the mantra for anonymous men in uniform who have been dubbed the "Securocrats".
Yet even if one concedes that there might be a growing threat anywhere in the North, there is not one shred of evidence that the military installations in these areas have prevented a slide back to violence. No more so than the blanket security presence which enshrouded us during the 30 years of the Troubles prevented those who were hell bent on violence. As British Prime Minister Tony Blair stated bluntly, the IRA could not be defeated military. Nor will those who rise to the provocation of the securocrats be deterred by the very thing that makes them choose their path of error and destruction.
The securocrats have had there day and failed miserably. The legacy of Omagh should be enough to send them packing and good riddance. The prospect of peace would be improved immeasurably.
The latest assessment of the role of the RUC Special Branch in the case of the 1998 Omagh bombing atrocity should provide pause for reflection. The front-line officers in the security services not only failed to prevent the bomb which annihilated 29 people and two unborn children; they frustrated at every turn the subsequent investigation, according' to the assessment of Dan Compton of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. That, by any measure, is a damning indictment of a "police force within a police force".
The Compton Report bombshell comes amid several assessment of the security net that still rings the North in an iron curtain of battlements and watchtowers. More than four years after the signing of the Agreement, and approaching a decade since the first IRA ceasefire, the security infrastructure still resembles the Golan Heights. The gung-ho "boys with toys" who insist on encroaching in the most provocative way on peaceful communities throughout the North, insist that there is still a threat to the peace. Yes there is. The threat is the military presence which acts as a daily irritant, goading recalcitrant elements to do their worst again.
The latest security assessment, we are told, suggests that the Real IRA the moronic renegades who plunged Omagh into death and destruction on that day in August has shifted its power base north of the border. We are told of units operating in Derry and Strabane, in West Belfast and of course, of a still growing threat in South Armagh. It all sounds so wearily familiar and, as one SDLP MLA commented, that refrain has become the mantra for anonymous men in uniform who have been dubbed the "Securocrats".
Yet even if one concedes that there might be a growing threat anywhere in the North, there is not one shred of evidence that the military installations in these areas have prevented a slide back to violence. No more so than the blanket security presence which enshrouded us during the 30 years of the Troubles prevented those who were hell bent on violence. As British Prime Minister Tony Blair stated bluntly, the IRA could not be defeated military. Nor will those who rise to the provocation of the securocrats be deterred by the very thing that makes them choose their path of error and destruction.
The securocrats have had there day and failed miserably. The legacy of Omagh should be enough to send them packing and good riddance. The prospect of peace would be improved immeasurably.
Further Information
Publisher: ULSTER HERALD
Ref: UH/1115
Published Date: 07-Nov-02
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