The Patten Commission on Policing, through strong word and image, last night learned of the depth of hostility to the RUC in nationalist west Belfast.
More than 500 people packed into the further education college on the Whiterock Road to voice their opinion about future policing. All the speakers were vehement in their opposition to the RUC, saying it should be disbanded rather than reformed.
The interest in the issue was in stark contrast to a public meeting held recently by the commission on the nearby loyalist Shankill Road, attended by only 40 people. Mr Chris Patten attempted to bring some degree of levity to the meeting last night by describing himself as "the last colonial oppressor of Hong Kong", a comment received with fair good humour. But that was the end of the light-heartedness.
The commission held its public meeting in Belfast's nationalist heartland just hours after a private meeting with the association representing RUC widows and officers disabled by the Troubles.
Father Des Wilson reflected the general tone of the Whiterock meeting when he accused the RUC of treating local people with contempt. To loud cheers, he said: "As long as even one member of the RUC is a member of a new police force, that force will not be acceptable."
The RUC was politically motivated and unreformable. Any advertisements for a new police force should carry the warning, "No former RUC members need apply," he added.
Father Wilson said cosmetic changes would also be unacceptable. "And even if those changes were approved by the highest church leaders in the land, they would still not be acceptable." The meeting opened with a locally-made video depicting scenes of alleged RUC harassment, intimidation and killings of nationalists and Catholics. Several speakers dealt in detail with what they described as the long-standing sectarian history of the RUC. Mr Danny Power, a community activist, said that since its formation the force had operated a carefully-planned agenda to "persecute nationalists and keep croppies in their place".
"The resentment and hatred of the RUC runs long and deep, leaving many scars and wounds. The RUC has never been accepted in west Belfast and never will be accepted," Mr Power added.
Mr Stephen McGlade said he was a young man whom the police in their day-to-day dealings with him described as "a Fenian bastard, shithead or scumbag". He accused the police of constant harassment of young people.
"We know what the police are like and we have the physical and psychological scars to prove it. The RUC are not neutral, their ethos is unionist," he said. Throughout the two-hour meeting, several of the speakers were quite passionate in their denunciation of the RUC, prompting Mr Patten to quote a recent Andersonstown News editorial which called for a "new dialect of reason and respect".
He longed for the day when politicians rather than independent commissions were required to deal with issues such as policing. "In order to get to that point, we will need, of course, a lot of honesty, but we will also need a lot of reconciliation and generosity of spirit," Mr Patten said.
This prompted a number of speakers to claim that Mr Patten was branding local people as unfair and unreasonable. Mr Patten said that was not his intention.
