Sinn Fein has demanded the disarming of the RUC pending its abolition and replacement with a "proper community policing service". The party has also called for all building and refurbishment programmes for security bases to be immediately cancelled and the money redirected into health and education projects.
At a press conference in Belfast yesterday, Councillor Dodie McGuinness said an independent body should be set up to monitor and oversee the disbandment of the RUC. The establishment of a new force which was "acceptable and accountable" to the entire community must be a priority at all-party negotiations. "Any new policing service should reflect in numbers per 1,000 population the same ratio as that in other, normal policed societies. It should also have to be reflective of the religious and political make-up of the community which it will serve."
"This," she said, "would necessitate a drastic reduction in the numbers required for the new policing service. There is no other reason for the inflated numbers and politico-religious make-up presently in the RUC other than to suppress dissent from that section of the population who have been trapped in this artificially created statelet without their consent - the nationalists."
Ms McGuinness said present RUC members should not be prevented from joining any new force.
"The function of the RUC was instilled in its members from its foundation in 1921. It was to protect British interests and the unionist ethos to the exclusion of all others. They have been a unionist force policing a unionist state for unionists," she said.