Unanswered questions about British state collusion with violence make calls to support the PSNI politically unrealistic, writes Mark Thompson
Over the past few weeks we have had a concentrated focus on one party to the conflict and their obligations to the peace process to the absolute exclusion of other parties to the conflict with regard to their obligations.
Viewed entirely through this prism there has been a fixation with sections of the media and political opportunists seeking to pursue their own selfish and strategic agenda at the expense of the peace process and human rights for all.
As an organisation supporting hundreds of families bereaved as a result of the conflict, relatives have expressed a sense of frustration and justifiable anger at the inability of these same people to be as forthright in holding others to the conflict accountable for their ongoing actions.
This selective approach has consistently failed to tackle all the root causes of conflict in our country and if pursued could have a very destabilising effect. It is a failed agenda. Everyone is entitled to justice equally, from Patrick Rooney, the first child killed in the conflict, to Robert McCartney, brutally killed in the Short Strand.
The focus on outstanding issues on policing has almost disappeared from the agenda, instead being replaced by commentators and opportunists demanding compliance and co-operation with the PSNI.
Currently the PSNI, including the British Ministry of Defence (MoD), is preventing the holding of inquests into controversial killings involving the RUC, British army, and in cases in which evidence of collusion exists.
Hugh Orde is challenging a ruling by the High Court to prevent material evidence being handed over to the families of Protestant teenagers David McIlwaine and Andrew Robb murdered by loyalists five years ago. There have been widespread media reports that some of those involved in the killing are Special Branch agents.
Relatives for Justice is currently involved in 21 cases within the British judicial system in which controversial killings by the state are being subjected to a stalling process in defiance of a European Court ruling. The tactics used are refusal by the PSNI and the MoD to co-operate with coroners, refusal to adhere to court rulings and the threat to use public interest immunity certificates to prevent the handing over of information to families.
In some of the cases the public may wish to know why it is that the British state may seek public immunity in cases in which loyalists were responsible for the killings. In the killing of Tyrone pensioner Roseanne Mallon by the UVF a covert British army unit observed the killing under orders not to intervene.
Obstacles from the PSNI, and the MoD, aimed at preventing the examination of any of these cases signal that processes of investigation and justice can be corrupted in the interests of the state.
This has consistently been the case when the British army and RUC killed people. This experience formed the basis of cases taken to the European Court by families' bereaved by the state in 2001. The court found that in controversial killings involving the state, and where allegations of state collusion existed, that the domestic investigative system failed to comply with international standards of impartiality, accountability and transparency.
No new procedures have been put in place to remedy these failings. The DPP continues to refuse to provide any reason as to why it has failed to prosecute members of the "security forces" and in scores of cases where collusion was evidenced. The office of the DPP remains a "black hole" and is beyond the remit of the Police Ombudsman - a loophole that is exploited.
The primacy of protecting British state interests is clearly in evidence to the exclusion of the interests of truth, accountability and justice for its hundreds of victims. This was also witnessed recently in relation to the Barron inquiry and the Oireachtas Committee into the Dublin/Monaghan bombings with British refusal to co-operate.
In response to calls for dealing with unsolved killings Hugh Orde set-up the Serious Crime Review Team. This was outside any agreed process for dealing with the past, initiated by an involved party to the conflict with a vested interest.
People affected by the impunity of British state violence are somehow expected to trust the very same institutions responsible for killing their loved ones to re-examine these killings. As people rush to condemn and to say that we should accept the PSNI they do a great disservice to the universal principles of human rights. Indeed they ignore the reality as they use the current circumstances to push an agenda implying that if we refuse to accept the PSNI then we are all somehow guilty of something.
This is a crucially important time and one in which cool heads should prevail if we are to resolve the policing situation to our collective needs and refocus on the political task of peace building and resolving our past.
How can we have confidence or trust in the current system before we have an acceptable policing and criminal justice system that measures up to international standards and importantly delivers justice? Especially as those who are tasked with investigating are the very same people using their collective resources to prevent justice when their interests are at stake.
Exactly who do we go to when it is the state which has acted in a criminal way? Given our experience the members of Relatives for Justice have a particular hope in the success of the peace process. Every party to the process must fulfil its obligations, no matter how difficult or challenging this may be for republicans, loyalists and the British government. The primacy of politics must work and be seen to work.
Mark Thompson is a spokesman for Relatives for Justice, a Belfast-based NGO support group working for relatives of people bereaved, and injured, by the conflict. It says it "works primarily with those affected by state and state-sponsored violence". www.relativesforjustice.com