Sir, - Martin McGuinness states (February 8th) that "an end to punishment beatings requires measures to tackle anti-social behaviour", but of course he didn't state exactly what constitutes "anti-social" behaviour, apart from references to petty crime. Those of us who have been involved for many years in exposing the torture and brutality of paramilitary gangs who persecute the most vulnerable sections of our community in the areas in which they have assumed control, are well aware of what constitutes "anti-social" behaviour in his eyes.
This can be described as anti-IRA or anti-republican behaviour or criticism of republican forms of punishment, including capital punishment, as Andrew Kearney of Belfast's New Lodge discovered to his cost. Councillor Hugh Lewsley of the SDLP received similar "punishment" for daring to voice criticism of men when they were rampaging through the Twinbrook estate in West Belfast, with cudgels that often left youths so badly injured that they suffered the amputation of limbs. Antisocial behaviour? Lewsley rightly indicted republican thugs as the perpetrators of such violent antisocial behaviour, but how many of them have been punished, by the state or any other authority?
There are those of us who take a jaundiced view of the term "antisocial" behaviour, and who would place it in a different category from Martin. Murder, for example, is pretty anti-social, as is the intimidation of witnesses in a trial that is trying to bring to justice the killers of an Irish policeman. Martin and his men defend the killers, and threaten to take legal action to have them released from prison. I, and all right thinking people, think that that is pretty antisocial, especially as Martin and his followers in Sinn Fein deny any connection with the killers whom they defend.
Martin puts all the problems faced by republicans over this issue, down to "rejectionist unionism" and the anti-republican group FAIT, so the message is that every critic of "republicanism" is "bad" or "anti-social". Not for a moment does he imagine that the victims and their families resent being tortured, intimidated and murdered, and indeed, if one didn't know any better, they would assume that the republicans themselves are the victims.
Having rubbished unionism and FAIT, he then turns his attention to the police, who, he claims, do not provide an adequate policing service. Now I can sympathise with this point because we can't have law and order, or peace, without police, and if they are inadequate something must be done about it. The question is, of course, what can be done to make the police "adequate" and effective? Martin and his men have concentrated over the years in attempting to drive them out of these areas where he claims "adequate" policing is needed, so is that the way to go about it? Apparently not, because that only leads to the kind of impasse that he is complaining about.
He states: "The absence of proper and credible policing has led local communities to address these (anti-social) activities in their own, and often brutal ways." I would re-phrase that to read as follows: "Now that the RUC have been rendered ineffective in certain areas we have addressed these (anti-social) activities in our own brutal way." The republican ploy of hiding behind the "community" screen will not work on this occasion.
The issue in this case is not, of course, about the credibility of the RUC, but about the credibility of the IRA. Over the years, since the campaign for Human Rights was launched by FAIT and allied groups, the IRA have remained largely silent, unable to defend itself, and unwilling to be drawn, except on those occasions when debate developed in the absence of the media. At last, Martin has been forced to respond publicly, not just because of FAIT, but because every concerned, constitutional politician, has at last awakened to this menace that threatens our society.
This, of course, is what we have been working for. When society ignores an evil that is perpetrated on the weakest and most vulnerable of its citizens, that evil develops and eventually corrupts all. When people become aware of a menace they also begin to think, and many who never thought about it before, now realise that the street violence is suspended when it suits these people. They turn it off when dignitaries such as Clinton appear, or when they are electioneering and trying to create a respectable image for themselves. I suggest that if they can do it on those occasions they can do it now - for good - whatever about their beef with the RUC. - Yours, etc., Sean Kearney.
Glantane Drive, Belfast BT15 3FE