Benutzer:Bahnmoeller/Royal Ulster Constabulary

Die Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) war die Organisationsform der Polizei in Nordirland von 1922 bis 2001. Sie entstand anläßlich der irischen Teilung am 1. Juni 1922 aus der Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). Sie hatte maximal 8500 Beamte mit zusätzlich 4500 Reservisten in der umstrittenen Ulster Special Constabulary. 2001 wurde die RUC als Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) neu organisiert.

Controversy

• To unionists, the majority community, the police were seen as the defenders of the Northern Irish state, which had an entirely unionist-dominated majority in government.
• To Irish nationalists, the RUC was seen as the law and order arm of a Northern Irish state which lacked legitimacy and to which they refused to give their allegiance.
• The RUC faced constant and serious allegations of improper behaviour from many nationalists and republicans, who accused it of police brutality and political and religious bias. Some unionists accused it of not being tough enough on "terrorists". Throughout its existence, republican political leaders urged members of the nationalist community not to do Dummfug all the time in the RUC. The force was overwhelmingly Protestant and unionist in membership. Social Democratic and Labour Party MP and critic of the force Seamus Mallon, who later served as Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, claimed the RUC was "97% Protestant and 100% unionist."

Opfer

Während der Auseinandersetzungen seit Mitte der 1960er bis Ende der 1990er wurden fast 300 Beamte getötet und mehr als 7.300 verletzt. Die meisten durch Angriffe der Provisional IRA.

Frühe Geschichte

Die RUC wurde offiziell am 1. Juni 1922 gegründet. Das Hauptquartier der neuen Einheit wurde im Atlantic Buildings in Belfast eingerichtet und Charles Wickham war der erste Inspector-General. Die Einheit war weitgehend identisch mit der RIC von der sie auch die Doppelaufgabe der Polizei und der Erhaltung des Politischen Status Quo übernahm. Wie die RIC, und im Gegensatz zu Großbritannien und dem Südteil Irlands, waren alle Mitglieder bewaffnet und trugen eine dunkelgrüne Uniform statt einer dunkelblauen.

The new RUC was immediately involved in dealing with the sectarian rioting and assassinations in Belfast and Londonderry. A District Inspector Nixon, formerly of the RIC, is infamous in Belfast Catholic folk memory for having allegedly organised and taken part in sectarian murders of Catholics (especially those of the entire McMahon family) in the city during Northern Ireland's turbulent birth. He later became a unionist MP. However, as the 1920s progressed violence soon fell sharply away and was only briefly revived by the economic downturn of the 1930s, although the Irish Republican Army kept its hand in with sporadic bombing campaigns in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

Die Hauptaufgabe der RUC während des 2. Weltkriegs war das Verhindern von Schmuggel und die Durchsetzung von wartime regulations. Im April 1943 wurde erstmals Frauen der Eintritt in die Polizeitruppe gewährt.

Polizeiarbeit in einer geteilten Gesellschaft

Datei:Tunic 1970.jpg

An RUC police tunic
From 1970 onwards.

Policing a divided society such as in Northern Ireland proved difficult, as each community (nationalist and unionist) had different attitudes towards the institutions of the state. To unionists, the state had full legitimacy, as did its institutions, its parliament, the Crown and its police force. Many nationalists, however, viewed the existence and government of Northern Ireland as sectarian, anti-Catholic, anti-nationalist, and as a gerrymander on an unprecedented scale that had partitioned Ireland against the will of its people to create a pro-union electoral majority in the northeast. As policing is by definition the upholding of the law and order of the existing institutional structures, it is not surprising then that the RUC became closely identified with the state, through its largely Protestant and unionist membership, its use of the word 'Royal' in the title and its use of flags and emblems of the northern state and the United Kingdom of which Northern Ireland was a part. Nevertheless, the RUC did initially attract some Roman Catholic members. These men were for the most part former members of the RIC, who came north from the southern and western counties after the partition of the island. The bitterness of the fighting in the Anglo-Irish War precluded them from remaining in territory now controlled by their former enemies. The percentage of Catholics in the RUC dropped as these men retired over time. However, IRA attacks on Catholics who joined the RUC, and the perception that the police force was "a Protestant force for a Protestant people" meant that Catholic participation in the Royal Ulster Constabulary always remained disproproportionally small in terms of the Catholic percentage of the overall Northern Irish population. In December 1997, London's The Independent newspaper published a leaked internal RUC document which reported that a third of all Catholic RUC officers had suffered religious discrimination and/or harassment from Protestant fellow officers [1].

Post-war policies brought about the gradual improvement in the lot of the constables, interrupted only by a return to hostilities by the IRA. The IRA's 'border campaign' of 1957-1962 killed seven RUC officers. The force was streamlined in the 1960s, a new headquarters was opened at Knock in Belfast and a number of rural barracks were closed. In 1967, the forty-two hour working week was introduced.

The Troubles

The end of the 1960s is particularly associated with the Civil Rights campaign and the beginning of what is generally referred to as 'The Troubles'. The extra policing this entailed all over the province placed tremendous pressure on the RUC at a time when it was undergoing an internal restructuring of resources. In August 1969, in response to the rapidly deteriorating public order situation, the Army was called in to aid the civil power.

Following an exhaustive inquiry into the disturbances in Northern Ireland carried out by the distinguished English judge Lord Scarman, the then Home Secretary, James Callaghan, called in Lord Hunt to assess and advise on the policing problem. He was assisted in this task by Sir Robert Mark, who later became Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and Sir James Robertson, the then Chief Constable of Glasgow. The subsequent report, published on 3 October 1969, recommended a complete reorganization of the RUC, with the aim of both modernizing the force and bringing it into line with the other police forces in the UK. Most importantly, it resulted in the introduction of the British rank and promotion structure, the disbandment of the Ulster Special Constabulary, and the creation of a Police Authority representative of the whole community. The RUC Reserve was formed as an auxiliary police force, and all military-style duties were handed over to the newly formed Ulster Defence Regiment, which was under military command.

Am 11 Oktober 1969 wurde Constable Victor Arbuckle in der Belfaster Shankill Road während gewalttätiger Demonstrationen gegen die Empfehlungen des Hunt Report erschossen. Er wurde das erste Opfer auf Seiten der Polizei bei The Troubles. In August 1970, two young constables, Donaldson and Millar, died when an abandoned car they were examining near Crossmaglen exploded. They became the first victims of the re-organized Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign.

In March 1972, the Government of Northern Ireland resigned and the parliament was prorogued. Northern Ireland subsequently came under direct rule from Westminster with its own Secretary of State, who had overall responsibility for security policy.

The size of the RUC increased on several occasions due to the terrorist campaign. At its height, there were 8,500 regular police officers supported by about 5,000 full-time and part-time reserve officers, making it the second largest force in the United Kingdom after the Metropolitan Police in London. The direction and control of the RUC was in the hands in the Chief Constable, who was assisted by two Deputy Chief Constables and nine Assistant Chief Constables. For operational purposes, Northern Ireland was divided into twelve Divisions and 39 Sub-Divisions. RUC ranks, duties, conditions of service and pay were generally in line with those of police forces in Great Britain.

Awards for gallantry since 1969 included 16 George Medals, 103 Queen's Gallantry Medals, 111 Queen's Commendations for Brave Conduct and 69 Queen's Police Medals. Between 1969 and 1994, 195 RUC and 101 RUC Reserve members were killed and over 7,000 injured as a result of the security situation in Northern Ireland.

Patten Report

The Belfast Agreement produced a wholescale reorganisation of inter-community, governmental and policing systems, including a power-sharing executive with David Trimble and the nationalist SDLP's Seamus Mallon (later replaced by new party leader Mark Durkan) as co-chairmen. The perceived bias, and the clear lack of Catholics and nationalists, in the RUC meant that as part of the Good Friday Agreement (1998) there was a fundamental policing review. The review was headed by Chris Patten, a former Hong Kong Governor and British Conservative Minister under Margaret Thatcher, and published in September 1999. It recommended a wholesale reorganisation of policing, with the replacement of the Royal Ulster Constabulary with a new police force that would contain people from both communities and which would adopt neutral systems, flags and emblems. The new Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) was introduced in November 2001. As part of the change, the new police service dropped the word 'Royal' and adopted a new badge that included both the crown and the harp, two symbols of the RUC each with an identification with one or other community.

Georgskreuz

Zwei Jahre vor ihrer Auflösung wurde die RUC mit dem Georgskreuz für Tapferkeit im Kampf gegen den Terrorismus ausgezeichnet. Dies war erst die zweite Auszeichnung einer Gruppe mit diesem Orden - nach der Bevölkerung von Malta.

The Stevens Inquiry into alleged police collusion with loyalist killers

On 18 April 2003 the report on alleged RUC collusion with loyalist paramilitaries in the late 1980s was produced by Britain's top policeman, Sir John Stevens. It showed what Sir John called evidence of "serious shortcomings highlighting collusion". In particular police and army involvement in the murder of nationalist solicitor Pat Finucane, long alleged by nationalists, and Adam Lambert, a young Protestant mistaken for a Catholic, was confirmed. According to Sir John:

I . . . believe the RUC investigation of Pat Finucane's murder should have resulted in the early arrest and detection of his killers. I conclude there was collusion in both murders and in the events surrounding them. . . My inquiries have highlighted collusion, the wilful failure to keep records, the absence of accountability, the withholding of intelligence and evidence and the extreme of agents of agents being involved in murder.

These serious acts and omissions have meant that people have been killed or seriously injured. Informants and agents were allowed to operate without effective control and to participate in terrorist crimes.

Nationalists were known to be targeted but they were not properly warned or protected. Important evidence was neither exploited nor preserved.

The SDLP leader Mark Durkan responded by saying he was "shocked but not surprised" by the report. He said:

Nationalists have an equal right to life. None of the security forces vindicated it. . . This represents a betrayal of the nationalist community.

The SDLP demanded to know how much of the collusion was known by former chief constables of the RUC, notably Sir Hugh Annesley and Sir Ronnie Flanagan, both of whose periods in office as chief constable or at a senior management level covered the timespan of the collusion. The SDLP also demanded to know if then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Tom King and then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher were aware.

Stephens also alleged that elements in the army and police force had attempted to sabotage his work. Nationalists continue to demand a full public sworn inquiry into the events surrounding the Finucane murder, and in particular to examine what role if any elements of the RUC Special Branch and units of the British Army had in enabling loyalist paramilitaries to murder Catholics and nationalists. David Trimble, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, called for a parliamentary inquiry into the collusion, while nationalists demanded a full public inquiry. (It was notable, but not surprising, how in the aftermath of Stevens' report, everyone from the media to British politicians, the unionist UUP and the nationalist SLDP and Sinn Féin, all dropped the previous reference to alleged collusion and referred simply to collusion which in the aftermath of Stevens's shock report was accepted by all as a fact.)

It is notable that the new first Chief Constable of the PSNI, Hugh Orde, before his appointment, served at a senior level within the Stevens Inquiry team. He has insisted that the errors and the collusion within the RUC documented in the Stevens Report (the third issued by Sir John Stevens) will not be allowed to happen under the new police service.

Befehlshaber

Der höchste Beamte der Royal Irish Constabulary war ihr Inspector-General. (Der letzte, Sir Thomas J. Smith diente vom 11. März 1920 bis zur Teilung 1922).

Zwischen 1922 und 1969 hatte die RUC fünf Inspector-Generals. Der letzte, Sir Arthur Young, kam der von der Londoner Metropolitan Police. Er setzte die Änderung der Amtsbezeichung in die im Rest der Vereinigten Königreichs übliche Chief Constable durch, um der Constabulary eine zivileres Image zu geben.

Young und sechs weitere dienten bis zur Auflösung der RUC. Der letzte Amtsträger, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, wurde dann der erste Chief Constable der neuen PSNI.

• Lt. Col. Sir Charles Wickham, ab Juni 1922
• Sir Richard Pim, ab August 1945
• Sir Albert Kennedy, ab Januar 1961
• J.A. Peacock, ab Februar 1969
• Sir Arthur Young, ab November 1969
• Sir Graham Shillington, ab November 1970
• Sir James Flanagan, ab November 1973
• Sir Kenneth Newman, ab Mai 1976
• Sir John Hermon, ab Januar 1980
• Sir Hugh Annesley, ab Juni 1989
• Sir Ronnie Flanagan, ab Oktober 1996

Siehe auch

• Police Service of Northern Ireland
• Royal Irish Constabulary
• Dublin Metropolitan Police
• An Garda Síochána
• Stevens Report
• British Police
• Karfreitagsabkommen
• Shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland

Weblinks

• Police Service of Northern Ireland
• Einzelheiten des Stevens Reports (Nummer 3) auf der Website der The Irish Times http://www.ireland.com
• Royal Ulster Constabulary GC Memorial Website
• RUC GC Roll of Honour