THE Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, has warned of the difficulties facing republicans within their own community if the Patten report on policing, due to be published on Thursday, does not recommend a radically new policing service for Northern Ireland.
In a statement yesterday, Mr Adams said: "No one should underestimate the difficulties facing republicans if the Patten commission does not produce a new policing service. The RUC must go." No other issue, apart from decommissioning, had generated as much controversy and debate, he added.
The issue, a "touchstone issue for nationalists and republicans", was not one of nationalists opposing any police force per se, but rather one of establishing an impartial policing service that could be trusted by both communities, Mr Adams said.
"Nationalists in the North are not anti-police. On the contrary, we want to be policed. The nationalist people are a law-abiding, decent people who want a police service they can trust, respect and join. But the RUC is not that police service. Our experience of that force is as part of a complex system of repression which routinely violates our human and civil rights." While he recognised the symbolism the RUC held for unionists, such considerations could not override the objective of establishing a policing service that would attract widespread support from across the community, Mr Adams said.
The fact that unionists had prevented many other aspects of the Belfast Agreement from being implemented as well as the importance of the policing issue had ensured that nationalists and republicans would be paying keen attention to Mr Patten's conclusions, he added.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Northern Ireland Police Authority, Mr Pat Armstrong, has published an "open letter to the RUC and the communities they serve". Writing in yesterday's Irish News, Mr Armstrong said he wanted to "inject a little calm into the hysteria" of the policing debate.
While recognising the sacrifices the RUC had made over the years, the Police Authority accepted that the force had to change and become more representative of the whole community, Mr Armstrong said.
"I believe we owe it to those who have made such sacrifices to look objectively at the kind of police service that our society needs . . . In the context of a lasting peace, and a just political settlement, we would all like to see an unarmed service operating out of ordinary police stations," he added.
Regarding the eventual reduction of the force to half its current size, Mr Armstrong said the authority would insist that any officers leaving the RUC would be "generously rewarded for their service and fully compensated for any loss of earnings, pension or benefits".
As to the emotive issue of changing the RUC's name, he said that while the authority was opposed to such a change, what really mattered was the effectiveness of the new police service.