Remember
the B Specials? Its time to introduce the R Specials
into republican districts now the Shinners have
embraced policing.
The
creation of R Specials, that's R for Republican,
would greatly boost the civil role of the PSNI
in combating anti-social behaviour, the yob culture,
drug dealing and general lawlessness in overwhelmingly
nationalist areas of the North.
Republicans
have been uttering fine rhetoric since Sinn Fein's
recent Super Sunday 80 per cent endorsement of
the PSNI , followed up by top Shinners urging
Catholics to shop to cops supposedly ordinary
decent criminals.
But
what Catholic areas need on the ground are Republicans
in police uniforms, complete with patrolling Land
Rovers and, of course, legal guns.
Mention
the B Specials to Republicans, and it brings back
nightmares of the almost exclusively Protestant
part-time militia knocking seven bells out of
Catholics.
But
what was the real power of the B Specials? It
wasn't their thuggish tactics which put them –
in Republican eyes – on a mantel with the
notorious Black and Tans of the War of Independence.
Older
republicans would claim there was nothing between
the boot boy policies of the B Men and the portrayals
of Tan brutality dished out to Southern nationalists
in blockbuster films, such as Michael Collins,
and The Wind That Shakes the Barley.
The
secret of the B Men's success was their indepth
intelligence gathering on people living in their
areas, and geographical knowledge of their localities.
The
B Men were locally recruited, locally trained
and armed and patrolled their neighbourhoods.
If thugs committed crimes on their patch, the
B Men knew who to look for and where to find them.
Just
look at the lessons from history. How did the
Free State Army defeat the anti-Treaty IRA during
the Irish Civil War? Simple, the Free Staters
controlled their own localities armed with British
guns.
When
the IRA attacked, they knew where to find de Valera's
renegades. Was it any wonder more IRA members
were executed by the Free Staters than killed
by the Tans?
The
R Specials would be a locally recruited Catholic
militia, armed and trained by the PSNI and the
British Army, whose primary aim was to enforce
law and order in nationalist communities.
The
axing of the daft 50/50 recruitment rule may not
necessarily see a massive influx of Catholics
into the PSNI – but the creation of a local
Catholic militia would.
Eventually,
the R Specials could be used to stamp out any
physical threat posed by dissident republicans,
such as the Real and Continuity IRAs, just as
the Free State Army gradually seized control right
across the South from the IRA, forcing the latter
to call a truce.
Of
course, the flip side of the security coin would
also have to be administered – the return
of the B Specials as part of the PSNI to keep
order in loyalist districts.
While
the recent Independent Monitoring Commission report
gave the Provos a clean bill of health, the same
could not be said for the loyalist terror gangs,
who have made little effort if any, to disarm,
let alone disband.
With
loyalist groups heavily involved in criminality,
a revamped B Specials could take the loyalist
hoods head on in their own streets and estates.
And
with the large influx of migrant workers and expansion
in the ethnic communities, the R and B Specials
would be in the frontline of crushing the spiralling
increase in racially motivated crime.
The
key to beating local crime is always the gathering
of local intelligence by police units based in
their districts.
With
the increase in other races in the North, the
time may also be approaching to form a dedicated
M Specials force – the Migrant Specials –
to root out religious extremists and insurgents
hell bent on bringing their suicide bombing beliefs
to this island.
But
the hard medicine which all sides in the religious
conflict must face is the ethos of the Specials
will not become a policing reality until legislative
control is fully devolved to a power-sharing Executive.
Now
there would be a carrot the Big Man, Ian Paisley,
could sell to his Unionist dissidents in the DUP
– the man who not only saved Stormont and
the Union, but also brought back the B Men!
