THE night before the IRA declared their 1994 ceasefire, nearly 30 punishment shootings took place all across Northern Ireland. It looked like the paramilitaries were clearing their backlog before settling down to some bird watching and origami.
Well, it didn't, actually. It looked like the standard was being set for how our version of peace was to be conducted.
Two years later, the figures vary but many calculate that around 400 people have suffered grievous assaults at the hands of paramilitary"punishment"
squads. This figure can be doubled at least to include the number of assaults that would have been unreported. There's a lot of it about.
Round my way, if you steal a car, joyride, burgle a house, smoke dope, make too much noise or chat up the wrong woman in the wrong bar, a gang of guys with baseball bats, hammers and iron bars will come round to your place and sort you out. The IRA and the UVF/UFF operate their own unofficial jurisprudence systems. They are vigorous systems and there isn't much in the way of appeal.
In the months of preparation for this film, I met many victims of these assaults. Typically, they were unemployed, poorly educated male youths between the ages of 15 and 21. They were exactly the kind of people most in need of justice and the assertion of their rights.
Generally, the mechanisms of the system are simple. Some kid causes trouble in the neighbourhood and a bunch of concerned citizens have a word in the right ear. Shortly afterwards, some armed and masked men find the victim and try to break as many of his/her limbs as possible (apparently, it takes quite a long time - up to ten minutes sometimes). The rules of evidence are in abeyance and there is certainly no presumption of innocence. The process is one of guilt by slander and we all know what good judges the neighbourhood busybodies can be.
Some of the people I spoke to admitted they were guilty of the misdemeanours of which they were accused. Their guilt is irrelevent. No one can justify the assault and mutilation of anyone for a "crime" like smoking dope or being a noisy neighbour. Many victims claimed innocence. Many were obviously telling the truth.
People had been assaulted because of grudges, family feuds unpaid debts and sexual indiscretions. The paramilitaries would routinely dress up this score settling by adding some spurious charge of "anti social" behaviour.
But the truth is that I met people who had been assaulted for crimes committed by their relatives, for annoying a prominent paramilitary and particularly for having a sexual relationship with a prisoner's wife (apparently, one UVF man in North Belfast started a relationship with a prisoner's wife - he was told he was going to be "done" so he shot himself in the leg).
I met Hugh Lewsley, the SDLP councillor for Twinbrook in West Belfast. He was assaulted by men he believes were IRA men because he had given a television interview condemning paramilitary assaults upon his constituents. His crime was unclear but it's obvious a constitutional nationalist who tries to protect the human rights of his electorate transgresses the unwritten code. (Lewsley was one of three members of the SDLP viciously assaulted by republican paramilitaries. Sinn Fein claimed republicans were not involved. John Hume seemed satisfied with this explanation.)
Justice is one of the most important functions of any state and most developed democracies make a stab at producing an independent judiciary. The impartiality of the executive is assured by the jury system. A group of unqualified, unelected, unpaid members of the public takes decisions about the liberty of other citizens, aided and guided by the courts. It's a beautiful concept that is often flawed in practise but the boys up here with the bats and the masks are not dealing with any of these subtleties.
It's actually pretty funny that this fascist brutality claims a jurisprudential gloss. The men who named Loyalists Against Thuggery (they beat people up) and Direct Action Against Drugs (they beat people up) these men don't have much of a sense of irony. It looks like hard men are addicted to Loosely Constructed Acronyms. It's also funny that Belfast sports shops do a good trade in baseball bat sales but there are so few balls and gloves on offer. There is one baseball team in Northern Ireland. Who do the retailers think they are selling these things to? Will the sports shops be included in any eventual decommissioning process?
In the current situation - with all these marches, stand offs, and riots it may seem to be beside the question, but this subject is important. This was the main paramilitary activity during the recent ceasefires. This is their definition of a peace. The Irish legal profession must look to their unions, because if these guys take over, there will be wholesale redundancies. This is their endgame. This is what they intend for us.