THE PROBLEM of policing in Northern Ireland is a cause of the conflict rather than a product of it, according to a book published this week.
From Civil Rights to Armalites Derry and the Birth of the Irish Troubles, by Niall O Dochartaigh (Cork University Press), looks at how the foundations for a susstained conflict were laid in the years of the Troubles.
Mr O Dochartaigh is a research officer with INCORE, the joint Initiative on Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity of the UN and the University of Ulster.
He argues that when the IRA and loyalist paramilitaries declared their ceasefires in late 1994 a public debate on how policing might adapt in times of peace ensued, but "there seemed to be a complete refusal to acknowledge that the security forces had been a principal party to the conflict and that their role and form of behaviour were issues at the heart of the conflict".
While Mr O Dochartaigh recognises that the "professional neutrality" on which the 1990s RUC itself is "not without substance", he asserts that "the 1970s and 1980s had seen the RUC not alone professionalised but also massively expanded and militarised to allow it to take over many of the essentially military duties of the British army".
He added: "In the period of peace leading up to the end of the IRA ceasefire in February 1996 there emerged no realistic strategy for creating a policing agency or agencies which Catholics could join without abandoning nationalist, let alone republican, beliefs and isolating themselves from the bulk of the Catholic community.
"The experience of peace uncovered a fact that many had for gotten, that the problem of policing had never been resolved, that it was not alone a product of conflict but also a cause of it.
"It showed that, paramilitary campaigns or not, normal policing was impossible in large areas of the state and that the forces of law and order in Northern Ireland could still be a prime source disorder in times of crisis."
Mr O Dochartaigh uses Drumcree as a recent example. "When loyalist protest and rioting developed, the reaction of the security forces was relatively restrained. They did not interfere with many of the loyalist roadblocks, even though they often consisted of only a handful of prod testers.
"Such relative restraint could certainly be justified in very practical policing terms on the grounds that a gentler approach would be more productive in this case. It could also be justified on the basis that large mainstream elements of the Protestant community supported the Drumcree protests and the security forces could not be expected to forcefully take on the mainstream of the Protestant community," Mr O Dochartaigh writes.
He points out that while 662 plastic bullets were fired during the Drumcree situation, 5,340 plastic bullets were fired during the rioting in Catholic areas following the decision to allow the Orange Order to walk down the Garvaghy Road.
"As far as many moderate and even conservative Catholics were concerned, it demonstrated that while the security forces were not prepared to take on the Protestant community they were fully prepared to take on the Catholic community.
He added: "The experience of Drumcree convinced many that, in times of severe political crisis, the RUC cannot and does not treat these two communities equally - whether it be equally harshly or equally gently."
Mr O Dochartaigh concludes: "Events surrounding Drumcree in July 1996, where thousands of Orange Order members and loyalists gathered over a period of days and successfully forced the RUC to allow an Orange march to proceed past Catholic housing estates in Portadown, provided revision classes on lessons which had been learnt in 1968 and 1969 but which had been obscured by the shooting war of 25 years.