The Police Service of Northern Ireland was central to the task of making the transition from "terrorism to politics" and from "unaccountable paramilitary organisations to a true democratic and civic society", the Northern Secretary said yesterday.
Mr Mandelson told the annual British Irish Association meeting in Oxford that no one should underestimate the British government's determination to "drive out the culture of paramilitarism" in the North.
In seeking to foster civic values, he said, the paradox was that "as we have got nearer that goal, the more elusive it seems to become". Part of the reason was that expectations had increased as progress followed progress, although he noted that delivery "seems painfully slow". It was also still a question of guns and people on all sides wanted to know that "the shadow of the gunman" belonged in the past.
In recent weeks, however, paramilitaries had shown they were still prepared to "tear the community apart" for no other reasons than "self-aggrandisement and power". Mr Mandelson said the activities of some loyalist paramilitaries during the summer had "hit at unionist confidence - confidence in the ability of the (Belfast) Agreement to deliver the sort of society they want to live in". The North faced a "tough challenge" to drive back "that rump of paramilitarism that refuses to accept that the days of intimidation, violence and lawlessness are over". However, "enormous progress" had been made on confronting the elements that wanted to destabilise the new dispensation.
Pointing to the establishment of a new relationship between the community and the police, he said that task was at the "core" of police reforms being addressed in the British parliament. The goal was to develop a police service that could win the trust of both communities and that was why it was "absurd" for people to argue that the recent loyalist violence was a reason to halt reform.
The new police service must be given a chance to succeed, Mr Mandelson said: "It has to grow and evolve as new attitudes are bred, as past distrust fades and old animosities die down. . . . It will quickly find its feet. But not if it is written off before it is given the chance to walk."
Appealing to unionists to "recognise that nationalists need change", and to nationalists to accept that "there is a link between the old and the new", Mr Mandelson said the Patten Report had struck a balance that was reflected in the Police (Northern Ireland) Bill: "But what is true of the political process is true of policing: if we make absolutist demands we will founder."
Mr Mandelson also spoke about organised crime, spawned by paramilitarism, that had been "thrown into sharp relief" since the current ceasefires. He said people wanted to see firm action against those who engaged in racketeering, drug dealing and smuggling. The resumption of violence by the "Real IRA" was also a reason for concern, he said: "After about a dozen attacks, some of a sophisticated and very alarming nature, we can be in no doubt that their campaign has been resumed."
