The Mitchell review of the Belfast Agreement goes into its third week against a background of reflection within both the Sinn Fein and Ulster Unionist camps. The UUP leader, Mr Trimble, spent the weekend in Scotland with senior party figures considering strategy. Sinn Fein has been revisiting its proposals originally advanced in the Way Forward document. The signals are scarcely encouraging. Notwithstanding, Senator Mitchell believes the parties remain serious about securing the full implementation of the agreement.
Yet support for the agreement among the unionist population has ebbed. Recent opinion polls suggest that if there were to be another plebiscite at this point, it would be rejected by a majority of unionists. Several factors have influenced this: the failure of the IRA to commit itself to decommissioning its weaponry; the release of terrorist prisoners; the continuing violence of the paramilitaries; Dr Mo Mowlam's pragmatic but threadbare adjudication that the IRA's ceasefire remains intact; and the Patten proposals on policing. Of these, perhaps the most potent has been the Patten report. To those outside the unionist community, much of the anger at Patten must appear fatuous. The near-obsession with the force's badges and nomenclature, which has been a feature of much unionist response, is baffling. But there is understandable hurt at what is perceived as the report's failure to recognise the sacrifices of RUC members and their families over the years of conflict. The Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, Dr John Lockington, expressed it well last week when he said that the report should have been more "explicit" in recognising this pain and suffering.
If the effective end of the RUC as it has been known is an inevitable concomitant of political change, fairness and justice demand that service rendered and sacrifices made should be recognised generously. Many RUC widows have been left on poor pensions, struggling to hold families together and to educate children. Many serving members would be happy to take their severance and go but would wish for tangible recognition of their service - perhaps a suitable medal and a physical memorial. Families and friends of the force would be comforted by the endowment of some ongoing fund for benevolent purposes.
The Patten report is not silent on most of these matters. It refers to the "penury" endured by some RUC widows and the "derisory" compensatory sums which have been paid in certain instances of death and injury. It highlights the disgracefully low quality of some of the prostheses which have been supplied to police amputees. It underlines the fact that the RUC Widows' Association is not supplied with premises but operates from widows' homes, using their own telephones and other resources. A substantial fund should be set up, Patten suggests, to help injured officers and their families as well as widows and dependants.
If the agreement is to succeed, the unionist community's sense of anger over the Patten proposals is going to have to be assuaged. A clear acknowledgment and a willingness to respond generously and fully to Patten's recommendations in these intensely painful areas would go some considerable way towards achieving that end. Indeed the two governments could and should go beyond Patten's restrained and neutral language and also make explicit, as Dr Lockington urges, their recognition of the pain and suffering of the RUC and its extended family. Whether or not the Belfast Agreement in toto is to be implemented, it seems likely that there will be fundamental changes in policing in Northern Ireland. The RUC, as it has been, will go into history. But its passing should be marked by generosity and dignity. There must be nothing shabby or begrudging about its obsequies.