Abnormal society gave rise to strange alliances

YOUR columnist Steven King is in denial. He marshals a series of assertions and half-truths (Irish Examiner, January 31) in the hope of persuading people that the recent Northern police ombudsman’s report did not prove collusion between the RUC and UVF in the murder of Protestants and Catholics alike.

Mr King neatly fails to mention that Raymond McCord Jr was a Protestant and that his father finally took his case to the ombudsman because of the failure of his unionist representatives. Why the omission?

Could it be Mr King wants to portray the work of the ombudsman as biased and reforms of policing in the North as a republican plot?

He fails to point out that partition created an abnormal society where rampant sectarianism, discrimination and political violence were systematically used since its inception to maintain unionist dominance.

Within this abnormal situation the RUC was not a normal police force. Crucially, he fails to mention that the collusion with the UVF gang reported by Nuala O’Loan occurred in the midst of the peace process; that is as republicanism was moving inexorably towards wholly political activity.

Mr King also omits to mention that the RUC failed to protect working class Protestant communities.

They turned a blind eye to the criminal and murderous activities of the UDA’s Shoukri brothers as they terrorised their loyalist communities because the brothers were police informants.

It is in this context that the RUC failed the McCord family.

Mr King abused his position as a columnist and should publicly apologise to the McCord family.

Simon Warren

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