Knowledge Partner
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist
I
walk down a busy Belfast street on a dark ajernoon, holding onto myself
against the cold and buffeted by the wind and rain that are constant
visitors to Northern Ireland but seem to be taking up residence this
month of January. I hurry inside a brightly lit branch of a mul*-na*onal
coffee chain. It is 2018 and in April it will be 20 years since the historic
Good Friday Agreement that marked the beginning of the end of 30 years of
To my mind, the PaQen Commission was an outstanding success. Policing
was a highly emo*ve and divisive issue. 302 officers had been killed in the
Northern Ireland conflict; thousands had been injured and trauma*sed
and thousands of their rela*ves had been emo*onally scarred. For those
associated with their sacrifice, any
Policing was a highly sugges*on of disbanding the
emo@ve and divisive issue. police, or even of reforming it, was
taken as an insult to an honourable
302 officers had been killed and heroic ins*tu*on.
poli*cal breakdown.
The woman I am mee*ng is wai*ng pa*ently in a corner, now in her early
50s but already re*red. 20 years ago, she was a middle-ranked police officer
and was invited into a group of up-and-coming commanders to quietly
engage in a cri*cal dialogue with me and three colleagues, and with each
other. The group numbered around 15 and, at my request, included five
Catholic and four female officers. Over a four-year period, we were able to
in the Northern Ireland
conflict; thousands had
been injured and
trauma@sed and thousands
of their rela@ves had been
emo@onally scarred.
On the other hand, over the long
years of conflict, many Catholic/
na*onalist ci*zens and
communi*es had experienced
abuse and violence at the hands of
police officers; a significant
number had been injured or even
killed by police in controversial circumstances and there was a widespread
belief that police officers had colluded with Protestant paramilitary killers.
Catholic mistrust of the police ran very deep.
And yet, the Good Friday Agreement needed to transform the society of
Northern Ireland. A new beginning was needed. As part of that there was
a need for a new police service which could command support and
par*cipa*on across the biQer poli*cal divide. Significant numbers of
Catholics would be recruited to the police, thereby altering its
organisa*onal culture.
My own contribu*on was to lead a process of private dialogue within the
police and between them and cri*cal thinkers from civil society. In our
first year, we had a sense of climbing a long steep hill. While some in our
group were progressive and visionary, we were also mee*ng polite but
steady resistance to change.
Image 25: A "peace line" in Belfast. The peace lines are a series of high separaLon
barriers in Northern Ireland that separate predominantly naLonalist and unionist
neighbourhoods. The stated purpose of the peace lines is to minimise inter-communal
violence.
However, the establishment of the high profile, interna*onal PaQen
Commission came like a wind behind our backs. Suddenly, our cause was
on the right side of history. In the light of the poli*cal agreement and the
establishment of the PaQen Commission, it was now clear that change
was going to come. Our dialogue process became one way for senior
police leaders to figure out how best to manage the change. Looking back
now, I can see that we needed the weight and gravitas of an interna*onal
commission coming on the scene. The PaQen Commission, as a child of
the Good Friday Agreement, was generated into existence with the help
of diplomacy – between governments; between poli*cal leaders at the
highest level. The secretary of the Commission was a Bri*sh diplomat on
secondment. With support from friendly governments, the PaQen
Commission reached out across the world in the search for good and
relevant policing prac*ce, from New York to OQawa to Cape Town and
across Europe.
meet with this group on a monthly basis to facilitate sustained reflec*on on
their vision for Community Policing in a society recovering from poli*cal
violence, where many communi*es were divided and many were deeply
alienated from the police.
The Good Friday Agreement happened within a year of the commencement
of our dialogue. The Agreement was solemnised in an interna*onal treaty
between the Bri*sh and Irish governments and, as part of that, an
interna*onal commission was established to consider the future of policing.
It was led by Chris PaQen, formerly a Bri*sh government minister and the
last governor of Hong Kong.
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