B Specials oppose Maze centre plans

The Ulster Special Constabulary Association has become the latest grouping to come out against plans for a Conflict Transformation Centre at the Maze Prison site.
By The Newsroom
Published 12th Aug 2013, 08:27 BST

In a statement the group said any such centre at the Maze would be ‘blighted’.

The Ulster Special Constabulary Association was established in 1970 following the stand down of the Ulster Special Constabulary (the B Specials), to “represent its members and to commemorate their comrades who made the ultimate sacrifice”.

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Their statement said: “There is a considerable concern within the Association at the proposal to build a Conflict Transformation Centre on the Maze Prison site, which is synonymous worldwide with the IRA hunger strikers.

“The ill -advised decision to retain the Prison Hospital, H Block and other Prison buildings brands the site and makes it a centre, not for Conflict Transformation, but a centre to enable IRA/Sinn Fein to rewrite history and glorify terrorism.”

They suggested an ‘untarnished location’ such as the Titanic Quarter be considered: “The Ulster Special Constabulary Association believes that however it is dressed up, whatever spin is deployed, the Conflict Transformation Centre at any location within the Maze Site will be irreversibly blighted.”

They called for the demolition of all the Prison Buildings.