The "Real IRA" has issued a blanket threat against members of the North's District Policing Partnerships.
The extended threat follows specific threats against individual members of the partnerships which were established earlier this year. They are committees of local representatives and independent members who advise and monitor senior officers at district level.
Another partnership member resigned yesterday after being intimidated, while the car of another was burned. After a meeting at Iveagh House with the leader of the SDLP, Mr Mark Durkan, and a delegation from his party, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen said: "Any suggestion of any intimidation of any members of those boards is absolutely unacceptable.
"It is reprehensible. There is no context, no circumstance, where it is justifiable."
He added: "It is simply not acceptable for any of the voluntary effort being made by members of those boards to be subject to any harassment, implied, direct or in any other sense. I'm simply saying the Government will not abide by that and we condemn it unequivocally." The Rev Jim Rea, President of the Methodist Church, said the threats were "a sinister attempt to rid the partnerships of members from the Roman Catholic community so that ultimately only the unionist community will be represented, allowing these sinister groups to claim a sectarian bias in police management".
Earlier, after a meeting with Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, in Belfast, Mr Durkan said: "If Sinn Féin can clearly state that they oppose this violence and these threats from these so-called dissidents, then I would hope that people would take comfort from that." Mr Adams said his party was right to withhold support for new policing arrangements, claiming they were "not good enough".
The scrutineer of policing reform in Northern Ireland also condemned the intimidation. Mr Tom Constantine, the Policing Oversight Commissioner said: "I don't think it will work, but it's an attempt to undermine all the Patten reforms by people who do not want reform of policing."
He said widespread public and political support was essential and, without mentioning Sinn Féin, he said: "There are still some who are not actively supporting the efforts to improve Catholic representation in the police service." Issuing his eighth report yesterday into police reform, Mr Constantine, the former New York police chief, praised the progress made in implementing Patten Commission recommendations. But he included stinging criticism of the failure to move on other reforms which he highlighted in earlier findings.
Mr Constantine said the Policing Board, the Chief Constable and senior officers, the Police Ombudsman, Mrs Nuala O'Loan, and the new partnerships had made excellent progress. He singled out the Policing Board and Mr Hugh Orde for their "extraordinary effort".