REGIONAL CHAIRMAN for the Peoples National Party's Region Three, Paul Burke yesterday criticised tourism mogul Gordon "Butch" Stewart and other private sector leaders, calling them "hypocrites" for chiding the Government over its seeming inability to control crime.
He said they were speaking out now only because crime appeared to be affecting them directly.
Last week, Mr. Stewart called on Government either to take measures including seeking overseas help to tackle the high levels of crime. He said if they were unable to do so they should make room for someone else who could manage.
"Butch is now only talking about it because it has reached a certain sector and closer up in St. Andrew. But when all the gang warfare, when all of this was going on in the inner-city communities, this was all statistics for them," Mr. Burke told The Gleaner at the end of the Annual Regional Conference of Peoples National Party's (PNP) Region Three at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston yesterday.
The regional chairman told The Gleaner that the current mayhem was not happening for the first time as for 1997 alone over 1,000 persons were killed. "It is not the first time that this is happening but it has now touched them - Air Jamaica being robbed (and) it touch people uptown," he said.
While expressing concern that the current crime wave could result in the island losing professionals and thereby creating further hardship, Mr. Burke was nonetheless certain that regardless of where crime occurred, a life was a life.
"Their views are hypocritical because they are not looking at the real problem. Why won't they look at the whole question of how the justice system operates on class and colour but mainly class?" he questioned.
Turning his attention to the conference, he explained that the aim of the public session was to make it very clear that although there were some ideas on making communities safer and more viable economically, input from affected communities was needed.
The chairman explained that Region Three was looking at identifying ways in which communities could work effectively without any government support; how they could do with outside support as from the business sector and also programmes that might need state support through legislation or some mechanism to get it off the ground.
"We believe that the solutions are out there in the communities and we are going to act as a catalyst to bring solutions together. We are looking for the discussions that could lead to solutions or lead to decisions not just talk shop," Mr. Burke said, adding that young people needed to be involved in these discussions. The whole aim was also to pass on the message so communities can understand how crime hurts communities.
Minister of Tourism and Sports, Portia Simpson Miller who spoke at the conference cited the need for Jamaicans to take back their communities from the criminals.
