Public Affairs - Time for the whole truth

- File

PSOJ President Peter Moses, right, listens to the stories of West Kingston residents during a tour of the area last week.

Lloyd Williams, Senior Associate Editor

FOR the private sector leaders who went on the fact-finding tour of some of the troubled inner-city communities of West Kingston on Tuesday morning, they might have been given a warning before they boarded their air-conditioned buses.

The advisory might have said that the graphic details of poverty, squalor and deprivation they would see might shock their sensibilities. So too would the cry of the abuses of their basic civil rights.

The tour of communities under siege started on a decidedly unpleasant note. First they were confronted with the sight of an old man's body that had been lying on the ground in front of the Command Post since the Saturday before. As the touring party turned away in disgust, they were staring at rifles of soldiers on the roof of the Command Post pointed, as Peter Moses put it so delicately, "at the area where we are."

It was a far cry from "slumming" in any sense of the word. This was an introduction to hard core inner-city poverty and its attendant problems and disadvantages.

Joblessness, overcrowding, garbage-filled streets, sewage-water in streets. Two hundred displaced families living in little tattoos. Houses looted, destroyed, fire-bombed simply because the householder was suspected to support the JLP or PNP. Hopeless people not knowing which way to go or who to turn to.

People penned into their communities by sniper fire by soldiers of the Jamaica Defence Force once they dared to venture onto the streets. Soldiers going into people's houses, taking the men away "for processing". Net-fishing at its worst.

A Denham Town woman's complaint:

"From Sunday soldiers take my brother, my husband my nephew out of my house. The policeman at Mobile Reserve tell me and some others that is nerve gas them going to left on we in here."

The whole story ­ that of civilians, police, soldiers ­ will not be known until everybody is debriefed.

"Honestly, I think that something was not right with the operation," says a security forces officer close to the bloody events in West Kingston over the three days.

"There is no doubt that there were gunmen who actually confronted the police. In the mix, the police, being only human, would have retaliated. But then there comes a time when you have to draw the line.

"Out of fear, imaginary or real, it went on too much and for too long before it was abated."

He said that in the circumstances of soldiers and police coming under fire their only resort was to fire shots to scare off the attackers and "give them hope to come out alive."

Targets

It was obvious, he said, that security forces personnel had fired shots that were not aimed at targets and those shots fired from such high-powered weapons could very well have resulted in casualties, the high-velocity bullets going even through some walls.

"Such firings, done in the spur of the moment, could only be deemed as reckless", he said.

In the view of another security forces member, the timing of the operation was bad. In addition, he said, apparently Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams did not have his regular Crime Management Unit team with him, so too many inexperienced persons were on the team.

"They were not as experienced in the use of their weapons as they should be, so they fired on full automatic, rather than on semi, and ran out of bullets," he said.

Somehow, the gunmen seemed to have become aware that the police were running out of ammunition, and so moved in on them.

"They suffered from lack of training and panicked under fire," he said.

It was his observation too, that the snipers and their "spotters" were not co-ordinating as they should, but were each shooting at targets.

It was his view also, that Mr. Adams and some of men "were playing too much to the media instead of acquiring targets."

The lesson to be learned, he said, "is that we have to be concerned about life, which is precious. The public have to trust us and we have to trust the public. That's the only way we are going to live together."

He said the police in particular, must be given more protective gear and more training in responding to "what is essentially urban guerrilla warfare." So instead of opening up and shooting wildly with his M16, the policeman would learn to first take cover.

"What we really need is a special squad, highly trained, properly focused, adequately equipped to go into situations like this and take on urban terrorists," he said. "There are many lessons to learn as this may not be the last time."

There is no doubt that there are gunmen in Tivoli Gardens as they are in Matthews Lane, in Rema, in Arnett Gardens, in Hannah Town in Rose Town, Craig Town, Southside, Bowerbank, Dunkirk and in every inner-city community in the Corporate Area of Kingston and St. Andrew and elsewhere. Frequent seizure by the police of illegal guns in these places every so often prove the point.

What all Jamaicans want, is a credible professional, non-partisan Police Force to go after the gunmen, wherever they are, and take the guns from them.

With Jamaica's murder rate hovering too close to 1,000 a year for the last several years, heaven knows what the caseload of a homicide detective is. What the country needs are police personnel who build cases that do not fall apart in the courts. In other words, cops who investigate then arrest; not arrest first then spend months investigating.

This, and the much-talked-about community policing, are the sure-fire ways to start restoring confidence in the police force, so inner-city dwellers will look to the police for justice rather than to the dons of the inner cities. But this won't be an easy task.

Trust

First, the police have to win the trust and confidence of the ordinary ghetto people and the people must trust the police. It won't come easy as too many police and soldiers believe they have been chosen by whichever Government is in power ­ PNP or JLP ­ to subdue and discipline these people. So they go into these inner-city communities and brutalise, terrorise, intimidate and ill-treat ­ degrade, even. And more often than not, with seeming impunity.

The only thing this is certain to bring about is a war of attrition. Just look at the daily routine played out between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

What the poor people of this country want is a change from oppressive, incestuous, pork-barrelling, pocket-stuffing, self-serving, self-perpetuating Governments ­ JLP and PNP ­ not war waged being on them by police and soldiers who are sworn to protect them.

It is this situation which has led to the inner-city dons taking over the role of protectors and dispensers of justice. So the people do not look to the law for protection. Quite the contrary, they resent the interference of the police in their affairs - hence the speed with which they resort to roadblocks.

The majority of the people of this country, be they PNP, JLP, NDM or no "P" at all believe that their politics and political behaviour, even in near-election mode, should be governed by the constitution of the land, starting with the observation of basic human rights ­ civil rights, the Golden Rule.

What has been happening in Jamaica for years is that the violence committed in the inner-city communities ­ especially in the name of politics ­ has been largely ignored. Ordinary criminality committed in the name of politics is generally ignored by the police who consider it a natural part of politics, or ghetto life, and something separate from the civil society.

Mental struggle

What is really going on now is really a struggle for the mind, heart and soul of the Jamaican nation. We run the risk of endemic mistrust. Something happens and we have problems deciding whose words to believe. We would like to believe our Prime Minister, our Leader of the Opposition, our commissioner of police, our military chief-of-staff, and their commanders on the ground. But we can't. They all give conflicting statements. And it's not always that they are fed with misleading, inaccurate information. Rarely in this country do you hear the words: "I am sorry"; or "I made a mistake." Everybody is 110 per cent right and recriminations are rooted deep in history.

Tuesday, July 10, 2001 was the day the two Jamaicas met. The hope is that it was the start of a fruitful relationship that is going to result in the dismantling of the garrison ­ PNP and JLP ­ and the bringing in of the illegal guns wherever they are. Not just those in Tivoli Gardens.

A commission of inquiry is to probe what happened in West Kingston. This time, we can't afford another Montego Bay-Street-People-type commission of inquiry.

The nation demands the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and without fear or favour.

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