THE EDITOR, Sir:
I WOULD like to use the facility of your newspaper to congratulate the Prime Minister on a valuable speech made to the United Nations General Assembly. In his speech, the PM called for a new approach to conflict resolution with a special emphasis on developing countries. While not a novel thesis, the approach seeks to remove the root cause of the conflict and not simply to remove the conflict itself.
In this approach the more traditional methods should be replaced by more gentle methods. These methods would be geared towards the development and economic empowerment of the people that would take them away from the need to fight over the scarce benefits and spoils for their existence.
The Prime Minister encouraged the developed world to take this approach as it was one that was needed and suggested that it was likely to succeed where the traditional approaches had failed.
While congratulating the PM, I would like to pose him these questions: Is there any reason to believe that the 'strong, resolute and extreme' crime-fighting measures currently being employed in Jamaica are working?
Could we benefit from an approach that sought to deal with the real and root causes of crime in Jamaica?
We have a saying in Jamaica that when you point with one finger, four are pointed back at you.
Mr. PM, please for the sake of us Jamaicans, listen to you own advice.
I am, etc.,
DWIGHT SMIKLE
smikle@colis.com
