The following is an edited statement by Opposition Spokesman on National Security Derrick Smith.
THE OPPOSITION is alarmed by the statement attributed to the Minister of National Security, Dr. Peter Phillips, that the society should brace for possible 'big-ticket robberies' and increased attempts at extortion and other crimes.
The statements attributed to the minister in the article headlined, 'Heat on drug trade Brace for big-ticket robberies', which appeared in The Gleaner of March 29, 2005 points to a situation in which the minister has totally miscalculated the crime situation and has produced an assessment that is so ridiculous it is offensive to all Jamaicans of average intelligence.
What is most disappointing is that the minister has chosen to make this remarkable outburst at a time when the whole country is under siege of crime and the people are looking to him for reassurances of an early respite from the extremely high level of crime and violence being experienced over the past months.
The article gives as examples, the alleged robbery of more than $200 million from Guardsman armoured vehicle in St. Ann last month; and the fatal shooting of James Crichton, a Montego Bay businessman by gunmen who stole his company's payroll.
We are not sure whether these two examples came from the minister or the press. However, we would like to note that there is absolutely no evidence to link the robbery of the armoured vehicle and any narcotics-based criminal network dismantled by Operation Kingfish or any other anti-crime initiative of the government.
The report so far on this robbery suggests, as the article itself admitted, is that the robbery was carried out by persons identified as employees of the company.
Is the minister implying that these employees of the largest private security firm in the island were actually linked to a dismantled 'narcotics-based criminal network'?
In terms of the killing of Mr. Crichton, we have not heard anything from the police which could suggest that this murder/robbery is different from any of the many others that have occurred, on a weekly basis, for the past few years and which have nothing whatsoever to do with dismantled narcotics-based gangs and most of which have not even been solved.
The minister cannot expect to make these wild claims without an ounce of evidence to support them and expect that the Opposition and the public of Jamaica will swallow them without any precaution. And it is unfair to the police investigating these crimes for him to be making these wild speculations while they attempt to investigate the motives for these crimes.
LAUGHABLE CLAIM
It is quite obvious that what the minister is trying to do is lull the public into believing that he has been achieving success with Kingfish. However, the record-breaking homicide figures so far this year has made this claim so laughable that the minister is now performing the balancing act of trying to show that increasing crime figures are largely due to his success.
In an effort to give his statement some legitimacy he says that the British police in the 1990s also saw a worsening of crime, when it launched Operation Trident, but that the trend was reversed in three years. He now hopes that the impact in Jamaica will be less than three years.
It is an amazing statement from someone who is supposed to be leading the fight against crime and on whom the public is relying for some immediate relief from the high level of violence, murder, shootings, rape and extortion which is threatening to break out into anarchy and destruction.
The Opposition totally rejects the suggestion that the current spate of major crimes is essentially the effect of Operation Kingfish's success.
Editor's note: Minister Phillips did not make reference to any specific robbery. Reference was made by The Gleaner to two incidents in order to provide context for the story.
