Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter
LEWIN
REAR ADMIRAL Hardley Lewin, Chief of Staff of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), yesterday called upon politicians, business people and society to stop denying and rationalising crime and tackle it.
Speaking at a Rotary Club luncheon at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in St. Andrew, the Rear Admiral stressed that blame and draconian measures were not the solution.
"It is not nearly a matter of killing of the bad man ... if you have a factory that is producing more of them." Gunmen, he said, were the immediate problem to which sustained law enforcement should be meted out. Long-term goals, he stressed, were distinct; society must "wake up!" and decide "enough is enough".
The JDF head said reforming the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) was work in progress, but he emphasised that both forces were cooperating efficiently.
AIMS AT UPTOWN AUDIENCE
Aiming directly at his uptown audience, the Chief of Staff said: "Something is awfully wrong with a society where a boy jumps over your wall and picks a mango and you set the dogs on him because he's a damn thief.
"But then," he charged, "you get in your car, drive to your office and you have no qualms about having your agents bribe customs officers, defraud the Government of revenues; because somehow that is okay."
Alluding to the role of politics and the gun, Rear Admiral Lewin said, "We all know the genesis of much of the problem that we face today ... we know the role that politics has played (in) the development of garrisons." He said he was sure of the sincerity of political leaders on crime, but of their subordinates he simply added: "I will just question it."
Politicians and business people must shun criminals who must be isolated. "You cannot say one thing and do another," he pointed out, as "mixed signals" will deter a "buy-in" from civil society in the fight against crime.
Law and order, he promised, would be restored, with the only issue being "how soon". Garrison communities, said the Rear Admiral, should be reduced to one, "that is the one that for the time being, I am the don of Up Park Camp.
Added Lewin: "It seems to me we have to bring about one order and that is law and order because we are all of the same clan, and that is Jamaica; the question is are you ready to do your bit?"
