- FILE
A large crowd outside Spanish Town Court House from the previous day awaiting the verdict of the Green Bay inquest.
Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer
IT WAS one of the most controversial incidents in, arguably, the most controversial decade in Jamaica's history. Indeed, 28 years after five men were killed by Jamaica Defence Force soldiers at the Green Bay shooting range in St. Catherine, it remains a topic of passionate debate.
The bloody incident took place on the morning of January 5, 1978, when 10 men from the Central Kingston constituency of Southside were taken to Green Bay in the Port Henderson section of Portmore, to meet a 'big man' who would give them employment as driver/ bodyguards. The jobs were supposed to pay $300 a week.
Five of them perished after coming under fire from a squad of soldiers. The public outcry was just as loud as the Braeton and Kraal shootings involving the Special Anti-Crime Unit of the Jamaica Constabulary Force two decades later.
QUESTIONABLE BACKGROUNDS
Like Braeton and Kraal, the security forces said those killed at Green Bay had questionable backgrounds and the shooting was justified. Others, including (retired) Jamaica Defense Force (JDF) officer Colonel Allan Douglas, believe the act was cold-blooded murder.
"Green Bay was a murderous and unprofessional act carried out by members of the JDF," Colonel Douglas told The Sunday Gleaner last week. "It is a chapter in the history of the JDF and indeed Jamaica that I am extremely ashamed of."
In February 1982, four years after the incident, 10 JDF soldiers were freed of murder charges in the Manchester Circuit Court. They were also freed of conspiracy to murder.
Interestingly, at the coroner's Inquest in May 1978 the jury found that 'persons conspired to commit murder' at Green Bay.
What is without question is that the men from Southside were transported to Green Bay in two Red Cross ambulances. At the Coroner's Inquest, the JDF soldiers who testified said that the men went to the range to collect guns smuggled into the country and were surprised by a "Special Strike Force". The men opened fire on the army patrol which retaliated, killing five of them.
The dead men were identified as Norman 'Guttu' Thompson, a former star footballer for Santos and Jamaica; Glenroy Richards, Trevor Clarke, Winston Hamilton and Martin Howard.
NO EVIDENCE OF A SHOOT-OUT
According to the soldiers, the other men fled and made their way back to Southside, an area with strong ties to the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). There was no evidence of a shoot-out. A comprehensive search of the area two weeks later recovered a rusty gun that had not been used for many years.
The JDF story did not go down well with the public and organisations including the JLP and the Jamaica Council for Human Rights. The latter called for an impartial independent commission of enquiry. Initially, the Minister of National Security, Dudley Thompson, scoffed at the outcry. His now infamous statement, "No angels died at Green Bay," further fuelled an explosive affair; eventually, he relented and ordered a Coroner's Inquest.
Those who died at Green Bay were not squeaky clean. Thompson was convicted for shoplifting in Bermuda while playing a match for Jamaica there in 1973; Richards was arrested for murder in 1970, but was never tried; Howard was convicted for larceny in 1974, while Clarke was charged with breaching the Dangerous Drug Act in 1976.
Hamilton, a contractor, had no criminal record.
After a two-week delay, a Coroner's Inquest into the Green Bay incident opened with the 10 JDF soldiers, the five survivors and (then Captain) Douglas among those testifying. Also taking the stand was Junior Douglas, an agent of the military intelligence who said he was at Green Bay at the time of the shooting.
Junior Douglas (no relation to Allan) said the men were lured to Green Bay by JDF agents in the ambulances, taken to the firing range and ambushed by soldiers led by Major Ian Robinson and Captain Karl Marsh.
The five survivors corroborated Douglas' testimony and eight weeks after the inquest began, the jury returned a unanimous verdict that "person or persons were criminally responsible" for the death of five men at Green Bay.
In July, a Supreme Court judge issued bench warrants for murder, for officers Major Robinson and Sergeant LaFlamme Schooler, and soldiers Desmond Grant, Errol Grant, Everald King, Colin Reid and Joel Stainrod. Major Robinson, Captain Marsh, Lieutenant Suzanne Haik, Lieutenant Frederick Fraser and Sergeant Schooler were all charged with conspiracy to murder.
All were acquitted. In June and July 1981, respectively, Frater, Haik and Marsh were freed after the court upheld a no-case submission on their behalf; Robinson and Schooler were found not guilty in July 1981.
As for the murder charges, the seven accused walked free from the Manchester Circuit Court on February 8, 1982, after the Director of Public Prosecutions entered a nolle prosequi (decision not to pursue the case any further).
The Green Bay case was over.
A.J. Nicholson, a member of the defence team, exclaimed: "Justice has triumphed!"
Some journalists, among them Gleaner columnist Wilmot Perkins, questioned the verdict. Dudley Thompson, who gained international fame during the 1950s as the lawyer who defended Kenyan nationalist Jomo Kenyatta for his part in the Mau Mau uprising in that country, never lived down his infamous 'Angels' utterance.
In 2001, when there were calls for politicians and public officials to admit their wrongs and failures in a truth and rights reconciliation forum, the combative Thompson finally apologised for the remark he had made 23 years earlier.
Colonel Allan Douglas retired from the JDF in 2002 and now lives in Florida. He says some in the army considered his testimony against the JDF traitorous but insists to this day that five innocent men died at Green Bay.
