By Winston Donald ( Galley owner, Newspaper Columnist, MA student)
Just two weeks ago I attended a Unite Jamaica conference put on by Minister Peter Bunting. I am wondering how effective was this conference. Personally and from all empirical evidence this conference has nothing new for reducing crime. Its all BIG TALK.
Crime will never be reduced until we deal with those at the helm who finance crime by their greed and corruption and politics.
First let look at the business community. One prominent member of the NIA who I have complained about has a track record of corruption. His major entity in the 1980’s reported thousands of barrels of pickled mackerel destroyed claiming millions from the Insurance company. Nothing like that happened. Yet these are the persons representing honesty and integrity. Does the western embassies really knows the characters off these people. They cloaked behind ethnicity, colour and upper class when they are worst than common thieves. I have yet to pen a letter to the embassy regarding the corrupt nature of some of these entrepreneurs. My college mate was fired when one of these entrepreneurs believed he did wrong by not writing off $10 million (in 1988 $’s) of losses. Fact was, the hurricane just tossed those pails of pickled mackerel from one side of the warehouse of the wharves to another.
Crime is ascerbated next by those who had financed the 1980 election, those who purchased the m16’s and Bushmasyers to murder innocent people like those in Greenwich Town and student like Carol Narine , community member of the Waterhouse/ Olympic Gardens Community. Do the minister and government recognize that people who finance these crimes have expected returns in political and businesss favours or OJ’s, CD ‘s and national honours from the Jamaican state? Does the minister realized that there is no grievances or empathy for the mayhem carried out by agents of murders , especially those who fuelled the near civil war and hard drugs and corruption in the island? Do the minister realized that the western powers must have documented illicit and criminal activities of these agents of death against the Jamaican people but is silent because of cold war ideology and capitalistic interests. On the other side of the coin does the minister realized and know that other elements trained in left leaning countries are equally responsible for the hell we have now called crime and that the legacy of both left and right extremities still resonate today. The guns of yesteryear were never totally removed from the armoury of criminals.
Does the national security minister knows that if a survey is carried out by the people , it would reveal that at least 80 % of the police force is corrupt and furthermore that one in every five Jaamicans have at one time or the other been solicited to provide bribes to element of the police force. I also wonder why we don’t see policemen who are White Jamaicans, Arabs or Chinese? Perhaps the Minister can answer why.
That conference and all conferences to follow will be a waste of taxpayers money, a repeated failure, an affront to justice and a farce. I will bet anyone that crime will be here longer and more brazing than last year. Crime can only be mitigated when they deal with the power bloc and the police force. Poor people are at the periphery of society ; they do not have the disposable income and cash to buy high powered weapons such as AK 47, M16, Berettas , Glock , Sig Saur, Bushmaster, M1, , neither do they have the vast resources to import manufactured drug from cocaine in containers, neither do they have that kind of cash to give to politicians for renting cars, advertising and political promotion or so called social and amenities to communities. Poor people are only the henchmen and footsoldiers of the dominant class , doing the dirty in which they seek ‘a food” or patronage.
When the power bloc , police force and elites come clean nad confess, then and maybe then the decent people of this beloved island will savour some peace and tranquility from crime. Until sicuch time those with their ill-gotten wealth from political patronage , kickbacks, export of drugs from their private estates in the 1980’s , selling their soul to spy agencies , violation of customs and gross undermining of the state by political rightwing and leftwing chicanery can only live with a hypocritical self worrying that one day they will be exposed if not by man but by God. Has those who hid behind the marijuana planes to ship the weapons of mass destruction to Jamaica been comprehend for their political inspired murders on the citizens? Is the minister cognizant that people do not forget atrocities.
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