Some questions:
1. At what point did the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) become aware of the intentions of the Jamaican security forces [Operation Garden Parish] which would have prompted them to offer a surveillance plane? [Holness said categorically that plane was offered and the offer accepted by the Jamaican government]
2. Were the DHS and the DEA involved in planning the operation?
3. What role did former prime minister and minister of defence Bruce Golding play in the granting of permission for this surveillance plane to be brought into the operation?
4. Why did Mr Golding give a categorical denial in parliament?
5. Why was National Security Minister Dwight Nelson, who is also a member of the Defence Board, not told about the granting of permission for the DHS plane to be brought into the operation, certainly by the Prime Minister with whom he seemed to have had very close relations?
6. How was it possible for him not to have known about it?
7. Why would Colonel Rocky Meade have made a similar denial when he was well aware of the facts?
8. What was the ‘sensitive nature’ of the operation according to Prime Minister Andrew Holness?
9. Can Dwight Nelson and Rocky Meade be trusted as honest employees of the state having been found to be lacking in credibility and caught telling lies? Should they be allowed to continue in their present positions?
10. Will Prime Minister Andrew Holness ensure that the surveillance tapes be made public so that a determination can be made as to whether the security forces were in fact engaged in a firefight as they claim? [The DHS has said according to Mat Schwartz in his New Yorker article that the tapes were viewed at a "tactical operations center"]
Lloyd D'Aguilar
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Case for a forensic audit of Jamaic's public debt
Professor James Petras (Binghamton University) opined during our discussion (Sunday November 6, 2011) on my newly launched internet programme “Looking Back Looking Forward” (www.lookingbacklookingforward.com) (every Sunday at 12 noon) that maybe about 70% of the Jamaican debt is illegitimate.
I have never tried to quantify it myself. It would require a forensic audit which I have been advocating to determine what portion is really illegitimate. But even without an audit, those with just a passing knowledge of how corrupt Jamaica is (Transparency International lists Jamaica as one of the most corrupt countries in the world) would not regard Petras’ estimation as outrageous.
The following is by no means an exhaustive list of questionable projects and dealings which need investigation, but there is a pattern which suggests recklessness and lack of accountability for the spending of public funds. If only a fraction is corrupt it is considerable in a poor country.
Corruption represents a method of transferring wealth from the poor to the rich or a form of primitive capital accumulation to use Marx’s definition. The level of debt (nearly two trillion Jamaican dollars) can be indexed to corruption: every man woman and child is said to be mathematically responsible for about US$7000 of the debt– a tall order for the 1.2 million people who are living below the poverty line, thirteen per cent who are unemployed, and thousands more who are underemployed.
For obvious reasons we start with the meltdown of the financial sector in 1997 when the PNP government chose to bail out the financial sector and the consequences thereof.
(1) According to economist Dennis Morrison “the cost of the government bail-out through FINSAC [Financial Sector Adjustment Company] was estimated at some 40 per cent * of GDP which was one of the most burdensome at the time.” (Gleaner April 5, 2009). Morrison continues: “In fact, Jamaica's debt ratio, which had fallen to just over 70 per cent of GDP prior to the advent of FINSAC, having come down from as high as 150 per cent in the 1980s, went back up to over 130 per cent in the late 1990s, and has not gone below 100 per cent since then.” (Gleaner April 5 2009).
*(Richard Downer (chartered accountant among other things) claims that his research indicated a figure of 66% of GDP. He also made the interesting point that “No bank that acted like a commercial bank failed.” (Examining Bank Failure in Developing Countries Lessons from Jamaica... Forward by Richard L. Downer CD FCA by Jennifer A Daley (SES publication)).
(2) There is currently a Commission of Enquiry into FINSAC’s operation (the entity that handled the bailout) but there is no accompanying forensic audit to determine who got how much money and the conditions involved etc. and hence the enquiry is a grand waste of time and public funds in terms of not being able to address the question of illegitimacy and fraud. [This is the point that PJ Patterson misses when he continues to defend the bailout... who got the bailed out? for how much? and why?]
Even without the forensic audit there is enough information coming out of the enquiry to suggest that there was a massive misuse of public funds to cover so-called toxic assets for some entities. [Finance Minister Audley Shaw is not interested in a forensic audit it seems because it would expose persons on both sides of the political divide, not just PNP persons as he knows very well]. Some very fortunate debtors got massive write offs while others lost their shirts. At least two bankers fled to the United States to avoid fraud charges. The bailout resulted in massive borrowing and the poor are still paying for the more than 50% increase in debt.
(3) Incidentally, National Commercial Bank (NCB), which received a bailout, and was then sold to Jamaican billionaire Michael Lee Chin for a song (J$6 billion), is now reporting profits of over J$13 billion! The government feels no obligation to consider increased taxes. (“NCB’s profits up to $13 billion.” Sunday Observer, November 06, 2011 http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/business/NCB-s-profits-up-to--13-billion#ixzz1dkAUHZgn)
/[ “Patrick Hylton, group managing director of National Commercial Bank Jamaica, denied any connection between the sale of the bank to Jamaican-Canadian investor Michael Lee-Chin's AIC Limited, and his position as NCB's current boss, at Wednesday's sitting of the FINSAC enquiry.” Asked by attorney-at-law for several FINSAC creditors who were victims of the 1990s meltdown, Anthony Levy, whether it would be correct to say that the NCB was "given away", Hylton said he "totally disagreed." Asked what price the bank was sold for, Hylton said that AIC paid about US$120 million for the 75 per cent of the shares held by FINSAC, valued at some US$175 million over a 6-8-year period.}http://www.gleaner ja.com/gleaner/20110708/business/business4.html]
(4) Highway 2000. This was a case of technocrats pushing a classic, world-wide method of corruption onto the political directorate (or maybe it was vice versa?) with fantastic claims about economic development which would result. (I would call these technocrats a special breed – unelected but having very powerful connections with the corporate, political and media elite). As to be expected, the tourism moguls welcomed the project as an enhancement (and a great subsidy) of their tourism product. (The late journalist John Maxwell called it the ‘highway to nowhere’). The promised ‘development’ never materialized and the highway has cost the public at least one billion US dollars and still counting. This would have been a classic example of irresponsible lending given that government guarantees were involved. There was no cost benefit analysis from the perspective of the poor and the working class and who possess no veto power over such projects.
(5) The Office of the Contractor General (OCG) has investigated aspects of how the original contract was awarded but makes it plain that it does not the mandate to make deeper investigations. One is required which goes beyond the mere legality of the contract award process. (December 2007. Office of the Contractor General Report on the Investigation Conducted into the Highway 2000 Concession and Administration Agreement Ministry of Transport, Housing Water and Works. “The Investigation has concluded that the initial complaint raised a series of questions, some of which are outside the mandate of the OCG. The questions, which include consequences of a liquidation of Trans Jamaica Highway to the taxpayers of Jamaica, and the justification for Bouygues to have a monopoly concession, have not been addressed in their entirety in this report.” Etc.)
(6) Palisadoes Highway Project: In a time of economic crisis the government borrows US$65 million dollars from the China Exim Bank to undertake an unnecessary road building project. Not counting the environmental cost, it is rather ominous that China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), which was elected to carry out the project had been accused of bribing officials in foreign countries in order to get contracts. (See below). Could a similar situation have happened in Jamaica?
““US cable accuses CHEC of being involved in bribery
Posted on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 09:37 in Business (Insidethegames): Hambantota, which is bidding for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, has found itself at the centre of the latest WikiLeaks controversy after it was revealed that the United States Government believed the Chinese were bribing Sri Lankan officials to win contracts linked to the redevelopment of the city. China has been the driving force behind a major infrastructural development phase with an international airport, international port, and railway line being built in Hambantota, which was devastated in 2004 by the tsunami. Phase One of the new Hambantota Port was constructed by the China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) at a cost of $360 million.
"It is likely that corruption and political patronage are significant factors playing into the focus on Hambantota," said the cable sent from the US Embassy in Sri Lankan capital Colombo published on WikiLeaks. "Often when Chinese companies win contracts, their success is due in part on their widespread distribution of graft to senior Sri Lankan Government officials. While it is currently unknown to what extent President Mahinda Rajapaksa is involved in Hambantota development, it seems logical that his hand is also out when commercial enterprises, especially the Chinese, jockey for contracts and projects."
The OCG is investigating the process whereby the contract was awarded to CHEC. [See findings below by the Auditor General which contradicts the government’s claim that CHEC was mandated to generally get road contracts as a part of US$400 million loan agreement.]
Clifton Yap has written that even if the money was “cheap” there is no way of knowing if the cost of the project was value for money without putting it out to tender. Furthermore says Yap “As with the People’s National Party (PNP) administration, their [JLP] projects are generally ill-conceived, decided on unilaterally, poorly planned, and developed without public consultations or stakeholder input.” .” Clifton Yap "That US$65m Palisadoes Road"Published: Tuesday | April 27, 2011 http://jamaicagleaner.com/gleaner/20100427/letters/letters1.html
(8) As for the need to spend US$65 million it has been suggested by more rational people that all that was required to solve the Palisadoes “problem” (the road leading from Kingston’s Norman Manley Airport) was for the purchase of a few front end loaders to remove sand from the road whenever there is a storm.
Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme (JDIP)
(9) Currently there is a big controversy surrounding JDIP which involves US$400 million borrowed from China to repair roads. Not only is the Contractor General investigating alleged irregularities but the Auditor General has released a report raising questions about accountability in the use of the money. For example, J$100 million earmarked for road repairs was used to refurbish the corporate offices of the National Works Agency (NWA), the government company responsible for road repairs and other building projects).
As is the practice with other lending nations where money is lent on the condition that it is re-spent as much as possible in the lender country, the repair contract was given to CHEC, without any bidding. The AG’s report is replete with accusations of lack of monitoring. The most shocking aspect of the JDIP programme is the J$800 million cost for building one kilometre of road in the finance minister’s constituency. The auditor general is raising questions about how costs were determined. The Auditor General also reports that the Chinese embassy advises that there was no stipulation as to which Chinese construction company should be used for the road projects. A big delegation of JLP government politicians visited China in 2009 and one can only speculate as to went on during that visit “Auditor general concerned about Christiana Road irregularities.”Published: Tuesday November 15, 2011 | 5:49 pm. http://jamaica-gleaner.com/latest/article.php?id=33245
(10) To better understand the politics and the potential for corruption in big “development” projects such as highways, dams, laying of oil pipe lines etc. I would recommend “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins. The Confessions relate deliberate attempts to hype claims about development benefits as part of the pubic sell campaign and which usually works in poor countries crying out for development. As John Perkins also claims, development projects are sometimes used as a foreign policy tool to deliberately bankrupt some countries. Perkins worked for an engineering company which was apparently a front for the CIA and not all employees were aware of this. [ The LNG gas project being considered in Jamaica is already riddled with allegations of corruption even though the project has yet to get off the ground]
(11) Air Jamaica was originally a state enterprise and then privatized with government as a minority partner. According to former prime minister, Bruce Golding, “Since its inception in 1969, Air Jamaica has accumulated losses of over US$1.4 billion or J$126 billion. In the last 3 years alone, it has incurred losses of US$337 million or J$31 billion.” (February 11, 2010. Statement to Parliament by Hon. Bruce Golding, Prime Minister on the Privatization of Air Jamaica)
Though essentially a private company, the government nevertheless stood guaranty for all the loans and losses of the Airline because of its minority involvement. In other words, lenders would have no need to care whether the company was insolvent or not since government had guaranteed to pay back the loans. [The constitution guarantees that sovereign debt has first claim on the consolidated fund.] The principal owner of Air Jamaica, Gordon Butch Stewart and his Sandals company have benefitted tremendously even if Air Jamaica lost money. The public debt kept growing in tandem with Air Jamaica losses.
Should there be a special tax on the profitable tourism companies lavishly subsidized from public funds? Should all the loans borrowed be investigated to see who really benefited? The answer is a resounding: yes.
[“Despite the downturn in the economy, Sandals Resorts International experienced one of the best years on record in 2010. Interview with Butch Stewart” http://www.leadersmag.com/issues/2011.1_Jan/Hospitality%27s%20Global%20Impact/LEADERS-Gordon-Butch-Stewart-Sandals-Resorts-International.html
“Air Jamaica: end of an era 'The little piece of Jamaica that cries' Friday, July 08, 2011” “The story of Air Jamaica's contribution to the economy, on one hand, could be told in soaring figures. At its peak, the airline carried 69 per cent of all persons travelling to Jamaica and 52 per cent of tourists visiting the island. On the other hand, the figures by themselves could not tell the entire story. The airline lost approximately US$674 million during AJAG's 10 years of operation, representing an annual average loss of US$67 million”
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Air-Jamaica--end-of-an-era_9161512#ixzz1dkfR1VR0
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Air-Jamaica--end-of-an-era_9161512#ixzz1dkeofBBt
(12) Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ): Many stories over the years indicated poor management; corrupt financial decisions; no involvement or consultation with the workers in the decision making process, and no sooner had the SCJ become “bankrupt” it was re-privatized at great expense to the taxpayer and sold for a song.
St Aubyn Hill (another special type of technocrat), was paid nearly 2 million dollars a month for his efforts to get the company sold. It took him quite a while to find a buyer and whether the reasons for the length of time were legitimate or not, he would have been handsomely rewarded for his efforts. The question still remains: can the country afford it?
[Interestingly, while it was publicly known how much Aubyn Hill received for divesting the SCJ, it is not known how much Gerald Lalor and others received for their role in divesting Air Jamaica].
There has been no public accounting as to how the SCJ assets were assessed, so no one knows if the sale price was a fair one or not. It should be also be noted that it was sold to a Chinese company, Complant, and represents an increasing penetration of Chinese capital into the Jamaica economy.
[“Aubyn Hill quits sugar company Published: Wednesday | October 26, 2011
“The former banker was contracted by SCJ Holdings as CEO in January 2010 after serving as consultant from August 2008. The revelation of his monthly J$1.9 million salary made headlines, forcing the Government to defend his pay. http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20111026/business/business1.html]
(13) Example of corruption allegations at the SCJ: A letter to the OCG from a concerned citizen:: “You will observe that these middle men paid US$161,860.00 for the four units and sold them to Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ) for JA$31,0M or US$456,000.00 making US$294,140.00 profit =182%. This level of profiteering is consistent with the tractors and cane carts you bought recently. Is this not of concern to you. It is to me.” . [Office of the Contractor General: Special Report of investigation conducted into the allegations of improper procurement practices at the Sugar Company of Jamaica. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. March 2011].
A forensic audit is required since the Contractor General is only able to scratch the surface of the corruption which exists. This applies as a general rule to all investigations undertaken by the OCG.
(14) JUTC losses blamed on corrupt management; lack of worker involvement or consultation in the decision-making process. Bus fares recently increased imposing greater hardship on the poor and working class. Previous manager Douglas Chambers alleged to have corruptly given himself a contract and made a handsome profit. (Chambers was shot dead at the JUTC plant under suspicious circumstances).
(15) Cost of world cup cricket. The Government spent over US$100 million (J$7 billion) to host world cup cricket in 2007. There are outstanding issues involving expenditures; lack of accountability as usual. Given the lack of media interest the debt is quietly assumed by the government and passed on to the taxpayer.
Sandals Whitehouse
(16) Government invests the lion share of approximately US$120 million to build Sandals Whitehouse and sells it to Gordon Butch Stewart for US$40m which is far less than the construction cost and its real market value. This does not include the literal give away to Stewart of the land on which the hotel is built: sold for J$ 6milion!
The Report of the Office of the Contractor General (OCG) is necessary reading to fully understand how from the very beginning the deal worked in Gorstew's favour even while making complaints about design. [OCG Media Release: January 19, 2011 "Office of Contractor General Writes to Prime Minister to Recommend Halt of Sale of Sandals Whitehouse Hotel to Gorstew Limited." Available on OCG website.]
Taxpayers are still paying for this government largesse to one of our most subsidized billionaires. Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.
(17) Virgin Airlines/American Airlines: high-handed and irregular involvement by the minister of finance (PNP) in the case of Virgin Airlines (investigated by the OCG) and the minister of tourism (JLP) in the case of American Airlines (also investigated by the OCG). Both Airlines profit handsomely from concessions made to them. Taxpayers pick up the tab while nothing comes of the alleged irregularities. The DPP seems totally disinterested.
(18) Cuban light bulb scandal; J$276 million fraud and money laundering are the charges against PNP MP Kern Spencer – the cost to taxpayers to distribute light bulbs given to the Jamaican people free of cost by the Cuban government.. Investigated by the OCG. Spencer is before the courts but with a very deep pocket he has hired the best lawyers to defend him and who seem to be worth every penny they are paid
.(19) UK bridge building company Mabey and Johnson confessed that “several million US dollars” were paid to JLP MP Joseph Hibbert as a bribe for getting a bridge building contract. Investigated by the OCG, but the DPP seems disinterested.
(20) Bunting sweetheart deal. The finance minister sells government receivables to DBG, a finance company with known PNP connections, which in turns sells these receivables to state entities and makes millions of dollars of profit! Says Bunting according to the Observer: “the transaction was not subject to competition” because “it was DB&G which conceptualised the potential transaction to bailout the Government which was facing a ‘significant challenge’ in meeting its fiscal target at the time, therefore it would have been unfair for the then administration to put DB&G’s idea to tender.” How patriotic !!! [Bunting denies 'sweetheart deal' Says Contractor General's report does not support defamatory allegations Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/business/Bunting-denies--sweetheart-deal--
(21) Trafigura: $31 million paid to the PNP by Dutch Company Trafigura Beheer apparently to cover its electoral expenses. The Contractor General discovers among other things that though initially there was a contractual agreement with Trafigura Beheer to deliver Nigerian crude oil to Jamaica, at the time the money was paid to the PNP’s Colin Campbell (the apparent go-between), the parties were operating without a contract – no bidding having taken place as is required by law. Soon after the “donation” was made public a new company was found to transport the oil at a better price. (OCG Special Report of Investigation Conducted into the Oil Lifting Contracts between the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) and the Trafigura Beheer. Ministry of Energy and Mining (MEM) Formerly Ministry of Industry, Technology, Energy and Commerce (MITEC) August 2010.)
And as for the previous contracts in 2001 and 2002, the Contractor General reports that they were not in keeping with required government procedure:
“…. the PCJ did not deem the contract award to be one of a “procurement contract” as no contract value was involved, that is, there were no amounts to be paid by the PCJ to the contractor. Instead, the PCJ received an agreed amount, from the contractor, for each barrel of oil that was lifted.
“In this regard, the OCG found that the contract awards did not receive the prior endorsement of the National Contracts Commission (NCC) nor was there any evidence to indicate that Cabinet approval was granted for the award of the oil-lifting contracts.
“The OCG also found that the PCJ did not have a Procurement Committee in place prior to 2006, which is, in and of itself, another breach of the GOJ Procurement rules.” (OCG Report August 2010).
The record is replete with thousands of examples of what appears to be corrupt practices engaged in by both political parties and these have helped to balloon the debt to 120% of GDP.
The editors of the Observer , recognizing that there is a limit to how much more the poor and the working class can be taxed to pay for the debt, are calling for imposition of a “Robin Hood Tax” i.e. increasing taxes on the banks. We couldn’t agree more, but we advocate a further step: increase taxes on the rich generally including the successful hotel brands such as Sandals.
(“ Jamaica should support the Robin Hood Tax Sunday, November 06, 2011 http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/editorial/Jamaica-should-support-the-Robin-Hood-Tax2011-11-06T03-20-52#ixzz1dkx5h35V”[ The Observer is fiercely defensive of its owner Gordon Butch Stewart.]
The aim of a forensic audit is to make people more aware of how corruption blights their social existence. If only 50% of the debt is corrupt, and based on the above it may well be 70%, it lends a moral force to the argument as to why the debt cannot be repaid on the backs of the workers and the poor. It is a tool for negotiating debt repudiation. It points to the need for people control over the decision making process.. The present system can hardly be said to be democratic.
Lloyd D'Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
I have never tried to quantify it myself. It would require a forensic audit which I have been advocating to determine what portion is really illegitimate. But even without an audit, those with just a passing knowledge of how corrupt Jamaica is (Transparency International lists Jamaica as one of the most corrupt countries in the world) would not regard Petras’ estimation as outrageous.
The following is by no means an exhaustive list of questionable projects and dealings which need investigation, but there is a pattern which suggests recklessness and lack of accountability for the spending of public funds. If only a fraction is corrupt it is considerable in a poor country.
Corruption represents a method of transferring wealth from the poor to the rich or a form of primitive capital accumulation to use Marx’s definition. The level of debt (nearly two trillion Jamaican dollars) can be indexed to corruption: every man woman and child is said to be mathematically responsible for about US$7000 of the debt– a tall order for the 1.2 million people who are living below the poverty line, thirteen per cent who are unemployed, and thousands more who are underemployed.
For obvious reasons we start with the meltdown of the financial sector in 1997 when the PNP government chose to bail out the financial sector and the consequences thereof.
(1) According to economist Dennis Morrison “the cost of the government bail-out through FINSAC [Financial Sector Adjustment Company] was estimated at some 40 per cent * of GDP which was one of the most burdensome at the time.” (Gleaner April 5, 2009). Morrison continues: “In fact, Jamaica's debt ratio, which had fallen to just over 70 per cent of GDP prior to the advent of FINSAC, having come down from as high as 150 per cent in the 1980s, went back up to over 130 per cent in the late 1990s, and has not gone below 100 per cent since then.” (Gleaner April 5 2009).
*(Richard Downer (chartered accountant among other things) claims that his research indicated a figure of 66% of GDP. He also made the interesting point that “No bank that acted like a commercial bank failed.” (Examining Bank Failure in Developing Countries Lessons from Jamaica... Forward by Richard L. Downer CD FCA by Jennifer A Daley (SES publication)).
(2) There is currently a Commission of Enquiry into FINSAC’s operation (the entity that handled the bailout) but there is no accompanying forensic audit to determine who got how much money and the conditions involved etc. and hence the enquiry is a grand waste of time and public funds in terms of not being able to address the question of illegitimacy and fraud. [This is the point that PJ Patterson misses when he continues to defend the bailout... who got the bailed out? for how much? and why?]
Even without the forensic audit there is enough information coming out of the enquiry to suggest that there was a massive misuse of public funds to cover so-called toxic assets for some entities. [Finance Minister Audley Shaw is not interested in a forensic audit it seems because it would expose persons on both sides of the political divide, not just PNP persons as he knows very well]. Some very fortunate debtors got massive write offs while others lost their shirts. At least two bankers fled to the United States to avoid fraud charges. The bailout resulted in massive borrowing and the poor are still paying for the more than 50% increase in debt.
(3) Incidentally, National Commercial Bank (NCB), which received a bailout, and was then sold to Jamaican billionaire Michael Lee Chin for a song (J$6 billion), is now reporting profits of over J$13 billion! The government feels no obligation to consider increased taxes. (“NCB’s profits up to $13 billion.” Sunday Observer, November 06, 2011 http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/business/NCB-s-profits-up-to--13-billion#ixzz1dkAUHZgn)
/[ “Patrick Hylton, group managing director of National Commercial Bank Jamaica, denied any connection between the sale of the bank to Jamaican-Canadian investor Michael Lee-Chin's AIC Limited, and his position as NCB's current boss, at Wednesday's sitting of the FINSAC enquiry.” Asked by attorney-at-law for several FINSAC creditors who were victims of the 1990s meltdown, Anthony Levy, whether it would be correct to say that the NCB was "given away", Hylton said he "totally disagreed." Asked what price the bank was sold for, Hylton said that AIC paid about US$120 million for the 75 per cent of the shares held by FINSAC, valued at some US$175 million over a 6-8-year period.}http://www.gleaner ja.com/gleaner/20110708/business/business4.html]
(4) Highway 2000. This was a case of technocrats pushing a classic, world-wide method of corruption onto the political directorate (or maybe it was vice versa?) with fantastic claims about economic development which would result. (I would call these technocrats a special breed – unelected but having very powerful connections with the corporate, political and media elite). As to be expected, the tourism moguls welcomed the project as an enhancement (and a great subsidy) of their tourism product. (The late journalist John Maxwell called it the ‘highway to nowhere’). The promised ‘development’ never materialized and the highway has cost the public at least one billion US dollars and still counting. This would have been a classic example of irresponsible lending given that government guarantees were involved. There was no cost benefit analysis from the perspective of the poor and the working class and who possess no veto power over such projects.
(5) The Office of the Contractor General (OCG) has investigated aspects of how the original contract was awarded but makes it plain that it does not the mandate to make deeper investigations. One is required which goes beyond the mere legality of the contract award process. (December 2007. Office of the Contractor General Report on the Investigation Conducted into the Highway 2000 Concession and Administration Agreement Ministry of Transport, Housing Water and Works. “The Investigation has concluded that the initial complaint raised a series of questions, some of which are outside the mandate of the OCG. The questions, which include consequences of a liquidation of Trans Jamaica Highway to the taxpayers of Jamaica, and the justification for Bouygues to have a monopoly concession, have not been addressed in their entirety in this report.” Etc.)
(6) Palisadoes Highway Project: In a time of economic crisis the government borrows US$65 million dollars from the China Exim Bank to undertake an unnecessary road building project. Not counting the environmental cost, it is rather ominous that China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), which was elected to carry out the project had been accused of bribing officials in foreign countries in order to get contracts. (See below). Could a similar situation have happened in Jamaica?
““US cable accuses CHEC of being involved in bribery
Posted on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 09:37 in Business (Insidethegames): Hambantota, which is bidding for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, has found itself at the centre of the latest WikiLeaks controversy after it was revealed that the United States Government believed the Chinese were bribing Sri Lankan officials to win contracts linked to the redevelopment of the city. China has been the driving force behind a major infrastructural development phase with an international airport, international port, and railway line being built in Hambantota, which was devastated in 2004 by the tsunami. Phase One of the new Hambantota Port was constructed by the China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) at a cost of $360 million.
"It is likely that corruption and political patronage are significant factors playing into the focus on Hambantota," said the cable sent from the US Embassy in Sri Lankan capital Colombo published on WikiLeaks. "Often when Chinese companies win contracts, their success is due in part on their widespread distribution of graft to senior Sri Lankan Government officials. While it is currently unknown to what extent President Mahinda Rajapaksa is involved in Hambantota development, it seems logical that his hand is also out when commercial enterprises, especially the Chinese, jockey for contracts and projects."
The OCG is investigating the process whereby the contract was awarded to CHEC. [See findings below by the Auditor General which contradicts the government’s claim that CHEC was mandated to generally get road contracts as a part of US$400 million loan agreement.]
Clifton Yap has written that even if the money was “cheap” there is no way of knowing if the cost of the project was value for money without putting it out to tender. Furthermore says Yap “As with the People’s National Party (PNP) administration, their [JLP] projects are generally ill-conceived, decided on unilaterally, poorly planned, and developed without public consultations or stakeholder input.” .” Clifton Yap "That US$65m Palisadoes Road"Published: Tuesday | April 27, 2011 http://jamaicagleaner.com/gleaner/20100427/letters/letters1.html
(8) As for the need to spend US$65 million it has been suggested by more rational people that all that was required to solve the Palisadoes “problem” (the road leading from Kingston’s Norman Manley Airport) was for the purchase of a few front end loaders to remove sand from the road whenever there is a storm.
Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme (JDIP)
(9) Currently there is a big controversy surrounding JDIP which involves US$400 million borrowed from China to repair roads. Not only is the Contractor General investigating alleged irregularities but the Auditor General has released a report raising questions about accountability in the use of the money. For example, J$100 million earmarked for road repairs was used to refurbish the corporate offices of the National Works Agency (NWA), the government company responsible for road repairs and other building projects).
As is the practice with other lending nations where money is lent on the condition that it is re-spent as much as possible in the lender country, the repair contract was given to CHEC, without any bidding. The AG’s report is replete with accusations of lack of monitoring. The most shocking aspect of the JDIP programme is the J$800 million cost for building one kilometre of road in the finance minister’s constituency. The auditor general is raising questions about how costs were determined. The Auditor General also reports that the Chinese embassy advises that there was no stipulation as to which Chinese construction company should be used for the road projects. A big delegation of JLP government politicians visited China in 2009 and one can only speculate as to went on during that visit “Auditor general concerned about Christiana Road irregularities.”Published: Tuesday November 15, 2011 | 5:49 pm. http://jamaica-gleaner.com/latest/article.php?id=33245
(10) To better understand the politics and the potential for corruption in big “development” projects such as highways, dams, laying of oil pipe lines etc. I would recommend “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins. The Confessions relate deliberate attempts to hype claims about development benefits as part of the pubic sell campaign and which usually works in poor countries crying out for development. As John Perkins also claims, development projects are sometimes used as a foreign policy tool to deliberately bankrupt some countries. Perkins worked for an engineering company which was apparently a front for the CIA and not all employees were aware of this. [ The LNG gas project being considered in Jamaica is already riddled with allegations of corruption even though the project has yet to get off the ground]
(11) Air Jamaica was originally a state enterprise and then privatized with government as a minority partner. According to former prime minister, Bruce Golding, “Since its inception in 1969, Air Jamaica has accumulated losses of over US$1.4 billion or J$126 billion. In the last 3 years alone, it has incurred losses of US$337 million or J$31 billion.” (February 11, 2010. Statement to Parliament by Hon. Bruce Golding, Prime Minister on the Privatization of Air Jamaica)
Though essentially a private company, the government nevertheless stood guaranty for all the loans and losses of the Airline because of its minority involvement. In other words, lenders would have no need to care whether the company was insolvent or not since government had guaranteed to pay back the loans. [The constitution guarantees that sovereign debt has first claim on the consolidated fund.] The principal owner of Air Jamaica, Gordon Butch Stewart and his Sandals company have benefitted tremendously even if Air Jamaica lost money. The public debt kept growing in tandem with Air Jamaica losses.
Should there be a special tax on the profitable tourism companies lavishly subsidized from public funds? Should all the loans borrowed be investigated to see who really benefited? The answer is a resounding: yes.
[“Despite the downturn in the economy, Sandals Resorts International experienced one of the best years on record in 2010. Interview with Butch Stewart” http://www.leadersmag.com/issues/2011.1_Jan/Hospitality%27s%20Global%20Impact/LEADERS-Gordon-Butch-Stewart-Sandals-Resorts-International.html
“Air Jamaica: end of an era 'The little piece of Jamaica that cries' Friday, July 08, 2011” “The story of Air Jamaica's contribution to the economy, on one hand, could be told in soaring figures. At its peak, the airline carried 69 per cent of all persons travelling to Jamaica and 52 per cent of tourists visiting the island. On the other hand, the figures by themselves could not tell the entire story. The airline lost approximately US$674 million during AJAG's 10 years of operation, representing an annual average loss of US$67 million”
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Air-Jamaica--end-of-an-era_9161512#ixzz1dkfR1VR0
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Air-Jamaica--end-of-an-era_9161512#ixzz1dkeofBBt
(12) Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ): Many stories over the years indicated poor management; corrupt financial decisions; no involvement or consultation with the workers in the decision making process, and no sooner had the SCJ become “bankrupt” it was re-privatized at great expense to the taxpayer and sold for a song.
St Aubyn Hill (another special type of technocrat), was paid nearly 2 million dollars a month for his efforts to get the company sold. It took him quite a while to find a buyer and whether the reasons for the length of time were legitimate or not, he would have been handsomely rewarded for his efforts. The question still remains: can the country afford it?
[Interestingly, while it was publicly known how much Aubyn Hill received for divesting the SCJ, it is not known how much Gerald Lalor and others received for their role in divesting Air Jamaica].
There has been no public accounting as to how the SCJ assets were assessed, so no one knows if the sale price was a fair one or not. It should be also be noted that it was sold to a Chinese company, Complant, and represents an increasing penetration of Chinese capital into the Jamaica economy.
[“Aubyn Hill quits sugar company Published: Wednesday | October 26, 2011
“The former banker was contracted by SCJ Holdings as CEO in January 2010 after serving as consultant from August 2008. The revelation of his monthly J$1.9 million salary made headlines, forcing the Government to defend his pay. http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20111026/business/business1.html]
(13) Example of corruption allegations at the SCJ: A letter to the OCG from a concerned citizen:: “You will observe that these middle men paid US$161,860.00 for the four units and sold them to Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ) for JA$31,0M or US$456,000.00 making US$294,140.00 profit =182%. This level of profiteering is consistent with the tractors and cane carts you bought recently. Is this not of concern to you. It is to me.” . [Office of the Contractor General: Special Report of investigation conducted into the allegations of improper procurement practices at the Sugar Company of Jamaica. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. March 2011].
A forensic audit is required since the Contractor General is only able to scratch the surface of the corruption which exists. This applies as a general rule to all investigations undertaken by the OCG.
(14) JUTC losses blamed on corrupt management; lack of worker involvement or consultation in the decision-making process. Bus fares recently increased imposing greater hardship on the poor and working class. Previous manager Douglas Chambers alleged to have corruptly given himself a contract and made a handsome profit. (Chambers was shot dead at the JUTC plant under suspicious circumstances).
(15) Cost of world cup cricket. The Government spent over US$100 million (J$7 billion) to host world cup cricket in 2007. There are outstanding issues involving expenditures; lack of accountability as usual. Given the lack of media interest the debt is quietly assumed by the government and passed on to the taxpayer.
Sandals Whitehouse
(16) Government invests the lion share of approximately US$120 million to build Sandals Whitehouse and sells it to Gordon Butch Stewart for US$40m which is far less than the construction cost and its real market value. This does not include the literal give away to Stewart of the land on which the hotel is built: sold for J$ 6milion!
The Report of the Office of the Contractor General (OCG) is necessary reading to fully understand how from the very beginning the deal worked in Gorstew's favour even while making complaints about design. [OCG Media Release: January 19, 2011 "Office of Contractor General Writes to Prime Minister to Recommend Halt of Sale of Sandals Whitehouse Hotel to Gorstew Limited." Available on OCG website.]
Taxpayers are still paying for this government largesse to one of our most subsidized billionaires. Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.
(17) Virgin Airlines/American Airlines: high-handed and irregular involvement by the minister of finance (PNP) in the case of Virgin Airlines (investigated by the OCG) and the minister of tourism (JLP) in the case of American Airlines (also investigated by the OCG). Both Airlines profit handsomely from concessions made to them. Taxpayers pick up the tab while nothing comes of the alleged irregularities. The DPP seems totally disinterested.
(18) Cuban light bulb scandal; J$276 million fraud and money laundering are the charges against PNP MP Kern Spencer – the cost to taxpayers to distribute light bulbs given to the Jamaican people free of cost by the Cuban government.. Investigated by the OCG. Spencer is before the courts but with a very deep pocket he has hired the best lawyers to defend him and who seem to be worth every penny they are paid
.(19) UK bridge building company Mabey and Johnson confessed that “several million US dollars” were paid to JLP MP Joseph Hibbert as a bribe for getting a bridge building contract. Investigated by the OCG, but the DPP seems disinterested.
(20) Bunting sweetheart deal. The finance minister sells government receivables to DBG, a finance company with known PNP connections, which in turns sells these receivables to state entities and makes millions of dollars of profit! Says Bunting according to the Observer: “the transaction was not subject to competition” because “it was DB&G which conceptualised the potential transaction to bailout the Government which was facing a ‘significant challenge’ in meeting its fiscal target at the time, therefore it would have been unfair for the then administration to put DB&G’s idea to tender.” How patriotic !!! [Bunting denies 'sweetheart deal' Says Contractor General's report does not support defamatory allegations Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/business/Bunting-denies--sweetheart-deal--
(21) Trafigura: $31 million paid to the PNP by Dutch Company Trafigura Beheer apparently to cover its electoral expenses. The Contractor General discovers among other things that though initially there was a contractual agreement with Trafigura Beheer to deliver Nigerian crude oil to Jamaica, at the time the money was paid to the PNP’s Colin Campbell (the apparent go-between), the parties were operating without a contract – no bidding having taken place as is required by law. Soon after the “donation” was made public a new company was found to transport the oil at a better price. (OCG Special Report of Investigation Conducted into the Oil Lifting Contracts between the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) and the Trafigura Beheer. Ministry of Energy and Mining (MEM) Formerly Ministry of Industry, Technology, Energy and Commerce (MITEC) August 2010.)
And as for the previous contracts in 2001 and 2002, the Contractor General reports that they were not in keeping with required government procedure:
“…. the PCJ did not deem the contract award to be one of a “procurement contract” as no contract value was involved, that is, there were no amounts to be paid by the PCJ to the contractor. Instead, the PCJ received an agreed amount, from the contractor, for each barrel of oil that was lifted.
“In this regard, the OCG found that the contract awards did not receive the prior endorsement of the National Contracts Commission (NCC) nor was there any evidence to indicate that Cabinet approval was granted for the award of the oil-lifting contracts.
“The OCG also found that the PCJ did not have a Procurement Committee in place prior to 2006, which is, in and of itself, another breach of the GOJ Procurement rules.” (OCG Report August 2010).
The record is replete with thousands of examples of what appears to be corrupt practices engaged in by both political parties and these have helped to balloon the debt to 120% of GDP.
The editors of the Observer , recognizing that there is a limit to how much more the poor and the working class can be taxed to pay for the debt, are calling for imposition of a “Robin Hood Tax” i.e. increasing taxes on the banks. We couldn’t agree more, but we advocate a further step: increase taxes on the rich generally including the successful hotel brands such as Sandals.
(“ Jamaica should support the Robin Hood Tax Sunday, November 06, 2011 http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/editorial/Jamaica-should-support-the-Robin-Hood-Tax2011-11-06T03-20-52#ixzz1dkx5h35V”[ The Observer is fiercely defensive of its owner Gordon Butch Stewart.]
The aim of a forensic audit is to make people more aware of how corruption blights their social existence. If only 50% of the debt is corrupt, and based on the above it may well be 70%, it lends a moral force to the argument as to why the debt cannot be repaid on the backs of the workers and the poor. It is a tool for negotiating debt repudiation. It points to the need for people control over the decision making process.. The present system can hardly be said to be democratic.
Lloyd D'Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
Monday, November 14, 2011
Bruce Golding's foolish statement -- once again
Dear Editor,
It is distressing to hear Mr. Bruce Golding once again saying that what happened in Tivoli could not have been avoided. That is ABSOLUTELY not true. First of all, if Golding had not tried to prevent the extradition of Coke, he could have been taken into custody without a shot being fired long before the mayhem broke loose.
Secondly, there was no need for the wanton extrajudicial killings by the security forces. Golding either spoke to the residents as to what happened or he did not. If he has not spoken to them, then shame on him, he should have resigned as representative for the area long before resigning as prime minister. If he did speak to them, then there is no way he can continue to make that self-serving statement.
The real purpose of the statement, however, is to absolve himself of responsibility for the bloodshed and the destruction of property and the abuse of civil liberties. Golding signed off on a state of emergency for which there was no need; he had ministerial responsibility for the army – and the residents would have given him accounts of the army’s criminal behaviour. As prime minister, MP for the area, and head of the Defence Board, he shared command responsibility for the conduct of the security forces. Was he aware of extrajudicial killings taking place? Did any of his constituents ever call him to tell him what was going on? Did he try to put a stop to it? Did he demand and accept reports from the heads of the security forces in terms of how the operation was carried out? Or was it that he just didn’t care?
These are crucial questions Mr Golding needs to answer and until they are answered satisfactorily it is my view that he has to be investigated for having participated in crimes against humanity. Such a charge and concept might be foreign to the Jamaican judicial system but it has been defined by the International Criminal Court.
Maybe Mr. Golding should do some research before he makes another such foolish statement.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
It is distressing to hear Mr. Bruce Golding once again saying that what happened in Tivoli could not have been avoided. That is ABSOLUTELY not true. First of all, if Golding had not tried to prevent the extradition of Coke, he could have been taken into custody without a shot being fired long before the mayhem broke loose.
Secondly, there was no need for the wanton extrajudicial killings by the security forces. Golding either spoke to the residents as to what happened or he did not. If he has not spoken to them, then shame on him, he should have resigned as representative for the area long before resigning as prime minister. If he did speak to them, then there is no way he can continue to make that self-serving statement.
The real purpose of the statement, however, is to absolve himself of responsibility for the bloodshed and the destruction of property and the abuse of civil liberties. Golding signed off on a state of emergency for which there was no need; he had ministerial responsibility for the army – and the residents would have given him accounts of the army’s criminal behaviour. As prime minister, MP for the area, and head of the Defence Board, he shared command responsibility for the conduct of the security forces. Was he aware of extrajudicial killings taking place? Did any of his constituents ever call him to tell him what was going on? Did he try to put a stop to it? Did he demand and accept reports from the heads of the security forces in terms of how the operation was carried out? Or was it that he just didn’t care?
These are crucial questions Mr Golding needs to answer and until they are answered satisfactorily it is my view that he has to be investigated for having participated in crimes against humanity. Such a charge and concept might be foreign to the Jamaican judicial system but it has been defined by the International Criminal Court.
Maybe Mr. Golding should do some research before he makes another such foolish statement.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Why the British PM can wield a big 'homosexuality' stick: Responding to the Observer
It is true that British Prime Minister David Cameron is using Britain's historical leverage to get certain Commonwealth countries to change their homophobic laws and practices.
We may debate whether this is an ugly reminder of the ways in which the big powers rule over their former colonies, but we shouldn't lose sight of the merit in this case of the need to get rid of the buggery laws. In other words the method might be objectionable but the objective cannot be lightly dismissed.
And yes it is ironic that it was as colonial master that Britain instituted the law in question, and now that it has changed the law in its own country, it can’t get the former colonies to understand that this colonial law should be also changed because it is a violation of human rights. (The same could be said of capital punishment.)
With the irony duly noted, we must now move on to debate the real question of the human rights abuses suffered by gays as a result of homophobic laws and a homophobic culture which have festered for more than a century.
There can hardly be any debate that legislating against private sexual matters among consenting adults is wrong. The original law was so stupid it even made anal sex between male and female illegal. I am unaware of any case where a heterosexual couple was prosecuted for such a crime.
Being gay or homosexual is not just about having sex with someone of the same sex. Some gay persons may exhibit mannerisms which indicate sexual orientation and as a result classified as being gay. In such cases of presumed sexual orientation, such persons can be easily singled out for discrimination. So if same sex relations is considered illegal then the easily identified gay person becomes illegal even if not caught in the act of having sex. This constitutes a terrible type of persecution similar to being born black in a racist white society. One has no control over the color of one’s skin just as gays have no control over their sexual orientation.
To discriminate against anyone, gays in this case, on the basis of their biological make up and resultant sexual practice and which is of no harm to anyone else, is the height of the most perverse type of ignorance and cruelty. Any state which upholds this kind of discrimination is as guilty as the ignorant mob which attacks a gay person. And, as we all know, countless number of gays have been attacked and killed in Jamaica.
Bruce Golding, PJ Patterson, Edward Seaga and Portia Simpson Miller, former prime ministers, and now present prime minister Andrew Holness, have all in one way or another indicated their support for homophobia, and are as responsible for mob attacks on gays as the mobs themselves.
And this is where the former colonial power comes in for condemnation for this social disease left behind. With the surplus profits extracted from the colonies they were able to create a far more educated society, so that their better educated people were able to see through homophobic prejudice, and agree to ending it far earlier than in the former colonies which by contrast seem to be stuck in the dark middle ages.
So yes, though continuing to be head of an imperialist nation, David Cameron does come across as a far more enlightened despot than the narrow-minded quislings he rules over.
Nonetheless, there are progressive people in the neo-colonies who recognize homophobia as ignorance and a form of social violence, and as being connected to social and economic underdevelopment.
We have to commit ourselves to fighting homophobia as much as we struggle against all forms of economic and social injustice.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
www.lookingbacklookingforward.com
NB: On Sunday at 12 noon please log in to the launch of “Looking Back Looking Forward” www.lookingbacklookingforward.com formerly on Newstalk 93FM Radio. Media owners in concert with the Broadcasting Commission have conspired to censor the programme. We dare the Broadcasting Commission to censor us on the internet!
Programme line up:
12:00… Lloyd’s Commentary
12:30… Prof. Neni Panourgia… Developments in Greece
1:00….. Prof. James Petras… Argentina and the lessons for debt repudiation in Jamaica
1:30…..Prof. David Rowe… Bruce Golding’s resignation and other matters of corruption among Jamaica’s corporate elite
2:00 Peter Tatchell and Maurice Tomlinson, British and Jamaican gay rights activists discuss David Cameron’s attempt to get the buggery laws in the Commonwealth changed.
We may debate whether this is an ugly reminder of the ways in which the big powers rule over their former colonies, but we shouldn't lose sight of the merit in this case of the need to get rid of the buggery laws. In other words the method might be objectionable but the objective cannot be lightly dismissed.
And yes it is ironic that it was as colonial master that Britain instituted the law in question, and now that it has changed the law in its own country, it can’t get the former colonies to understand that this colonial law should be also changed because it is a violation of human rights. (The same could be said of capital punishment.)
With the irony duly noted, we must now move on to debate the real question of the human rights abuses suffered by gays as a result of homophobic laws and a homophobic culture which have festered for more than a century.
There can hardly be any debate that legislating against private sexual matters among consenting adults is wrong. The original law was so stupid it even made anal sex between male and female illegal. I am unaware of any case where a heterosexual couple was prosecuted for such a crime.
Being gay or homosexual is not just about having sex with someone of the same sex. Some gay persons may exhibit mannerisms which indicate sexual orientation and as a result classified as being gay. In such cases of presumed sexual orientation, such persons can be easily singled out for discrimination. So if same sex relations is considered illegal then the easily identified gay person becomes illegal even if not caught in the act of having sex. This constitutes a terrible type of persecution similar to being born black in a racist white society. One has no control over the color of one’s skin just as gays have no control over their sexual orientation.
To discriminate against anyone, gays in this case, on the basis of their biological make up and resultant sexual practice and which is of no harm to anyone else, is the height of the most perverse type of ignorance and cruelty. Any state which upholds this kind of discrimination is as guilty as the ignorant mob which attacks a gay person. And, as we all know, countless number of gays have been attacked and killed in Jamaica.
Bruce Golding, PJ Patterson, Edward Seaga and Portia Simpson Miller, former prime ministers, and now present prime minister Andrew Holness, have all in one way or another indicated their support for homophobia, and are as responsible for mob attacks on gays as the mobs themselves.
And this is where the former colonial power comes in for condemnation for this social disease left behind. With the surplus profits extracted from the colonies they were able to create a far more educated society, so that their better educated people were able to see through homophobic prejudice, and agree to ending it far earlier than in the former colonies which by contrast seem to be stuck in the dark middle ages.
So yes, though continuing to be head of an imperialist nation, David Cameron does come across as a far more enlightened despot than the narrow-minded quislings he rules over.
Nonetheless, there are progressive people in the neo-colonies who recognize homophobia as ignorance and a form of social violence, and as being connected to social and economic underdevelopment.
We have to commit ourselves to fighting homophobia as much as we struggle against all forms of economic and social injustice.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
www.lookingbacklookingforward.com
NB: On Sunday at 12 noon please log in to the launch of “Looking Back Looking Forward” www.lookingbacklookingforward.com formerly on Newstalk 93FM Radio. Media owners in concert with the Broadcasting Commission have conspired to censor the programme. We dare the Broadcasting Commission to censor us on the internet!
Programme line up:
12:00… Lloyd’s Commentary
12:30… Prof. Neni Panourgia… Developments in Greece
1:00….. Prof. James Petras… Argentina and the lessons for debt repudiation in Jamaica
1:30…..Prof. David Rowe… Bruce Golding’s resignation and other matters of corruption among Jamaica’s corporate elite
2:00 Peter Tatchell and Maurice Tomlinson, British and Jamaican gay rights activists discuss David Cameron’s attempt to get the buggery laws in the Commonwealth changed.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Why debt repudiation is a common sense approach to Jamaica's economic crisis
1. Omar Davies, Bruce Golding and Audley Shaw have said on many occasions prior to the Debt Exchange (JDX) that Jamaica would never default on its debts. Omar Davies famously and proudly told UWI students that paying the debt will ALWAYS take priority over taking care of the country’s domestic needs.
2. In the talks prior to the signing of the 2009 IMF Agreement it was clear to the IMF and their technocrats that Jamaica’s debt level was not only unsustainable (the country was perilously close to a default) but required a radical reduction of the debt stock beyond the usual measures: suppression of government expenditure, etc. The IMF/UNDP suggested what became known as the Jamaica Debt Exchange (JDX) which resulted in a $40 billion write off of the local debt.
3. So beholden was the government to creditors that it was paradoxical for it to be the IMF/UNDP (who serve the interests of creditors) to encourage this debt write off instead of the government acting proactively and pragmatically on behalf of the most vulnerable. The government was dragged along kicking and screaming, even though they now proudly point to the JDX as one of their achievements.
4. A principle has therefore been established that normal means alone cannot be used to reduce an unsustainable debt level. European banks have been forced to write off 50% of the Greek debt because the Greek government was politically unable to impose more austerity measures on the population.
5. Despite the JDX, the debt stock is now at an even higher level. This is a result of the country’s high propensity to borrow which reflects deep ‘structural’ problems.
6. Objectively with 1.2 million or about 45% of the Jamaican population living below the poverty line and a 13% official unemployment rate it is clear that should the government impose more austerity it runs the risk of stirring up political resistance. It would literally be bleeding the poor dry.
WHAT TO DO? Taxing those who can afford it.
7. If precedent is to go by the Government will continue to refuse to impose radical new taxes on the wealthy. The Golding government, for example, using specious and self-serving arguments, refused to put a special tax on the super profits of the banks. Both BNS and NCB, not surprisingly (it is the trend all over the world) have been reporting record profits for several years now, and there is absolutely no temptation on the part of the government to increase taxes on those profits.
8. There was, however, a reluctant and minimal tax on earnings over five million dollars. But this was for one year only! It once again shows a clear class bias typical not only of this JLP government but the PNP as well. [By contrast former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown increased the tax level to 50% in 2009 for those making over 150,000 pounds].
9. The ideology behind refusing to tax the wealthy is that they will engage in capital flight and capital strike. We must all sink or swim coddling the rich.
10. With political leaders wearing such ideological blinkers it usually requires a strong political push from below to get them to face reality. This government and certainly the opposition seem to feel confident that the chances of such a movement developing are not very likely.
11. In the absence of such political resistance, the government aided by the ideological class, the IMF and the media, will continue to argue that it has no option but to suppress demand levels even further i.e. cutting fiscal expenditure (especially hurtful where education and health are concerned) and to institute public sector layoffs (which are pending) combined with imposing more taxes, which according to tradition, as we said before would be to tax the poor and the working class even more.
The radical but pragmatic option: debt repudiation
12. The truth is that in addition to increasing taxes on the wealthy [the current IMF-backed plan to impose a regressive tax policy under the guise of tax reform must be exposed and resisted], the only other effective option is to repudiate the debt. Argentina is one country to have done so recently with significant debt reduction results. Other countries in history have done so including the United States during the civil war, Mexico, and Cuba.
What does repudiating the debt mean.
13. The Government declares to all creditors that there is an immediate moratorium on all debt payments, but a door is diplomatically left open for negotiations. The national debt is approximately J$2 trillion. About 500 billion, the equivalent of all taxes collected is paid over each year.
Categories of creditors/negotiating strategy
14. First, there must be a forensic audit of the debt to determine what portion corruptly went to politicians, bureaucrats and private sector accomplices. Lenders are sometimes complicit with these corrupt practices. Morally and politically the poor should not be required to pay back such debt since they received no benefit.
15. Currently one politician is before the courts, and another is awaiting a ruling from the DPP. Highway 2000 and the US$62 million Palisadoes Highway are two projects which smack of corruption and which are of dubious benefit to the poor.
16. The late 1990s Bank bailout and the resultant FINSAC debt on the surface is also dubious debt. There is currently a FINSAC Commission of Enquiry going on but without a forensic audit being required this is a grand waste of taxpayer’s money.
17. The unearthing of such corruption is a legal, moral and political negotiating tool with creditors.
18. To amplify the point -- because the Jamaican constitution guarantees that debt has a first lien on the consolidated fund --creditors are not obliged to be responsible in their lending practices which gives rise to the concept of irresponsible lending.
19. There was no obligation, for example, for any lender to Air Jamaica to concern itself with whether the airline was bankrupt and able pay back its loans because all of Air Jamaica’s loans were guaranteed by the government. This would be a prime example of irresponsible lending.
The paradox of local creditors
20. Some local creditors are in fact government institutions which have invested in government bonds. This poses very little political problem for central government in cancelling this debt. The state must take responsibility for social welfare including pensions.
21. The Banking oligopoly owns a significant portion of the debt as well. The fact that they have enjoyed such super profits in the past years strengthens case for debt cancellation.
22. Generally speaking the government has the option to offer long term bonds with radical value reduction if it feels the need for a less acrimonious approach.
23. Should capital strike and capital flight be the response then government would obviously be forced to nationalize the banks, or any sector that engages in capital strike, and to take measures to prevent capital flight.
Negotiating with foreign creditors
24. Without precise data as to who are the foreign creditors, and the appropriate negotiating strategy, it is clear that government would generally demand a significant write off of the debt.
25. Argentina was able to get a 75% sovereign debt write off in some cases.
26. Creditors would rather get something on the dollar than nothing at all. This is something that those who predict doom and gloom fail to appreciate.
27. Externally it would be advisable to seek to form a debtor’s club with other heavily indebted Caribbean countries.
28. All of this requires a commitment to protect the 45% of the population living below the poverty line; to prevent further deterioration in our health care system; to invest in education at all levels; and to prevent the total breakdown of the country’s infrastructure which is inevitable should the present path of fiscal contraction be continued.
29. That is the pragmatic nature of debt repudiation.
30. It is a commitment to protect the poor and the working class generally, the class that is the producer of wealth, but expropriated by the few.
31. Finally we need to refute the ideologists who keep talking about growing our way out of the crisis.
32. According to the World Bank "Jamaica was one of the world's slowest-growing economies in the last four decades. In the 2000s, Jamaica's average real GDP growth ranked 180th out of 196 countries. Jamaica's ranking in terms of average real GDP growth continuously deteriorated during 1960-2008. Jamaica also lost ground against countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Its ranking in the 2000s was 29th out of 34 countries." Furthermore, says the World Bank “There is no silver bullet for all of Jamaica’s problems, or any single, unique binding commitment whose removal would solve them.”
33. In other words, those with mono causal explanations, such as it’s because of crime, or it’s because of bureaucratic red tape, or it’s because of the need for tax reform why the economy isn’t growing, are really promoting a self-serving agenda, designed to distract from the root concern.
34. And as for those who promote economic growth as the magic answer, they need to be reminded that there can be economic growth with little or no improvement in the standard of living of the poor and the working class generally.
35. If the economy can’t ‘grow’ for whatever reason then the cake has to be divided up more fairly. We cannot allow for the alarming rates of poverty to continue increasing and for the country’s infrastructure to disintegrate further.
The political system has to change from a two-party dictatorship to a people’s democracy.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
2. In the talks prior to the signing of the 2009 IMF Agreement it was clear to the IMF and their technocrats that Jamaica’s debt level was not only unsustainable (the country was perilously close to a default) but required a radical reduction of the debt stock beyond the usual measures: suppression of government expenditure, etc. The IMF/UNDP suggested what became known as the Jamaica Debt Exchange (JDX) which resulted in a $40 billion write off of the local debt.
3. So beholden was the government to creditors that it was paradoxical for it to be the IMF/UNDP (who serve the interests of creditors) to encourage this debt write off instead of the government acting proactively and pragmatically on behalf of the most vulnerable. The government was dragged along kicking and screaming, even though they now proudly point to the JDX as one of their achievements.
4. A principle has therefore been established that normal means alone cannot be used to reduce an unsustainable debt level. European banks have been forced to write off 50% of the Greek debt because the Greek government was politically unable to impose more austerity measures on the population.
5. Despite the JDX, the debt stock is now at an even higher level. This is a result of the country’s high propensity to borrow which reflects deep ‘structural’ problems.
6. Objectively with 1.2 million or about 45% of the Jamaican population living below the poverty line and a 13% official unemployment rate it is clear that should the government impose more austerity it runs the risk of stirring up political resistance. It would literally be bleeding the poor dry.
WHAT TO DO? Taxing those who can afford it.
7. If precedent is to go by the Government will continue to refuse to impose radical new taxes on the wealthy. The Golding government, for example, using specious and self-serving arguments, refused to put a special tax on the super profits of the banks. Both BNS and NCB, not surprisingly (it is the trend all over the world) have been reporting record profits for several years now, and there is absolutely no temptation on the part of the government to increase taxes on those profits.
8. There was, however, a reluctant and minimal tax on earnings over five million dollars. But this was for one year only! It once again shows a clear class bias typical not only of this JLP government but the PNP as well. [By contrast former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown increased the tax level to 50% in 2009 for those making over 150,000 pounds].
9. The ideology behind refusing to tax the wealthy is that they will engage in capital flight and capital strike. We must all sink or swim coddling the rich.
10. With political leaders wearing such ideological blinkers it usually requires a strong political push from below to get them to face reality. This government and certainly the opposition seem to feel confident that the chances of such a movement developing are not very likely.
11. In the absence of such political resistance, the government aided by the ideological class, the IMF and the media, will continue to argue that it has no option but to suppress demand levels even further i.e. cutting fiscal expenditure (especially hurtful where education and health are concerned) and to institute public sector layoffs (which are pending) combined with imposing more taxes, which according to tradition, as we said before would be to tax the poor and the working class even more.
The radical but pragmatic option: debt repudiation
12. The truth is that in addition to increasing taxes on the wealthy [the current IMF-backed plan to impose a regressive tax policy under the guise of tax reform must be exposed and resisted], the only other effective option is to repudiate the debt. Argentina is one country to have done so recently with significant debt reduction results. Other countries in history have done so including the United States during the civil war, Mexico, and Cuba.
What does repudiating the debt mean.
13. The Government declares to all creditors that there is an immediate moratorium on all debt payments, but a door is diplomatically left open for negotiations. The national debt is approximately J$2 trillion. About 500 billion, the equivalent of all taxes collected is paid over each year.
Categories of creditors/negotiating strategy
14. First, there must be a forensic audit of the debt to determine what portion corruptly went to politicians, bureaucrats and private sector accomplices. Lenders are sometimes complicit with these corrupt practices. Morally and politically the poor should not be required to pay back such debt since they received no benefit.
15. Currently one politician is before the courts, and another is awaiting a ruling from the DPP. Highway 2000 and the US$62 million Palisadoes Highway are two projects which smack of corruption and which are of dubious benefit to the poor.
16. The late 1990s Bank bailout and the resultant FINSAC debt on the surface is also dubious debt. There is currently a FINSAC Commission of Enquiry going on but without a forensic audit being required this is a grand waste of taxpayer’s money.
17. The unearthing of such corruption is a legal, moral and political negotiating tool with creditors.
18. To amplify the point -- because the Jamaican constitution guarantees that debt has a first lien on the consolidated fund --creditors are not obliged to be responsible in their lending practices which gives rise to the concept of irresponsible lending.
19. There was no obligation, for example, for any lender to Air Jamaica to concern itself with whether the airline was bankrupt and able pay back its loans because all of Air Jamaica’s loans were guaranteed by the government. This would be a prime example of irresponsible lending.
The paradox of local creditors
20. Some local creditors are in fact government institutions which have invested in government bonds. This poses very little political problem for central government in cancelling this debt. The state must take responsibility for social welfare including pensions.
21. The Banking oligopoly owns a significant portion of the debt as well. The fact that they have enjoyed such super profits in the past years strengthens case for debt cancellation.
22. Generally speaking the government has the option to offer long term bonds with radical value reduction if it feels the need for a less acrimonious approach.
23. Should capital strike and capital flight be the response then government would obviously be forced to nationalize the banks, or any sector that engages in capital strike, and to take measures to prevent capital flight.
Negotiating with foreign creditors
24. Without precise data as to who are the foreign creditors, and the appropriate negotiating strategy, it is clear that government would generally demand a significant write off of the debt.
25. Argentina was able to get a 75% sovereign debt write off in some cases.
26. Creditors would rather get something on the dollar than nothing at all. This is something that those who predict doom and gloom fail to appreciate.
27. Externally it would be advisable to seek to form a debtor’s club with other heavily indebted Caribbean countries.
28. All of this requires a commitment to protect the 45% of the population living below the poverty line; to prevent further deterioration in our health care system; to invest in education at all levels; and to prevent the total breakdown of the country’s infrastructure which is inevitable should the present path of fiscal contraction be continued.
29. That is the pragmatic nature of debt repudiation.
30. It is a commitment to protect the poor and the working class generally, the class that is the producer of wealth, but expropriated by the few.
31. Finally we need to refute the ideologists who keep talking about growing our way out of the crisis.
32. According to the World Bank "Jamaica was one of the world's slowest-growing economies in the last four decades. In the 2000s, Jamaica's average real GDP growth ranked 180th out of 196 countries. Jamaica's ranking in terms of average real GDP growth continuously deteriorated during 1960-2008. Jamaica also lost ground against countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Its ranking in the 2000s was 29th out of 34 countries." Furthermore, says the World Bank “There is no silver bullet for all of Jamaica’s problems, or any single, unique binding commitment whose removal would solve them.”
33. In other words, those with mono causal explanations, such as it’s because of crime, or it’s because of bureaucratic red tape, or it’s because of the need for tax reform why the economy isn’t growing, are really promoting a self-serving agenda, designed to distract from the root concern.
34. And as for those who promote economic growth as the magic answer, they need to be reminded that there can be economic growth with little or no improvement in the standard of living of the poor and the working class generally.
35. If the economy can’t ‘grow’ for whatever reason then the cake has to be divided up more fairly. We cannot allow for the alarming rates of poverty to continue increasing and for the country’s infrastructure to disintegrate further.
The political system has to change from a two-party dictatorship to a people’s democracy.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Prime Minister Holness must move beyond platitudes
Moving beyond rhetoric and platitudes
In his first speech as prime minister, Andrew Holness had things to say about corruption, education, garrison politics and the debt. The following are some of the things that Prime Minister Holness should do to show that he has intentions beyond rhetoric and platitudes:
1. Reveal to the country who paid Manat and Phelps. This was the issue which lead to Bruce Golding’s resignation and which still taints the entire leadership of the Jamaica Labour Party, including Holness. If Holness is serious about turning his back on garrison politics and corruption then he ought to come clean in terms of whether Christoper Coke or some mysterious JLP donors made the payment.
2. Give the green light to the Public Defender to initiate an enquiry into the role played by those who had command responsibility for the Tivoli massacre – Prime Minister Bruce Golding, Police Commissioner Owen Ellington, and Chief of Staff of the JDF, Major General Stuart Saunders, among others. Bruce Golding declined to answer the Public Defender’s letter asking for a commission of enquiry and now that he has resigned this cannot be the end of the matter – even if the media now chose to focus on the election circus. So many innocent people should not have died because of Bruce Golding’s folly, and those responsible for murder must be held accountable.
3. Repudiate Bruce Golding’s “not in my cabinet” policy of discrimination against gay Jamaicans. The upcoming Commonwealth Conference has been petitioned about doing away with buggery laws that still exist in some commonwealth countries. It is time for Jamaica to also repeal its buggery laws and respect the human rights of all citizens, including gays. Holness must declare his position now.
4. Initiate a forensic audit of the almost 2 trillion dollar public debt to determine how much of it was stolen by politicians, bureaucrats and affiliated private businessmen. The poor cannot be expected to pay back loans for which they did not benefit and did not contract.
5. The debt cannot be repaid at the expense of the poor. Hold a referendum on whether the debt should be repudiated and the alternative policies to put in place.
6. As Minister of Education and now prime minister Holness must initiate a loan forgiveness programme for all tertiary students who cannot move forward with their education because of debt.
7. Not only early childhood education but secondary and tertiary education is a human right – and should be free. A declaration about this would go along way toward determining whether Holness is serious about education or just running up his mouth. A people thirsting for education and social advancement cannot wait a decade for this to happen.
8. Access to health care is also a human right and therefore incompatible with the present policy of underfunding. Will the IMF to which Holness seems so beholden, sign off on adequate and increased funding for health?
9. Corporate Jamaica, and the rich generally, should be required to pay increased taxes and shoulder their rightful portion of the economic crisis. The current tax reform being urged by the IMF and others is nothing but a trick to increase taxes on the poor and the working class. We need a progressive tax policy not a regressive one.
10. Special increased taxes on the Banking /financial oligarchy that is making tens of billions of dollars of profit while 1.2 million poor Jamaicans are living below the poverty line.
11. Bruce Golding threatened at the last JLP Conference to make his income and assets public because he said he had nothing to hide. Despite the threat and the boast nothing happened. Holness should now go one step further and publish his own asset and income statement to dispel any notion that he may have benefited from corrupt acts committed by the Golding government of which he was an integral part. The LNG scandal is one of the many which has tainted the government -- the people have yet to learn about all who benefited.
Finally, on Thursday October 27 at 1:00 PM the Marcus Garvey People’s Political Party (MGPP), supported by Campaign for Social and Economic Justice (CSEJ) will be having another Occupy Jamaica protest outside the Bank of Jamaica. Let’s build a democratic movement to take Jamaica from the One Percenters who run the country as if it is their private property.
Lloyd D'Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va8iBF4CA0U
http://lloyddaguilar.blogspot.com/
In his first speech as prime minister, Andrew Holness had things to say about corruption, education, garrison politics and the debt. The following are some of the things that Prime Minister Holness should do to show that he has intentions beyond rhetoric and platitudes:
1. Reveal to the country who paid Manat and Phelps. This was the issue which lead to Bruce Golding’s resignation and which still taints the entire leadership of the Jamaica Labour Party, including Holness. If Holness is serious about turning his back on garrison politics and corruption then he ought to come clean in terms of whether Christoper Coke or some mysterious JLP donors made the payment.
2. Give the green light to the Public Defender to initiate an enquiry into the role played by those who had command responsibility for the Tivoli massacre – Prime Minister Bruce Golding, Police Commissioner Owen Ellington, and Chief of Staff of the JDF, Major General Stuart Saunders, among others. Bruce Golding declined to answer the Public Defender’s letter asking for a commission of enquiry and now that he has resigned this cannot be the end of the matter – even if the media now chose to focus on the election circus. So many innocent people should not have died because of Bruce Golding’s folly, and those responsible for murder must be held accountable.
3. Repudiate Bruce Golding’s “not in my cabinet” policy of discrimination against gay Jamaicans. The upcoming Commonwealth Conference has been petitioned about doing away with buggery laws that still exist in some commonwealth countries. It is time for Jamaica to also repeal its buggery laws and respect the human rights of all citizens, including gays. Holness must declare his position now.
4. Initiate a forensic audit of the almost 2 trillion dollar public debt to determine how much of it was stolen by politicians, bureaucrats and affiliated private businessmen. The poor cannot be expected to pay back loans for which they did not benefit and did not contract.
5. The debt cannot be repaid at the expense of the poor. Hold a referendum on whether the debt should be repudiated and the alternative policies to put in place.
6. As Minister of Education and now prime minister Holness must initiate a loan forgiveness programme for all tertiary students who cannot move forward with their education because of debt.
7. Not only early childhood education but secondary and tertiary education is a human right – and should be free. A declaration about this would go along way toward determining whether Holness is serious about education or just running up his mouth. A people thirsting for education and social advancement cannot wait a decade for this to happen.
8. Access to health care is also a human right and therefore incompatible with the present policy of underfunding. Will the IMF to which Holness seems so beholden, sign off on adequate and increased funding for health?
9. Corporate Jamaica, and the rich generally, should be required to pay increased taxes and shoulder their rightful portion of the economic crisis. The current tax reform being urged by the IMF and others is nothing but a trick to increase taxes on the poor and the working class. We need a progressive tax policy not a regressive one.
10. Special increased taxes on the Banking /financial oligarchy that is making tens of billions of dollars of profit while 1.2 million poor Jamaicans are living below the poverty line.
11. Bruce Golding threatened at the last JLP Conference to make his income and assets public because he said he had nothing to hide. Despite the threat and the boast nothing happened. Holness should now go one step further and publish his own asset and income statement to dispel any notion that he may have benefited from corrupt acts committed by the Golding government of which he was an integral part. The LNG scandal is one of the many which has tainted the government -- the people have yet to learn about all who benefited.
Finally, on Thursday October 27 at 1:00 PM the Marcus Garvey People’s Political Party (MGPP), supported by Campaign for Social and Economic Justice (CSEJ) will be having another Occupy Jamaica protest outside the Bank of Jamaica. Let’s build a democratic movement to take Jamaica from the One Percenters who run the country as if it is their private property.
Lloyd D'Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va8iBF4CA0U
http://lloyddaguilar.blogspot.com/
Monday, October 17, 2011
Occupy Wall Street coming to Jamaica
The Marcus Garvey People’s Political Party (MGPPP) is calling for a demonstration in front of the Bank of Jamaica on Thursday at 1 PM to express sentiments similar to those being made in America by the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement or the 99% Movement and which has now spread to many other countries especially in Europe.
The Jamaican context for similar expressions
Though Bruce Golding was forced to resign because of his involvement with confessed drug dealer and arms trafficker, Christopher Dudus Coke, he still had a hand in selecting his successor Andrew Holness. Golding promptly took Holness to Washington to meet with the directors of the international financial institutions that are currently running Jamaica’s financial affairs. The visit was felt to be necessary to underline Holness’ stated intention to continue with the policies of his predecessor and ultimately the Jamaica IMF agreement.
What is this continuation of policy to which Holness has committed himself? Very simply, the IMF agreement with Jamaica is designed to ensure that creditors, local and foreign, who are owed more than a trillion Jamaican dollars are paid their pound of flesh as per agreement. And, as is the refrain in the United States, 99% of Jamaicans (who had no part in contracting this debt) will unfairly have to bear the burden of paying back the debt, especially hard on the 1.2 million who are living below the poverty line, including the 14% (according to official statistics) who are unemployed.
The OWS movement, which is being replicated all over the world, is shining a bright spotlight on a reality that exists globally -- not just in New York and the rest of the United States -- that it is the poor, the working class, who are being forced to bear the burden of this global economic crisis. The US financial aristocracy for example, [the 1%] were bailed out by the US government with billions of dollars of public money and there is nothing positive to show for such largesse. Unemployment is at its highest since the 1930s depression and there is no will to tax the rich as the OWS and the majority of Americans are demanding according to recent polls.
In Jamaica the situation is no different. On the verge of defaulting or declaring bankruptcy the JLP government turned to the IMF for a bail out, but with the understanding that massive burdens would be placed on the poor as the basis of the IMF guarantee to creditors.
The fact that the government has not completely performed its end of the bargain as demanded by the IMF should not be interpreted to mean that there is any fundamental conflict between the two. One of the main sticking points is that the government had been expected to institute massive public sector layoffs, but not done because of declining public support over the Coke affair which they fear would be compounded by labour strife. As the IMF no doubt realizes such savaging (as Seaga sympathetically describes it) has to be done at the most opportune time.
Will Andrew Holness be able to pull it off? Or must it wait until a possible PNP government is in power? There is no reason to believe that the PNP would be shy about taking such resolute action. After all, they have been crying for the government to get back on track with the IMF.
So if the real import of the OWS or 99% Movement is to have any meaning in Jamaica the appropriate slogans and demands must be raised.
1. No to public sector layoffs. The unions have sent mixed signals about this. as if they would be prepared to accept such layoffs. These trade union bureaucrats must not be allowed to betray the workers.
2. Tax the rich. The government could only muster the courage to impose a minimal tax increase on incomes over 5 million dollars for one year! The taxation measures being discussed in parliament and endorsed by the IMF is nothing but a trick… to impose a more regressive taxation system on the poor and the working class and reduce taxes for the wealthy and for corporations. This must be rejected.
3. Repudiate the debt. It cannot be repaid. The Debt Exchange, though praised, did not go far enough. Where is the economic rebound to come from to reduce the debt other than from squeezing the poor who cannot be squeezed any further.
4. Debt repudiation must be accompanied by a forensic audit of the national debt to determine who else other than those before the courts, have corruptly enriched themselves at the public expense. The culprits are many, and in very high places.
5. Those financial institutions which engaged in irresponsible lending to our politicians should not expect the poor to pay back such loans. Highway 2000? Palisadoes Highway? etc. etc.
6. Free health care. The deteriorating situation in public hospitals is not because of user fee removal as the PNP and some doctors foolishly believe, but because of underfunding.
7. Free education. The same problem as in the health sector – poor test results are a direct result of the historical underfunding by successive governments and now the savage cuts undertaken by this government.
8. Massive public works programmes must be enacted to put people back to work.
The above is the context in which an OWS or a 99% Movement makes sense in Jamaica.
Lloyd D'Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
The Jamaican context for similar expressions
Though Bruce Golding was forced to resign because of his involvement with confessed drug dealer and arms trafficker, Christopher Dudus Coke, he still had a hand in selecting his successor Andrew Holness. Golding promptly took Holness to Washington to meet with the directors of the international financial institutions that are currently running Jamaica’s financial affairs. The visit was felt to be necessary to underline Holness’ stated intention to continue with the policies of his predecessor and ultimately the Jamaica IMF agreement.
What is this continuation of policy to which Holness has committed himself? Very simply, the IMF agreement with Jamaica is designed to ensure that creditors, local and foreign, who are owed more than a trillion Jamaican dollars are paid their pound of flesh as per agreement. And, as is the refrain in the United States, 99% of Jamaicans (who had no part in contracting this debt) will unfairly have to bear the burden of paying back the debt, especially hard on the 1.2 million who are living below the poverty line, including the 14% (according to official statistics) who are unemployed.
The OWS movement, which is being replicated all over the world, is shining a bright spotlight on a reality that exists globally -- not just in New York and the rest of the United States -- that it is the poor, the working class, who are being forced to bear the burden of this global economic crisis. The US financial aristocracy for example, [the 1%] were bailed out by the US government with billions of dollars of public money and there is nothing positive to show for such largesse. Unemployment is at its highest since the 1930s depression and there is no will to tax the rich as the OWS and the majority of Americans are demanding according to recent polls.
In Jamaica the situation is no different. On the verge of defaulting or declaring bankruptcy the JLP government turned to the IMF for a bail out, but with the understanding that massive burdens would be placed on the poor as the basis of the IMF guarantee to creditors.
The fact that the government has not completely performed its end of the bargain as demanded by the IMF should not be interpreted to mean that there is any fundamental conflict between the two. One of the main sticking points is that the government had been expected to institute massive public sector layoffs, but not done because of declining public support over the Coke affair which they fear would be compounded by labour strife. As the IMF no doubt realizes such savaging (as Seaga sympathetically describes it) has to be done at the most opportune time.
Will Andrew Holness be able to pull it off? Or must it wait until a possible PNP government is in power? There is no reason to believe that the PNP would be shy about taking such resolute action. After all, they have been crying for the government to get back on track with the IMF.
So if the real import of the OWS or 99% Movement is to have any meaning in Jamaica the appropriate slogans and demands must be raised.
1. No to public sector layoffs. The unions have sent mixed signals about this. as if they would be prepared to accept such layoffs. These trade union bureaucrats must not be allowed to betray the workers.
2. Tax the rich. The government could only muster the courage to impose a minimal tax increase on incomes over 5 million dollars for one year! The taxation measures being discussed in parliament and endorsed by the IMF is nothing but a trick… to impose a more regressive taxation system on the poor and the working class and reduce taxes for the wealthy and for corporations. This must be rejected.
3. Repudiate the debt. It cannot be repaid. The Debt Exchange, though praised, did not go far enough. Where is the economic rebound to come from to reduce the debt other than from squeezing the poor who cannot be squeezed any further.
4. Debt repudiation must be accompanied by a forensic audit of the national debt to determine who else other than those before the courts, have corruptly enriched themselves at the public expense. The culprits are many, and in very high places.
5. Those financial institutions which engaged in irresponsible lending to our politicians should not expect the poor to pay back such loans. Highway 2000? Palisadoes Highway? etc. etc.
6. Free health care. The deteriorating situation in public hospitals is not because of user fee removal as the PNP and some doctors foolishly believe, but because of underfunding.
7. Free education. The same problem as in the health sector – poor test results are a direct result of the historical underfunding by successive governments and now the savage cuts undertaken by this government.
8. Massive public works programmes must be enacted to put people back to work.
The above is the context in which an OWS or a 99% Movement makes sense in Jamaica.
Lloyd D'Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Bruce Golding plays another three card trick
Orchestrators of Tivoli massacre must not go unpunished
Once again Bruce Golding has one been able to outmaneuver the media, commentators, talk show hosts, and so-called civil society. Forced to resign because he compromised himself with Christopher Dudus Coke, there are rumours of very damaging conversations between himself and Coke caught on tape in possession of the American DEA and Justice Department. Instead of focusing on such issues, the Jamaican media have become obsessed with the unfolding drama of who will be his replacement, and what will be the effect on upcoming elections without him in the race.
A distraction
All of that is of little significance compared to the role that Golding played in the unnecessary deaths of 73 to 200 people in Tivoli Gardens. Golding may have negotiated his resignation with the Americans as a way of saving himself further embarrassment, but as far as Jamaican society is concerned, there can be no deal.
Golding keeps saying that Coke’s constitutional rights were violated and yet he agreed to the extradition and resultant deaths of so many people. If Golding’s resignation as some commentators are now saying shows that he is not obsessed with power, then why did he not resign then, or stand up for Coke’s constitutional rights come what may.
Golding’s actions then and now are the signs of a very compromised, selfish and cowardly politician . . . not of a patriot.
Questions
(1) Do Jamaican authorities (those who recorded Coke’s conversations ) have copies of the tapes that are in possession of the Americans?
(2) Shouldn’t there be a commission of enquiry into these tapes to determine if any local co-conspirators of Coke have breached Jamaican laws?
(3) Why has the Public Defender refused to conduct his own investigation into the role played by those with command responsibility for the Tivoli massacre --- prime minister, police commissioner, head of the JDF, and others -- to determine if they have criminal charges to answer?
The media and so-called civil society organizations seem to believe that the snuffed out lives of poor Jamaican people are of no great significance but we in Campaign for Social and Economic Justice will continue to remind the world that there are mass murderers in our state apparatus who have the potential to commit far worse crimes than were committed last year.
And these mass murderers are emboldened by our continued silence.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
NB: Date for internet launching of Looking Back Looking Forward (formerly on Newstalk 93 FM) will soon be announced.
Once again Bruce Golding has one been able to outmaneuver the media, commentators, talk show hosts, and so-called civil society. Forced to resign because he compromised himself with Christopher Dudus Coke, there are rumours of very damaging conversations between himself and Coke caught on tape in possession of the American DEA and Justice Department. Instead of focusing on such issues, the Jamaican media have become obsessed with the unfolding drama of who will be his replacement, and what will be the effect on upcoming elections without him in the race.
A distraction
All of that is of little significance compared to the role that Golding played in the unnecessary deaths of 73 to 200 people in Tivoli Gardens. Golding may have negotiated his resignation with the Americans as a way of saving himself further embarrassment, but as far as Jamaican society is concerned, there can be no deal.
Golding keeps saying that Coke’s constitutional rights were violated and yet he agreed to the extradition and resultant deaths of so many people. If Golding’s resignation as some commentators are now saying shows that he is not obsessed with power, then why did he not resign then, or stand up for Coke’s constitutional rights come what may.
Golding’s actions then and now are the signs of a very compromised, selfish and cowardly politician . . . not of a patriot.
Questions
(1) Do Jamaican authorities (those who recorded Coke’s conversations ) have copies of the tapes that are in possession of the Americans?
(2) Shouldn’t there be a commission of enquiry into these tapes to determine if any local co-conspirators of Coke have breached Jamaican laws?
(3) Why has the Public Defender refused to conduct his own investigation into the role played by those with command responsibility for the Tivoli massacre --- prime minister, police commissioner, head of the JDF, and others -- to determine if they have criminal charges to answer?
The media and so-called civil society organizations seem to believe that the snuffed out lives of poor Jamaican people are of no great significance but we in Campaign for Social and Economic Justice will continue to remind the world that there are mass murderers in our state apparatus who have the potential to commit far worse crimes than were committed last year.
And these mass murderers are emboldened by our continued silence.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
NB: Date for internet launching of Looking Back Looking Forward (formerly on Newstalk 93 FM) will soon be announced.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Bruce Golding to resign and so should the police commissioner
Bruce Golding has said he will resign as party leader and as prime minister for reasons not clear – though there was some babble about the toll of the office.
It is the people of Tivoli Gardens, however, who could have and who should have called for his immediate resignation for the dastardly role that he played in last year’s Tivoli Gardens massacre, a constituency that he was elected to represent.
Furthermore, there is need for an immediate investigation to determine if he should be charged for his command responsibility in those crimes committed.
Genesis of Golding’s dastardly role in Tivoli Gardens' massacre
(1) Golding would have had to get the blessings of Christopher Coke to represent west Kingston and Tivoli in particular.
(2) Golding was made aware almost immediately after taking office that the US justice system was preparing to indict Coke for his involvement in drugs and gun trafficking.
(3) So intriguing is the possible relationship between Golding and Coke that the question was raised at the Manat Commission of Enquiry as to whether Golding had tipped off Coke about the indictment. The factual background to that question was that Golding was made aware by US sources of the indictment when it happened and Coke knew almost immediately according to wiretapped conversations. How did Coke find out so quickly?
(4) Golding tried to protect Coke by contending that the extradition request was based on wiretap evidence that violated Coke’s constitutional rights. Golding boasted in parliament that rather than betray Coke he was prepared pay the ultimate political price in order to defend those constitutional rights.
(5) Jamaican civil society refused to accept Golding’s position, and demanded his resignation.
(6) Rumours began to circulate that the Americans had either indicted Golding for obstructing the extradition of Coke or, had other damaging information regarding his association with Coke that could prove embarrassing or be used against in him other ways.
(7) Golding wilted under the pressure and after withdrawing his phony threat to resign betrayed Mr Coke’s constitutional rights by having his Attorney General approve the extradition.
(8) Clearly, it is still a moot point that Coke’s constitutional rights were in fact compromised by the manner in which wiretap evidence was shared with the Americans. Golding might very well have been on good legal grounds but his reasons were clearly opportunistic.
(9) With the convenient help of some criminal west Kingston sympathizers of Coke, two police stations were firebombed which created hysterical media headlines about the state being under attack. A political decision was taken to crush Tivoli Gardens. This was in order to demonstrate to the Americans and Jamaican civil society that Golding was not a criminal associate of Coke as had been alleged by a major American media outlet; that he was prepared to destroy the fearsome Shower Posse; and by so doing justified his continued role as prime minister. This was certainly the implicit understanding with so-called civil society groups.
(10) The crushing of Tivoli was not politically difficult for Golding. He had already gone through a dress rehearsal for this when he failed to raise his voice about the 2008 security forces execution of five young men in Tivoli Gardens. The military was integrally involved in that operation and Golding is the minister in charge of the army.
(11) The 2010 assault on Tivoli Gardens went like clock work. First a state of emergency –- Golding as prime minister would have played a major role in the Cabinet’s decision to suspend the constitutional rights of Jamaican citizens on very flimsy grounds.
(12) The military carried out a counter-insurgency operation ( which had been planned long in advance) and as minister in charge of the army and as head of the Jamaica Defence Board Golding would have been in the thick of broad plans for the operation. If he chose he could have had very intimate briefings of what was happening on the ground.
(13) Some residents claim that when the operation started and frantic calls were made to him about the executions and abuses he turned off his phone. Why?
(14) Golding does not have the moral authority to represent the people of Tivoli Gardens and on that basis alone his very late resignation is quite logical.
Golding has resigned and now it is time for the police commissioner to resign and to be investigated for his command over the police abuses that were carried out against unarmed Jamaican citizens.
Lloyd D'Aguilar
It is the people of Tivoli Gardens, however, who could have and who should have called for his immediate resignation for the dastardly role that he played in last year’s Tivoli Gardens massacre, a constituency that he was elected to represent.
Furthermore, there is need for an immediate investigation to determine if he should be charged for his command responsibility in those crimes committed.
Genesis of Golding’s dastardly role in Tivoli Gardens' massacre
(1) Golding would have had to get the blessings of Christopher Coke to represent west Kingston and Tivoli in particular.
(2) Golding was made aware almost immediately after taking office that the US justice system was preparing to indict Coke for his involvement in drugs and gun trafficking.
(3) So intriguing is the possible relationship between Golding and Coke that the question was raised at the Manat Commission of Enquiry as to whether Golding had tipped off Coke about the indictment. The factual background to that question was that Golding was made aware by US sources of the indictment when it happened and Coke knew almost immediately according to wiretapped conversations. How did Coke find out so quickly?
(4) Golding tried to protect Coke by contending that the extradition request was based on wiretap evidence that violated Coke’s constitutional rights. Golding boasted in parliament that rather than betray Coke he was prepared pay the ultimate political price in order to defend those constitutional rights.
(5) Jamaican civil society refused to accept Golding’s position, and demanded his resignation.
(6) Rumours began to circulate that the Americans had either indicted Golding for obstructing the extradition of Coke or, had other damaging information regarding his association with Coke that could prove embarrassing or be used against in him other ways.
(7) Golding wilted under the pressure and after withdrawing his phony threat to resign betrayed Mr Coke’s constitutional rights by having his Attorney General approve the extradition.
(8) Clearly, it is still a moot point that Coke’s constitutional rights were in fact compromised by the manner in which wiretap evidence was shared with the Americans. Golding might very well have been on good legal grounds but his reasons were clearly opportunistic.
(9) With the convenient help of some criminal west Kingston sympathizers of Coke, two police stations were firebombed which created hysterical media headlines about the state being under attack. A political decision was taken to crush Tivoli Gardens. This was in order to demonstrate to the Americans and Jamaican civil society that Golding was not a criminal associate of Coke as had been alleged by a major American media outlet; that he was prepared to destroy the fearsome Shower Posse; and by so doing justified his continued role as prime minister. This was certainly the implicit understanding with so-called civil society groups.
(10) The crushing of Tivoli was not politically difficult for Golding. He had already gone through a dress rehearsal for this when he failed to raise his voice about the 2008 security forces execution of five young men in Tivoli Gardens. The military was integrally involved in that operation and Golding is the minister in charge of the army.
(11) The 2010 assault on Tivoli Gardens went like clock work. First a state of emergency –- Golding as prime minister would have played a major role in the Cabinet’s decision to suspend the constitutional rights of Jamaican citizens on very flimsy grounds.
(12) The military carried out a counter-insurgency operation ( which had been planned long in advance) and as minister in charge of the army and as head of the Jamaica Defence Board Golding would have been in the thick of broad plans for the operation. If he chose he could have had very intimate briefings of what was happening on the ground.
(13) Some residents claim that when the operation started and frantic calls were made to him about the executions and abuses he turned off his phone. Why?
(14) Golding does not have the moral authority to represent the people of Tivoli Gardens and on that basis alone his very late resignation is quite logical.
Golding has resigned and now it is time for the police commissioner to resign and to be investigated for his command over the police abuses that were carried out against unarmed Jamaican citizens.
Lloyd D'Aguilar
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Public Defender sees urgency to investigate Brownings story but not in regard to those who had command responsibility for killing black people in Tivoli Gardens
“Witter on the warpath… public defender to launch investigation into role played by prime minister, police commissioner, chief of staff of JDF and others into 2010 Tivoli Gardens massacre” was what I was hoping that today’s Sunday Gleaner headline (September 18)really said.
Instead the Public Defender is supposedly on the warpath about an anonymous officer of HEART telling the Sunday Gleaner that some employers prefer to employ brownings. In the article the Public Defender hinted that he has the power to compel HEART to give the names of those employers. I hope he does get the names so it can be determined whether this matter is really just a sensational Gleaner headline trying to outsell the competition or a problem that requires not only the intervention of the Public Defender but the rest of civil society in order to stamp out an ugly racist practice.
But what about the Public Defender using the same powers to compel the prime minister to tell about his role in last year’s security forces massacre of innocent civilians in Tivoli Gardens and its environs. The prime minister would have had discussions with the police commissioner about the so-called attack on the state; the prime minster would have persuaded his cabinet to declare a state of emergency; the prime minister would have had discussions with the chief of staff of the Jamaica Defence Force about its deployment into west Kingston; the prime minister as head of the National Defence Board would surely have met with the Board to consider the parameters of the operations. Once the operations began one would have expected the prime minister to ask for reports from the heads of the security forces (whether directly or through his minister of national security) in terms of what was happening on the ground. Surely the prime minister would have had a special interest in the matter in terms of being the political representative for the area. Indeed, it is my understanding that from the very beginning residents got messages through to the prime minister about the massacres taking place. Did the prime minister do anything about these direct reports to him? If he did nothing was this criminal negligence or complicity with murder?
In response to Mr. Edward Seaga claiming that the prime minister was at some point trying, unsuccessfully, to get the army to leave the area, Colonel Rocky Meade made it plain that the army would never disobey an order from the prime minister. The implications of this is clear: the prime minister, who is also the minister of defence, not sanctioned the deployment of the army, but gave no orders as Mr. Seaga suggested for it to pull back. This suggests that he has taken full responsibility for their conduct (as he should) and the public record supports that. He has at no time expressed any concern about their conduct or about the sufferings of the people he politically represents in parliament. Indeed, the prime went so far as to tell the people of Tivoli that what happened could not have been avoided!
Questions to Public Defender, Ear Witter
Do you, Mr. Witter believe this, that bloodshed was unavoidable? Don’t you think it is your duty according to the powers vested in you under the Public Defenders’ Act to investigate the truth of this allegation? Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin has testified that there was intelligence gathering on the activities of Coke. Shouldn’t you Mr. Witter appraise yourself of this intelligence in order to assess why Mr. Coke could not have been arrested in a more efficient way? Or was Tivoli Gardens to be the sacrificial lamb to appease higher powers and save Mr. Golding’s career?
And what about the police commissioner? How could the police commissioner have congratulated the security forces on a professional job in the middle of accusations that residents were being summarily executed by the men he commanded? I’m sure that in the statements collected by your office, residents would have told you that security force personnel taunted them with the claim that they were sent to kill dem off. Was that the professional instruction given by their commanders?
The chief of staff of the Jamaica Defence Force has similar questions to answer. Were instructions given to JDF snipers to shoot innocent civilians as they scampered about to save their lives -- sometimes for just trying to get to the hospital? On what basis for did US surveillance planes fly into Jamaica from Guantanamo Bay to be part of the operations? Were they there to assist JDF helicopters in dropping incendiary devices on civilians? Certainly the prime minister and head of the JDF must be compelled to answer these questions.
As you know very well Mr. Witter, the Tivoli Committee of which I am a member wrote to you asking that you use your powers (similar to that possessed by the Contractor General) to launch an investigation into the role played by those who had command responsibility for the operations. Such an investigation would not be in conflict with a Commission of Enquiry but a very needed complement.
Unfortunately, you have not only refused to meet with us but insist that your preferred course of action is through a Commission of Enquiry. Allow me to state publicly what we told you privately. Apart from the question of whether the government has the desire for another commission of enquiry so soon after the last fiasco (same goes for civil society especially now that general elections are being hyped), a commission of enquiry ultimately makes recommendations which the government is not bound to accept. The terms of reference and the appointment of commissioners is ultimately the sole prerogative of the government as was demonstrated in the last commission of enquiry. If history is to be our guide, another commission of enquiry is bound to end up as a white wash as others have been, and ultimately 73 or 200 people would have been killed without anyone being held accountable.
As it currently stands your office is the only one that has the potential independence and mandate to carry out the kind of investigation that would make a difference in determining whether those who had command responsibility for last year’s carnage should face criminal charges – or what is defined by the International Criminal Court (ICC) as crimes against humanity.
And as for the ICC, it should be clear to everyone by now that the real reason why neither PNP nor JLP government saw fit to ratify the Rome Statute setting up the ICC, is precisely so that in situations such as what happened last year, those who have command responsibility for crimes against the people can be further shielded from legal scrutiny at the international level.
It would be truly sad that that your office turns out to be just another cog to facilitate impunity for state crimes against the people.
How ironic it is that white British progressives saw the necessity to agitate for Governor John Eyre to be put on trial for his role in the 1865 massacre, but in 2011 independent Jamaica, people are more exercised about sensational browning stories than the murder of black Jamaicans by a black Jamaican government, even if lead by a browning.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Instead the Public Defender is supposedly on the warpath about an anonymous officer of HEART telling the Sunday Gleaner that some employers prefer to employ brownings. In the article the Public Defender hinted that he has the power to compel HEART to give the names of those employers. I hope he does get the names so it can be determined whether this matter is really just a sensational Gleaner headline trying to outsell the competition or a problem that requires not only the intervention of the Public Defender but the rest of civil society in order to stamp out an ugly racist practice.
But what about the Public Defender using the same powers to compel the prime minister to tell about his role in last year’s security forces massacre of innocent civilians in Tivoli Gardens and its environs. The prime minister would have had discussions with the police commissioner about the so-called attack on the state; the prime minster would have persuaded his cabinet to declare a state of emergency; the prime minister would have had discussions with the chief of staff of the Jamaica Defence Force about its deployment into west Kingston; the prime minister as head of the National Defence Board would surely have met with the Board to consider the parameters of the operations. Once the operations began one would have expected the prime minister to ask for reports from the heads of the security forces (whether directly or through his minister of national security) in terms of what was happening on the ground. Surely the prime minister would have had a special interest in the matter in terms of being the political representative for the area. Indeed, it is my understanding that from the very beginning residents got messages through to the prime minister about the massacres taking place. Did the prime minister do anything about these direct reports to him? If he did nothing was this criminal negligence or complicity with murder?
In response to Mr. Edward Seaga claiming that the prime minister was at some point trying, unsuccessfully, to get the army to leave the area, Colonel Rocky Meade made it plain that the army would never disobey an order from the prime minister. The implications of this is clear: the prime minister, who is also the minister of defence, not sanctioned the deployment of the army, but gave no orders as Mr. Seaga suggested for it to pull back. This suggests that he has taken full responsibility for their conduct (as he should) and the public record supports that. He has at no time expressed any concern about their conduct or about the sufferings of the people he politically represents in parliament. Indeed, the prime went so far as to tell the people of Tivoli that what happened could not have been avoided!
Questions to Public Defender, Ear Witter
Do you, Mr. Witter believe this, that bloodshed was unavoidable? Don’t you think it is your duty according to the powers vested in you under the Public Defenders’ Act to investigate the truth of this allegation? Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin has testified that there was intelligence gathering on the activities of Coke. Shouldn’t you Mr. Witter appraise yourself of this intelligence in order to assess why Mr. Coke could not have been arrested in a more efficient way? Or was Tivoli Gardens to be the sacrificial lamb to appease higher powers and save Mr. Golding’s career?
And what about the police commissioner? How could the police commissioner have congratulated the security forces on a professional job in the middle of accusations that residents were being summarily executed by the men he commanded? I’m sure that in the statements collected by your office, residents would have told you that security force personnel taunted them with the claim that they were sent to kill dem off. Was that the professional instruction given by their commanders?
The chief of staff of the Jamaica Defence Force has similar questions to answer. Were instructions given to JDF snipers to shoot innocent civilians as they scampered about to save their lives -- sometimes for just trying to get to the hospital? On what basis for did US surveillance planes fly into Jamaica from Guantanamo Bay to be part of the operations? Were they there to assist JDF helicopters in dropping incendiary devices on civilians? Certainly the prime minister and head of the JDF must be compelled to answer these questions.
As you know very well Mr. Witter, the Tivoli Committee of which I am a member wrote to you asking that you use your powers (similar to that possessed by the Contractor General) to launch an investigation into the role played by those who had command responsibility for the operations. Such an investigation would not be in conflict with a Commission of Enquiry but a very needed complement.
Unfortunately, you have not only refused to meet with us but insist that your preferred course of action is through a Commission of Enquiry. Allow me to state publicly what we told you privately. Apart from the question of whether the government has the desire for another commission of enquiry so soon after the last fiasco (same goes for civil society especially now that general elections are being hyped), a commission of enquiry ultimately makes recommendations which the government is not bound to accept. The terms of reference and the appointment of commissioners is ultimately the sole prerogative of the government as was demonstrated in the last commission of enquiry. If history is to be our guide, another commission of enquiry is bound to end up as a white wash as others have been, and ultimately 73 or 200 people would have been killed without anyone being held accountable.
As it currently stands your office is the only one that has the potential independence and mandate to carry out the kind of investigation that would make a difference in determining whether those who had command responsibility for last year’s carnage should face criminal charges – or what is defined by the International Criminal Court (ICC) as crimes against humanity.
And as for the ICC, it should be clear to everyone by now that the real reason why neither PNP nor JLP government saw fit to ratify the Rome Statute setting up the ICC, is precisely so that in situations such as what happened last year, those who have command responsibility for crimes against the people can be further shielded from legal scrutiny at the international level.
It would be truly sad that that your office turns out to be just another cog to facilitate impunity for state crimes against the people.
How ironic it is that white British progressives saw the necessity to agitate for Governor John Eyre to be put on trial for his role in the 1865 massacre, but in 2011 independent Jamaica, people are more exercised about sensational browning stories than the murder of black Jamaicans by a black Jamaican government, even if lead by a browning.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Open Letter to Cordel Green -- Broadcasting Commission CEO
A broader look at what is payola
Dear Cordel Green,
Two weeks in a row I see favourable press reviews of you and the Broadcasting Commission in the Gleaner written by one of my favourite Gleaner writers Mr Mel Cooke. I am a fan of the serious poems that Mel writes and interviewed him on my radio programme “Looking Back Looking Forward” some years ago. This programme by the way was broadcast on Sundays on Newstalk 93 FM for four years and was the number one listened to programme at that station and on radio during that slot until I was summarily fired at your instigation.
However, it is the subject of payola that forced me to take up pen (I will come back to the firing in a moment) because that seems to be the next crusade being undertaken by you and the Broadcasting Commission. Let me first declare that I have no knowledge about payola, it probably exists, it can’t be a good thing, but I wonder how much knowledge you yourself have of it, and assuming that you have knowledge, I call upon you to share it with the public, and have the broadest possible discussion before you march off to the holy land. In fact this call for an open discussion is dictated by having been a victim of one of your self-righteous crusades against Ragashanti -- in other words your indiscriminate slash and burn method to protect public morality.
The problem here is that while it is convenient to see payola in terms of paying for musical air time, what about payola where a well-paid public administrator such as yourself (paid by taxpayers hard earned money) uses his power to force media owners to do things at his will. And here I’m talking about the hiring and firing of radio talk show hosts that you don’t care for?
Firing -- first case in point. I will not revisit your firing of Ragashanti, he is better able to speak for himself, but because I happened to disagree with how you handled the Ragashanti matter your knee jerk response was to have me fired from Newstalk. You were invited by me to discuss the matter along with Raga (though separately) and after agreeing to be on the programme, you called to cancel a couple hours before based upon an alleged meeting you forgot about. Within minutes after the interview began with Raga you were nevertheless able to call the General Manager away from a moment of relaxation she was enjoying to complain about the criticisms that were being raised about your handling of the matter. (What about that meeting your supposed to be in Mr Green?)
This call precipitated my firing within less than 24 hours. What power and influence were you using when you made that call? Why was it so urgent to call instead of following your own protocol and write a letter to make your complaint? I don’t gamble but I will bet you publicly that you subsequently wrote no letter of complaint because the General Manager, as Mr Bruce Golding famously said, was a very convenient "lubricated conduit". Do you therefore like Pilate wash your hands of the whole matter as if you had nothing to do with it?
Hiring – second case in point: On two occasions I was about to be hired by Bess FM and then things went cold. When I enquired I was informed, and on at least one of the occasions by the owner of the station himself, that he had to consult with the Broadcasting Commission as to whether I could be hired or not?
I have no direct knowledge as to what transpired between the owner and the Broadcasting Commission (you certainly would know) but given today’s Sunday Gleaner article where there is a suggestion that radio DJs (and I’m not a DJ by any means) might come under some kind scrutiny for potential conflict of interest, it is not far fetched to believe that grateful media owners (grateful for getting a licence from the powerful Broadcasting Commission for example) might believe it necessary or convenient or prudent to consult with you on everything including whom to hire and fire what they might eat for lunch? Of course we know that you would never advise people what to eat for lunch but it’s interesting that some media owners should have that impression.
So what other indirect or not so subtle powers of persuasion does the Broadcasting Commission have? Could the $32 million dollars of taxpayers’ money that is given to the Commission from the national budget and earmarked for “public education” be a source of subtle influence wielding. After all, in these tight financial times media houses competing for scarce and shrinking advertising dollars would be most grateful for any dollar that the Commission spends with them. (Bess FM I’m sure is grateful for those dollars that you have spent with them). Would they be willing to do your bidding by a wink or a nod? This is certainly not payola as commonly defined but in reality is it any different?
The Press Association of Jamaica, along with others who consider themselves liberals or as having a social conscience, may chose to be deaf, dumb and blind to the implications of what has happened in my case, but there is no denying that part of your mission, by casting such a wide net is political censorship. Those who dare to criticise the Broadcasting Commission and in my case also, being described as "too anti-establishment" are fair game. There are varying degrees of anti-establishment persons in the media, and I have no doubt that your radar is well attuned to send them a message, or fix them, even if by a phone call or a nod or maybe a wink. Nothing can be proved. Or outrightly threatening to yank their licence. There is no way you can deny that political censorship was the ultimate consequence in my case. I’ll allow Raga to argue his case.
Finally, one of the disappointments of this government is that they did not follow through on their pre-election promise that individuals appointed to public jobs such as yours, should before being appointed, be subject to parliamentary or public scrutiny so that we may know beforehand about agendas, real or apparent. And the worst choice that could possibly be made is someone who can’t take public criticism. That is the one of the main ingredients of the imperial censor.
Sincerely,
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Dear Cordel Green,
Two weeks in a row I see favourable press reviews of you and the Broadcasting Commission in the Gleaner written by one of my favourite Gleaner writers Mr Mel Cooke. I am a fan of the serious poems that Mel writes and interviewed him on my radio programme “Looking Back Looking Forward” some years ago. This programme by the way was broadcast on Sundays on Newstalk 93 FM for four years and was the number one listened to programme at that station and on radio during that slot until I was summarily fired at your instigation.
However, it is the subject of payola that forced me to take up pen (I will come back to the firing in a moment) because that seems to be the next crusade being undertaken by you and the Broadcasting Commission. Let me first declare that I have no knowledge about payola, it probably exists, it can’t be a good thing, but I wonder how much knowledge you yourself have of it, and assuming that you have knowledge, I call upon you to share it with the public, and have the broadest possible discussion before you march off to the holy land. In fact this call for an open discussion is dictated by having been a victim of one of your self-righteous crusades against Ragashanti -- in other words your indiscriminate slash and burn method to protect public morality.
The problem here is that while it is convenient to see payola in terms of paying for musical air time, what about payola where a well-paid public administrator such as yourself (paid by taxpayers hard earned money) uses his power to force media owners to do things at his will. And here I’m talking about the hiring and firing of radio talk show hosts that you don’t care for?
Firing -- first case in point. I will not revisit your firing of Ragashanti, he is better able to speak for himself, but because I happened to disagree with how you handled the Ragashanti matter your knee jerk response was to have me fired from Newstalk. You were invited by me to discuss the matter along with Raga (though separately) and after agreeing to be on the programme, you called to cancel a couple hours before based upon an alleged meeting you forgot about. Within minutes after the interview began with Raga you were nevertheless able to call the General Manager away from a moment of relaxation she was enjoying to complain about the criticisms that were being raised about your handling of the matter. (What about that meeting your supposed to be in Mr Green?)
This call precipitated my firing within less than 24 hours. What power and influence were you using when you made that call? Why was it so urgent to call instead of following your own protocol and write a letter to make your complaint? I don’t gamble but I will bet you publicly that you subsequently wrote no letter of complaint because the General Manager, as Mr Bruce Golding famously said, was a very convenient "lubricated conduit". Do you therefore like Pilate wash your hands of the whole matter as if you had nothing to do with it?
Hiring – second case in point: On two occasions I was about to be hired by Bess FM and then things went cold. When I enquired I was informed, and on at least one of the occasions by the owner of the station himself, that he had to consult with the Broadcasting Commission as to whether I could be hired or not?
I have no direct knowledge as to what transpired between the owner and the Broadcasting Commission (you certainly would know) but given today’s Sunday Gleaner article where there is a suggestion that radio DJs (and I’m not a DJ by any means) might come under some kind scrutiny for potential conflict of interest, it is not far fetched to believe that grateful media owners (grateful for getting a licence from the powerful Broadcasting Commission for example) might believe it necessary or convenient or prudent to consult with you on everything including whom to hire and fire what they might eat for lunch? Of course we know that you would never advise people what to eat for lunch but it’s interesting that some media owners should have that impression.
So what other indirect or not so subtle powers of persuasion does the Broadcasting Commission have? Could the $32 million dollars of taxpayers’ money that is given to the Commission from the national budget and earmarked for “public education” be a source of subtle influence wielding. After all, in these tight financial times media houses competing for scarce and shrinking advertising dollars would be most grateful for any dollar that the Commission spends with them. (Bess FM I’m sure is grateful for those dollars that you have spent with them). Would they be willing to do your bidding by a wink or a nod? This is certainly not payola as commonly defined but in reality is it any different?
The Press Association of Jamaica, along with others who consider themselves liberals or as having a social conscience, may chose to be deaf, dumb and blind to the implications of what has happened in my case, but there is no denying that part of your mission, by casting such a wide net is political censorship. Those who dare to criticise the Broadcasting Commission and in my case also, being described as "too anti-establishment" are fair game. There are varying degrees of anti-establishment persons in the media, and I have no doubt that your radar is well attuned to send them a message, or fix them, even if by a phone call or a nod or maybe a wink. Nothing can be proved. Or outrightly threatening to yank their licence. There is no way you can deny that political censorship was the ultimate consequence in my case. I’ll allow Raga to argue his case.
Finally, one of the disappointments of this government is that they did not follow through on their pre-election promise that individuals appointed to public jobs such as yours, should before being appointed, be subject to parliamentary or public scrutiny so that we may know beforehand about agendas, real or apparent. And the worst choice that could possibly be made is someone who can’t take public criticism. That is the one of the main ingredients of the imperial censor.
Sincerely,
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Friday, July 22, 2011
The NDM's foolish call for a state of emergency:
It is time to investigate those commanded murder in west Kingston.
With the 2010 State of Emergency to dismantle the Shower Posse resulting in the murder of over 74 people, four thousand detained for no good reason, and a new military garrison established in Tivoli, it is shocking to see that the best that the National Democratic Movement (NDM) can come up with is to call for another state of emergency. This call(in response to gruesome murders in Spanish Town) betrays a complete lack of ideas about solving social problems that is also typical of both the PNP and the JLP.
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice is instead demanding that those who had command responsibility for the West Kingston operations, starting with the prime minister, the police commissioner, and the head of the JDF, be investigated for crimes against humanity, or criminal negligence, at least, according to Jamaican law.
Is there any part of the state machinery that has the power to carry out such an investigation? We believe that under the Public Defender Act (similar to the Contractor General Act) the Public Defender does have the power carry out such an investigation.
We demand to know why the Public Defender has so far failed to use his powers to investigate those who had command responsibility. Such an investigation should run parallel to any other forensic investigation which he might be carrying out, and complementary to any hoped-for Commission of Enquriy.
To refuse to act decisively is another glaring example of how the state protects itself and perpetuates the circle of impunity for state crimes against the people.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
With the 2010 State of Emergency to dismantle the Shower Posse resulting in the murder of over 74 people, four thousand detained for no good reason, and a new military garrison established in Tivoli, it is shocking to see that the best that the National Democratic Movement (NDM) can come up with is to call for another state of emergency. This call(in response to gruesome murders in Spanish Town) betrays a complete lack of ideas about solving social problems that is also typical of both the PNP and the JLP.
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice is instead demanding that those who had command responsibility for the West Kingston operations, starting with the prime minister, the police commissioner, and the head of the JDF, be investigated for crimes against humanity, or criminal negligence, at least, according to Jamaican law.
Is there any part of the state machinery that has the power to carry out such an investigation? We believe that under the Public Defender Act (similar to the Contractor General Act) the Public Defender does have the power carry out such an investigation.
We demand to know why the Public Defender has so far failed to use his powers to investigate those who had command responsibility. Such an investigation should run parallel to any other forensic investigation which he might be carrying out, and complementary to any hoped-for Commission of Enquriy.
To refuse to act decisively is another glaring example of how the state protects itself and perpetuates the circle of impunity for state crimes against the people.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
Thursday, June 30, 2011
The state must end its mandatory vaccination programme now!
Let Kerrome Forrest not die in vain
A happy, healthy, one year old boy, Kerrome Forrest, is now dead after receiving his state mandated MMR vaccine. He died less than 24 hours after receiving the vaccine.
So what is the response of the state? According to Dr Karen Lewis-Bell, Director of Family Health Services in the Ministry of Health and Environment “we have to do a thorough investigation” and while this is being done “a hold on the use of that vaccine” will be implemented. Dr Lewis-Bell declined to say what vaccine this is but we already know that it is the MMR vaccine --- mumps, measles, rubella -- childhood diseases which in themselves are not life threatening.
What is also not clear is whether it is a “hold” on that batch of vaccines (assuming it can be traced) or the entire MMR programme. In either case we believe that Dr Lewis-Bell and the Ministry of Health should stop playing GOD and initiate a public discussion about the safety of vaccines, and explain why parents should not have the right to chose whether to vaccinate their children or not.
But it is clear that unless pushed the MOH is not going to have such a public discussion because they have their own agenda (perhaps a special relationship with the pharmaceutical companies?) of pushing mandatory vaccines which have nothing to do with public health. Dr Lewis-Bell confirms this when she admits that though the “child had visited the health centre and received a vaccine” there is “no evidence to say that it is the vaccine that has caused the death of this child." Is Dr Lewis-Bell suggesting that the child died from unnatural causes?
Well, a postmortem was peformed on Monday June 29 and a cause of death could not be determined, except that lab tests will now be done on organ tissues. (The results are due in a month's time!) It is doubtful that the good public health doctor would be saying that there is no evidence if it were a bullet that had slammed into the head of this healthy child.
And why say that there is no evidence that the vaccine caused the death when usage of these vaccines has been suspended? The answer we believe is that Dr Lewis-Bell is confident that the vaccine will be ruled out by the government pathologist as the cause of death, and the programme will be resumed. No different from government pathologists assisting the police when examining the bodies of young men shot by them. It is called the circle of impunity.
The Ministry of Health working in tandem with the Ministry of Education is engaging in a form of genocide against Jamaican children by this mindless, unnecessary, and oppressive mandatory vaccination programme. The Health Act mandates vaccinations and threatens parents and principals with fines/jail time and expulsion from schools which contradicts the Education Act which makes public education mandatory.
The truth is that the MOH and health professionals can make no guarantee about the safety of vaccinations. Is there any health professional who can absolutely guarantee the safety of any of these vaccines and support that guarantee by putting up a bond in case of damage? In the case of damage to children, who should the parents sue: the government which mandates these vaccinations or the pharmaceutical companies?
It therefore stands to reason that in the absence of such guarantees parents should have the right to make a choice and the Health Act mandating vaccinations is therefore an oppressive and unconstitutional violation of the right to ‘life, liberty, and security of the person, freedom of conscience, and not to be subject to cruel and inhuman treatment’
It is time for the state to stop burying its head in the sand and recognize a growing epidemic of autism among Jamaican children, which is recognized world wide, as being linked to vaccines.
Let Kerrome Forrest no die in vain: It is time to reject mandatory vaccinations and have an intelligent public discussion about the harm being done to children. The state must be mandated to facilitate this discussion because of its already poor record in protecting the rights of children.
Lloyd D'Aguilar
482-2907
NB: Immediately after posting the above it was discovered that Dr Karen Lewis Bell lied when she said that the vaccine had been put on hold. There was no directive given to any of Jamaica's health centres to put the vaccine on hold. Just goes to show that as far as the state is concerned Kerrome Forrest is just a statistic and the state will continue its fascist-like policy of forcing healthy children to be vaccinated and to accept the risk of permanent damage or death. Is it farfetched to say that this sounds like attempted genocide?
Lloyd D'Aguilar
A happy, healthy, one year old boy, Kerrome Forrest, is now dead after receiving his state mandated MMR vaccine. He died less than 24 hours after receiving the vaccine.
So what is the response of the state? According to Dr Karen Lewis-Bell, Director of Family Health Services in the Ministry of Health and Environment “we have to do a thorough investigation” and while this is being done “a hold on the use of that vaccine” will be implemented. Dr Lewis-Bell declined to say what vaccine this is but we already know that it is the MMR vaccine --- mumps, measles, rubella -- childhood diseases which in themselves are not life threatening.
What is also not clear is whether it is a “hold” on that batch of vaccines (assuming it can be traced) or the entire MMR programme. In either case we believe that Dr Lewis-Bell and the Ministry of Health should stop playing GOD and initiate a public discussion about the safety of vaccines, and explain why parents should not have the right to chose whether to vaccinate their children or not.
But it is clear that unless pushed the MOH is not going to have such a public discussion because they have their own agenda (perhaps a special relationship with the pharmaceutical companies?) of pushing mandatory vaccines which have nothing to do with public health. Dr Lewis-Bell confirms this when she admits that though the “child had visited the health centre and received a vaccine” there is “no evidence to say that it is the vaccine that has caused the death of this child." Is Dr Lewis-Bell suggesting that the child died from unnatural causes?
Well, a postmortem was peformed on Monday June 29 and a cause of death could not be determined, except that lab tests will now be done on organ tissues. (The results are due in a month's time!) It is doubtful that the good public health doctor would be saying that there is no evidence if it were a bullet that had slammed into the head of this healthy child.
And why say that there is no evidence that the vaccine caused the death when usage of these vaccines has been suspended? The answer we believe is that Dr Lewis-Bell is confident that the vaccine will be ruled out by the government pathologist as the cause of death, and the programme will be resumed. No different from government pathologists assisting the police when examining the bodies of young men shot by them. It is called the circle of impunity.
The Ministry of Health working in tandem with the Ministry of Education is engaging in a form of genocide against Jamaican children by this mindless, unnecessary, and oppressive mandatory vaccination programme. The Health Act mandates vaccinations and threatens parents and principals with fines/jail time and expulsion from schools which contradicts the Education Act which makes public education mandatory.
The truth is that the MOH and health professionals can make no guarantee about the safety of vaccinations. Is there any health professional who can absolutely guarantee the safety of any of these vaccines and support that guarantee by putting up a bond in case of damage? In the case of damage to children, who should the parents sue: the government which mandates these vaccinations or the pharmaceutical companies?
It therefore stands to reason that in the absence of such guarantees parents should have the right to make a choice and the Health Act mandating vaccinations is therefore an oppressive and unconstitutional violation of the right to ‘life, liberty, and security of the person, freedom of conscience, and not to be subject to cruel and inhuman treatment’
It is time for the state to stop burying its head in the sand and recognize a growing epidemic of autism among Jamaican children, which is recognized world wide, as being linked to vaccines.
Let Kerrome Forrest no die in vain: It is time to reject mandatory vaccinations and have an intelligent public discussion about the harm being done to children. The state must be mandated to facilitate this discussion because of its already poor record in protecting the rights of children.
Lloyd D'Aguilar
482-2907
NB: Immediately after posting the above it was discovered that Dr Karen Lewis Bell lied when she said that the vaccine had been put on hold. There was no directive given to any of Jamaica's health centres to put the vaccine on hold. Just goes to show that as far as the state is concerned Kerrome Forrest is just a statistic and the state will continue its fascist-like policy of forcing healthy children to be vaccinated and to accept the risk of permanent damage or death. Is it farfetched to say that this sounds like attempted genocide?
Lloyd D'Aguilar
Thursday, June 23, 2011
A comment on the Dudus/Manat Report:: The expected whitewash
Dear Dickie Crawford,
Since everyone knew that this would be a charade and a whitewash (and a great TV soap opera as it turned out) why do we all seem so worked up over the fact that Golding paid for and got what he wanted? In 2001 Seaga refused to play ball with the then Commission of Enquiry because he felt it would be a waste of time. It turned out that he was correct. In 2011 the PNP played ball because they felt that the Enquiry would what: uncover the truth?
Since no one insisted, certainly not KD Knight, nor Patrick Atkinson, that the Commission dig deeper in terms of finding out who paid the US$60,000 to Manat and Phelps -- where else was a smoking gun to be found? Golding and Vaz must be having a good laugh at how timid were Knight and Atkinson on this crucial matter. This was a far more serious matter than any banter about being a pathological liar.
So the question still remains: Did Coke pay Manat and Phelps? I once interviewed Dr Christopher Walker who said he had proof that Coke paid the money. Why did no one try to get him to provide the evidence he had?
On the other hand, who was the mystery JLP donor? If attention had been paid to cracking this nut – perhaps the $80 million plus would have been worth it. But the ball was dropped big time where this was concerned. Bull dogs Knight and Atkinson, and the PNP were of no use. They turned out to be pussy cats.
I must also say that the PNP has a challenge on its hands in terms of refuting the Commissioners’ argument that the turning over of the contents of Coke’s wiretap to the US was not a breach of the Interception of Communications Act. I’m still waiting on the PNP’s analysis. In the PNP’s mind the Phillips MOUs were OK but not everyone sees it that way. Phillips still needs to answer why he felt there was no need to tell anyone about them.
Give the Commissioners credit for underlining the potential for abuse in these MOUs. So have Coke’s lawyers in New York . Judges don’t investigate and so any request to tap Dickie Crawford’s phone could be accepted at face value by the judge (rubber stamped the NY lawyers called it) and no one will be the wiser because this is all secret stuff. This matter cannot be just swept under the carpet unless one is hopelessly naïve.
Finally, I hear no one demanding to know why a PNP government and the security forces conspired to turn over Coke’s wiretap evidence to the US while refusing to use it try him here in Jamaica for violating the country’s laws against illegal trafficking in guns and drugs. SOMETHING IS EXTREMELY STRANGE WHERE THIS IS CONCERNED AND ANSWERS MUST BE DEMANDED.
Finally, any government Commission of Enquiry into the crimes against humanity committed in Tivoli and other parts of west Kingston will be an equal fiasco. Both parties are quite happy that it was the Shower Posse that was dismantled rather than horrific crimes committed against innocent civilians.
These two parties are a total failure where justice for the Jamaican people is concerned. Organizations which seek to offer an alternative cannot just let such crucial matters pass by without engaging in more incisive analysis.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
Since everyone knew that this would be a charade and a whitewash (and a great TV soap opera as it turned out) why do we all seem so worked up over the fact that Golding paid for and got what he wanted? In 2001 Seaga refused to play ball with the then Commission of Enquiry because he felt it would be a waste of time. It turned out that he was correct. In 2011 the PNP played ball because they felt that the Enquiry would what: uncover the truth?
Since no one insisted, certainly not KD Knight, nor Patrick Atkinson, that the Commission dig deeper in terms of finding out who paid the US$60,000 to Manat and Phelps -- where else was a smoking gun to be found? Golding and Vaz must be having a good laugh at how timid were Knight and Atkinson on this crucial matter. This was a far more serious matter than any banter about being a pathological liar.
So the question still remains: Did Coke pay Manat and Phelps? I once interviewed Dr Christopher Walker who said he had proof that Coke paid the money. Why did no one try to get him to provide the evidence he had?
On the other hand, who was the mystery JLP donor? If attention had been paid to cracking this nut – perhaps the $80 million plus would have been worth it. But the ball was dropped big time where this was concerned. Bull dogs Knight and Atkinson, and the PNP were of no use. They turned out to be pussy cats.
I must also say that the PNP has a challenge on its hands in terms of refuting the Commissioners’ argument that the turning over of the contents of Coke’s wiretap to the US was not a breach of the Interception of Communications Act. I’m still waiting on the PNP’s analysis. In the PNP’s mind the Phillips MOUs were OK but not everyone sees it that way. Phillips still needs to answer why he felt there was no need to tell anyone about them.
Give the Commissioners credit for underlining the potential for abuse in these MOUs. So have Coke’s lawyers in New York . Judges don’t investigate and so any request to tap Dickie Crawford’s phone could be accepted at face value by the judge (rubber stamped the NY lawyers called it) and no one will be the wiser because this is all secret stuff. This matter cannot be just swept under the carpet unless one is hopelessly naïve.
Finally, I hear no one demanding to know why a PNP government and the security forces conspired to turn over Coke’s wiretap evidence to the US while refusing to use it try him here in Jamaica for violating the country’s laws against illegal trafficking in guns and drugs. SOMETHING IS EXTREMELY STRANGE WHERE THIS IS CONCERNED AND ANSWERS MUST BE DEMANDED.
Finally, any government Commission of Enquiry into the crimes against humanity committed in Tivoli and other parts of west Kingston will be an equal fiasco. Both parties are quite happy that it was the Shower Posse that was dismantled rather than horrific crimes committed against innocent civilians.
These two parties are a total failure where justice for the Jamaican people is concerned. Organizations which seek to offer an alternative cannot just let such crucial matters pass by without engaging in more incisive analysis.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Who will prosecute the State?
The Emil George Commission of Enquiry is reportedly recommending that the position of Attorney General be separated from the Justice Ministry and that it be a non-cabinet post.
If it is conceived that this newly separated Attorney General's office will still remains the Government’s chief legal advisor as it presently is, then this is just another game of musical chairs.
A more effective reform of this corrupt and oppressive state machinery would be to create an Attorney General’s Office or a Special Prosecutor, not to legally advise or defend the State (there is already a Solicitor General), but specifically for the purpose of investigating and prosecuting crimes committed by the State. Crimes such as those committed in Tivoli last year --- beginning with an investigation of the prime minister, the police commissioner and the head of the JDF for crimes against humanity --- or criminal negligence according to our local law. It goes without saying that this Attorney General/Special Prosecutor should not be answerable to the DPP. But don’t hold your breath.
The state protects the state and that is the root of so much of the injustice which exists in this country.
For example, politicians from both tribes may have corruptly benefited from the FINSAC debacle but nothing will ever come of it because Audley Shaw is more interested in scoring academic points (not even political points) against Omar Davies rather than going after corruption. What a waste and abuse of taxpayers’ money.
Millions of dollars have being spent on the Dudus Enquiry, the Finsac Enquiry, and even the 2001 Enquiry, all of which resulted in no public official ever being held accountable for anything.
Isn't it obvious that what is missing is that the State refuses to seriously go after its own crimes and abuse of power. And sadly, so-called civil society is politically disarmed and confused about about how to deal with state violence and state corruption.
As for the Emil Georges, until there is a proper accounting and punishment for the crimes committed in Tivoli (not to mention the cloudy stench of corruption that swirls over the head of the entire system), please spare us another charade of state reforms. We have had enough of that.
Lloyd D'Aguilar
If it is conceived that this newly separated Attorney General's office will still remains the Government’s chief legal advisor as it presently is, then this is just another game of musical chairs.
A more effective reform of this corrupt and oppressive state machinery would be to create an Attorney General’s Office or a Special Prosecutor, not to legally advise or defend the State (there is already a Solicitor General), but specifically for the purpose of investigating and prosecuting crimes committed by the State. Crimes such as those committed in Tivoli last year --- beginning with an investigation of the prime minister, the police commissioner and the head of the JDF for crimes against humanity --- or criminal negligence according to our local law. It goes without saying that this Attorney General/Special Prosecutor should not be answerable to the DPP. But don’t hold your breath.
The state protects the state and that is the root of so much of the injustice which exists in this country.
For example, politicians from both tribes may have corruptly benefited from the FINSAC debacle but nothing will ever come of it because Audley Shaw is more interested in scoring academic points (not even political points) against Omar Davies rather than going after corruption. What a waste and abuse of taxpayers’ money.
Millions of dollars have being spent on the Dudus Enquiry, the Finsac Enquiry, and even the 2001 Enquiry, all of which resulted in no public official ever being held accountable for anything.
Isn't it obvious that what is missing is that the State refuses to seriously go after its own crimes and abuse of power. And sadly, so-called civil society is politically disarmed and confused about about how to deal with state violence and state corruption.
As for the Emil Georges, until there is a proper accounting and punishment for the crimes committed in Tivoli (not to mention the cloudy stench of corruption that swirls over the head of the entire system), please spare us another charade of state reforms. We have had enough of that.
Lloyd D'Aguilar
Monday, June 13, 2011
Sinister role played by the Gleaner in Tivoli massacre
Dear Editor,
I would like to strenuously object to your continued mischief in regard to the facts of what happened in Tivoli in May 2010. I challenge you to prove that Coke’s “private militia” which gathered “in his Tivoli redoubt to resist the security forces and challenge the State” had anything to do with the overwhelming majority of the 73 residents who were killed by the security forces. This is what you suggest in your June 13 editorial when you write about a "fight that left 74 persons dead, among them a soldier."
The evidence so far is that these killings were the result of cold-blooded executions by the security forces and had nothing to do with this so-called resistance. Some of this testimony has been carried in your own newspaper but obviously you chose to conveniently ignore it.
By creating the false impression of any serious ‘resistance and challenge to the State’ you are complicit in providing a false defence to the charge of crimes against humanity having been committed by the security forces. May I also remind you, that if this charge were to be accepted by the International Criminal Court, which I hope it will, the prime minister, the police commissioner and then head of the JDF would be prime candidates to be charged for such crimes because of their pivotal roles in orchestrating this massacre.
It is most unfortunate that a newspaper that is so piously preaching against political gangs is blind to murder by the same gangs and criminals working for the State. But then again you were egging them on in 2010 with the same false arguments to teach Tivoli a lesson -- weren’t you?
Lloyd D'Aguilar
I would like to strenuously object to your continued mischief in regard to the facts of what happened in Tivoli in May 2010. I challenge you to prove that Coke’s “private militia” which gathered “in his Tivoli redoubt to resist the security forces and challenge the State” had anything to do with the overwhelming majority of the 73 residents who were killed by the security forces. This is what you suggest in your June 13 editorial when you write about a "fight that left 74 persons dead, among them a soldier."
The evidence so far is that these killings were the result of cold-blooded executions by the security forces and had nothing to do with this so-called resistance. Some of this testimony has been carried in your own newspaper but obviously you chose to conveniently ignore it.
By creating the false impression of any serious ‘resistance and challenge to the State’ you are complicit in providing a false defence to the charge of crimes against humanity having been committed by the security forces. May I also remind you, that if this charge were to be accepted by the International Criminal Court, which I hope it will, the prime minister, the police commissioner and then head of the JDF would be prime candidates to be charged for such crimes because of their pivotal roles in orchestrating this massacre.
It is most unfortunate that a newspaper that is so piously preaching against political gangs is blind to murder by the same gangs and criminals working for the State. But then again you were egging them on in 2010 with the same false arguments to teach Tivoli a lesson -- weren’t you?
Lloyd D'Aguilar
Monday, May 23, 2011
The Tivoli Massacre --- one year later: An analysis
One year after the May, 2010 security forces operation in Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town area of west Kingston which resulted in the deaths of at least 73 people according to the official count (some residents suggest that as many as 200 may have been killed), and widespread allegations that these were extrajudicial killings by the security forces (SF), the question still remains: was arresting Christopher Dudus Coke the main reason for this “incursion”, or more to the point, was it a counterinsurgency operation to ‘dismantle’ this ‘mother of all garrisons’, as Admiral Hardley Lewin, former chief of staff of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) once described Tivoli?
The evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of garrison dismantlement. The attempt to arrest Coke was merely a pretext, not only because this was the post-incursion claim -- a “template” to be used for dismantling other garrisons, according to national security minister Dwight Nelson -- but there was not the slightest embarrassment over the fact that Coke was able to slip through the elaborate dragnet set up to nab him in Tivoli Gardens. Nor did this bring the operation to an end. It continued with intensity for at least three days resulting in a permanent SF post in Tivoli Gardens.
After having worked so hard and risked so much to prevent Coke’s extradition it could hardly have been in Prime Minister Bruce Golding’s interest for Coke to have been caught. Coke would also have had connections with senior members of the security forces so it was not surprising that he escaped. In fact, throughout the period of being of the run it turned out that he was being assisted by no other a person than the Rev. Al Miller who was working out of the Office of the Prime Minister. What a coincidence!
Without proper intelligence as to where Coke was at any precise time the SF would have been going on a fishing expedition to find him. National security expert Harold Crooks argued in an interview that a cordon along with patience would have been sufficient to eventually achieve the purposes of capturing him and dealing with whatever other provocations were presented. The calling out of 2000 police and soldiers was a declaration of war.
Bruce Golding's role
Bruce Golding, MP for the area, took no responsibility for what happened and expressed no regret or concern that so many of his constituents, some of them high school students, who had nothing to do with Coke, had been killed execution-style by the security forces. Women were also killed, one of them very much pregnant. Others were shot and injured. Golding was to tell the residents that what happened could not have been avoided. This was as if he had been a mere spectator rather than the key architect. This kind of political opportunism was so reminiscent of his famous "I was associated with gunmen, it's not a crime to be associated with gunmen …. they served their purpose which was to keep the PNP out of the community!" In other words he had nothing to gain from what was done by these gunmen whom he was associated with.
For sure Golding would have known from the very beginning about the executions because he was called by residents to complain and beg for his intervention but he chose to do nothing. He turned off his phone. It went to voicemail. Colonel Rocky Meade has dismissed a claim by Edward Seaga that Golding tried to get the army at some point to pull out of Tivoli. Said Colonel Meade "I am not aware that the army has or would ever defy an order from the chairman of the National Defence Board.” Bruce Golding cannot escape the charge of criminal negligence, that is, that he knew crimes were being committed and chose to do nothing.
Golding is tightly wrapped into the whole operation and cannot so easily extricate himself. In order deny the charge of a deliberate plan to commit murder and other acts of state terrorism, the government and the security forces would need to make public, the plan that had been drawn up long in advance to capture Coke and its evolution into Operation Garden Parish. To what extent did this plan intellectually draw on Major Wayne Robinson’s thesis on counterinsurgency ”Eradicating Organized Criminal Gangs in Jamaica: Can Lessons be Learnt From a Successful Counterinsurgency.”
Declaration of state of emergency
The other question is on what basis did the SF advise the prime minister to call a state of emergency. On the very day that Cabinet met to make that decision the police commissioner was advising the public to be calm, that the police had everything under control, and encouraging Tivoli residents to cooperate with the police because they had no intention of infringing on their rights. That was a categorical promise and an absolute lie from the head of a state organization whose motto is to ‘serve and protect.’ The police commissioner has to be held accountable for delivering the exact opposite of what he promised.
Doctrine of collective responsibility
Under the doctrine of collective responsibility, the prime minister, who gave the security forces legal cover by declaring a state of emergency, and who participated in planning the operation with the minister of national security, the police commissioner, the army chief of staff and ground commanders such as Glenmore Hinds, are as culpable, if not more so than the soldiers and police who pulled the trigger. If Jamaican law does not contain provisions for trying this kind of state conspiracy to murder, as there should be, then certainly the matter ought to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation. It should be noted that while both PNP and JLP administrations have conveniently not signed the final Rome Statute of the ICC so that crimes against humanity that are committed in Jamaica cannot be directly referred to that body, it is possible for the matter to be referred through other countries. The “law of universal jurisdiction” still applies in some parts of Europe.
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
1. For the purpose of this Statute, "crime against humanity" means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
(a) Murder;
. . .
"Attack directed against any civilian population" means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack;
The so-called battle
The security forces have provided few details about their battle with the Tivoli gunmen. After having done a review of their role in the Tivoli operations, the JDF is allegedly refusing to make this report public. So too did the police commissioner promise a review of the role of the Jamaica Constabulary Force. If this review has been it has never been made public. More than likely the commissioner is conveniently leaving investigations to the ineffective and discredited Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI). A completely untenable situation.
Much was made of the barricades set up to prevent a repeat of previous SF assaults on residents, but these would have been easily destroyed by tanks. Much was also made of a few crudely made explosive devices none of which worked for obvious reasons. There was also an initial suggestion about gunmen on high rise buildings -- a suicidal position to take up given that the security forces had helicopters, which they used quite effectively.
Security force snipers
In fact it was the 2000-odd SF contingent who dominated the battle from early by taking over the roofs of high rise buildings in Tivoli and the nearby Seprod complex. Few residents claim to have witnessed gunmen shooting at the security forces as they had to take cover inside their houses because the SF, from their sniper positions, would shoot at anything that moved and did kill and injure a number of men and women. (They refused to have the media embedded with them).
Gunmen operating on the streets would have stood very little chance against this advantage. The police commissioner confirms the deadly use of snipers when he said that “many of the thugs who were shooting at members of the security forces were hit from ‘distances of over 300 yards’”. Such a claim could be refuted forensically by the fact that most of the young men fitting the criteria of gun men would have been shot at close range and those killed by sniper fire would have included women, children, and even street people, some of them mentally challenged. The police commissioner can of course assert anything he pleases knowing fully well the challenges of doing a proper forensic examination when the crime scene has been compromised.
JDF helicopters and the White Plane
In addition to SF snipers JDF helicopters were used to drop mortar devices on many buildings burning them to the ground. A squatter settlement referred to as PWD was completely burnt after a helicopter attack. Any smart gunman would have known that there was no place to hide in Tivoli unless he was prepared to fight to the death. No explanation has so far been given by the JDF as to why such extreme measures were necessary.
Residents of Tivoli and others in the Kingston and St Andrew area reported seeing a ‘white” plane flying in tandem with JDF helicopters. The JDF needs to answer: which government supplied this plane; what was its role in the operation; was it a drone, or an electronic surveillance plane; did the government give approval for it to be used and on what basis. Col Rocky Meade, member of the National Security Strategy Committee, and former pilot and Flight Commander was very evasive when journalists tackled him on this issue. It is clear, however, that based on the description of the plane it is not part of the JDF fleet of helicopters. A curious report in the Gleaner stated: “A military aircraft circled the city and JDF helicopters provided air support.” Notice the distinction between a “military aircraft” and “JDF helicopters”.
One Observer report suggested that there was increased US electronic surveillance in Jamaica arising out of the attempt to extradite Coke. Was this white plane part of a stepped up US intervention? Was Golding’s hand being forced?
Few guns found
Four guns were declared found within the first few days after the operation. But after questions were raised by the Public Defender about the number in light of so many killed, that figure was revised upwards many days after. The simple truth is that the SF were not shooting gunmen and consequently there were no guns to recover.
In commenting on the low retrieval of guns from gunmen Police Commissioner Owen Ellington confirms the disadvantage of gun men on the streets versus SF snipers on rooftops. According to the Commissioner: "If a man is firing a rifle and he is taken out by snipers there is no way that the sniper can go and retrieve his firearm. It would be unwise, unsafe and downright irresponsible for him to attempt to do that."
“In such cases, he said, residents would have had ample time to retrieve weapons from slain gunmen.” But that would also have been “unwise, unsafe and downright suicidal” for residents as SF snipers were firing at anything and any one who dared to put out his or her head. The far more sinister intent of that suggestion was to create the impression of this fanatic relationship between gunmen and residents, ready to risk their lives to retrieve guns of fallen comrades. For what purpose? Not surprisingly, therefore, the soldiers and police did treat the residents as if they were combatants along the lines suggested by the Commissioner.
Based on a survey carried out by the Planning Committee for A People’s Commission of Enquiry into the Tivoli Massacre only two out of 175 Tivoli residents claimed to have seen gunmen firing their guns or moving about on the day that security forces invaded. One resident claimed to have seen a man in a helmet and a bullet proof vest, unarmed and with his hands in the air, pleading for his life but was shot nonetheless. He thought that this man could have been a gunman. The important fact, however, is that he was unarmed at the time he was killed
Providing cover for escape
What is clear is that any shooting by gunmen, when assessed from the point of view of military tactics was at best symbolic and designed to provide cover for Dudus and the gunmen themselves to escape. It has been suggested that the least patrolled area around Tivoli was along Spanish Town Road and it was at this end that escape was most possible in the very early stages of the operation.
The diary of Cedric “Doggie” Murray, killed by police in an alleged shootout some months later, seems to suggest, assuming that he is really the author, that the main tactic of the gunmen was indeed to provide cover for Dudus to escape, and other gunmen like himself. Doggie supposedly wrote:
“May 24, Babylon — the enemy — invaded Tivoli Gardens, gunshots rang out for hours from every corner of West Kingston and other places of Kingston to protect the man, the don of all dons, Christopher Coke aka ‘Dudus’.”
May 24 would have been a Monday but Tivoli residents claim that they were receiving fire from the security forces from early Sunday evening, the day when the State of Emergency was declared. Note that the Doggie’s diary does not speak specifically of Tivoli which is where most of the deaths took place. (Granted he could have been in Hannah Town or Rose Town).
Attorney-at-law Hannah Barrington of the Planning Committee (PCETM) stated in a radio interview with me on my radio programme “Looking Back Looking Forward” that around mid-day that Sunday she spoke by phone with Dudus (she was on her way there meet him) and he informed her that the security forces had started to fire into Tivoli. She could hear the sounds of gunshots in the background. Coke told her that he was confident about his own safety, but not necessarily so for the people around him. Was this a hint that he knew how to get out of Tivoli?
Doggie also wrote: “I fired my AK until my finger was numb. I eat gunpowder until my throat was sore.” Again, this sounds like wild shooting (and some braggadocio) rather than a credible account of a shootout. It also jibes with the theory that this excessive shooting was meant to be cover for Dudus and others to escape. There were no deaths or injuries among the security forces on Sunday onwards apart from one soldier who was shot in Hannah Town by a sniper. So who was Doggie shooting at? Whether by witnessing it or reading about it, Doggie went on to accuse the police of being worse than gunmen. By his own estimation he would have expected no mercy once they caught up with him.
In an interview with Emily Crooks on Impact, Edward Seaga said it was foolish for Coke and his gang to think that they could successfully challenge the security forces. In terms of challenge, there certainly was the burning of police stations in Hannah Town and Rose Town. But some cynics have suggested that this could have been facilitated in order to provide the ultimate pretext for the incursion. Another tactic used by the police high command to prime the public for an incursion was to feed disinformation to the media. One such piece of disinformation was that they had evidence “that residents of Tivoli Gardens are in possession of the 50-calibre Grizzly Big Boar sniper rifle”. This gun according to the manufacturer blows its targets to pieces. No such gun was ever found and nothing more was said about the evidence they had.
The message
Undoubtedly, a message was being sent by Coke and his ‘generals’ (according the Gleaner) to the effect that they could wreak havoc if they wished. Or if they were capable, to make the island ungovernable and force the government to back down. But for how long? The signing of the extradition warrant was the final signal that Golding could no longer use legal arguments to prevent the extradition.
But to be accurate, no message was being sent by Tivoli as the Gleaner editorial wrote. This deliberate blurring of the line between the vast majority of uninvolved residents who had nothing to do with what was going on, and the ‘generals’, was a deliberate ploy used by the media and the SF high command to stir up animus against an entire community and to goad the government into taking severe action.
As Seaga is able to testify in the historical relationship between the security forces and Tivoli Gardens there has never been any serious resistance to any of their operations. The last two, in 1997 and 2001 resulted in many deaths, including women and children, but no gun men were killed or guns recovered. In January 2008 shortly after Golding’s election the security forces backed by a JDF helicopter killed five men in a building in Tivoli. No member of the SF was injured and a coroner’s inquest resulted in their exoneration. Golding made no criticism of the killings which had similarities to 2010.
That Presi Coke maintained armed gunmen to support his drug dealing and other business operations is the norm for this type of semi-legal narcotic operation. Disputes arising between drug dealing competitors can never be settled in a court of law. Nevertheless, the evidence was that Coke and his business outfit Incomparable Enterprises and the Shower Posse (assuming they ever referred to themselves as such) did collaborate with elements of the Jamaican state, or tried to peacefully co-exist. The gunmen were for business not to challenge the state. That’s why Coke’s indictment originated in the United State and not in Jamaica. Despite having carried out his activities under both PNP and JLP administrations, at least since 1995 and being under the surveillance of the MIU and other such police bodies, he was never charged. Instead his legal business, Incomparable Enterprises flourished and received millions of dollars of contracts from both administrations.
Whether because of Coke or due to him Tivoli Gardens was a calm and peaceful community compared to other areas. Even Golding has made this observation on many occasions. The most notorious of Tivoli’s muscle flexing was their bloody war with Rema in the late 1990s when that area broke ranks and went over in support of the PNP. That war did not help the reputation of Tivoli and definitely not that of MP Edward Seaga, the self-described number one Don of the area. Seaga would have had a vested interest in keeping his vaunted garrison in check. The difference between Seaga and Golding was that Seaga knew how to keep his distance from Coke, Golding didn’t know how.
The actual incursion
After having met with the heads of the SF Bruce Golding declared a state of emergency on Sunday May 23. He and the SF declared that they were convinced that there had been "a calculated assault on the authority of the state that cannot be tolerated and will not be allowed to continue. The criminal element who have placed society under siege will not be allowed to triumph."
Golding said that he expected the security forces to deal “decisively” and “swiftly” with the criminal elements assaulting the state. In terms of respecting the rights of citizens, especially the residents of Tivoli Gardens, he had NOTHING to say. Instructions had been given to the SF he said to “observe and respect the rights of citizens to go about their lawful business.” But ‘going about lawful business’ was obviously not intended for residents of Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town who would be under total lockdown for up to four days. Golding was not unaware of the killings and abuses that took place in 1997 and 2001. He strategically omitted to instruct the SF not to repeat those abuses.
That omission was itself instructive. It was markedly different from Senator Tom Tavares Finson, the attorney who represented Coke and who once aspired to represent west Kingston. “Don't use it to murder innocent people in west Kingston. Don't do it; it will not put us anywhere," he pleaded with the SF according to a Gleaner report.
It should surprise no one that Golding’s words about a ‘calculated assault on the authority of the state that will not be tolerated or to triumph’ were not lost on the security forces. Their interpretation given to the victims of their abuses was that Golding ‘send we fi kill oonu off’. Everyone, including 90 year-old women were treated as suspected Dudus sympathizers, Shower Posse members, or in cahoots with criminality. Richard the Second cared so much about the integrity of his troops attacking France that he gave ordinances prohibiting plunder and other crimes against humanity. Not so caring was Bruce for the people who gave him power and a salary.
As was to be expected within a short period the superior firepower of the security forces silenced the guns of those trying to keep them out and the gun men disappeared. This did not stop the helicopters assisted by a mysterious ‘white plane’ from dropping mortar and incendiary devices on houses. The PWD squatter settlement was burnt to the ground. There was shooting into apartments. Snipers fired at anyone who moved on the streets. And then there were the house to house searches which resulted in the deaths of scores of young men who were simply shot on the spot, or taken out into the streets and executed.
Pretext for executions: Looking for weapons
Police Commissioner Owen Ellington: "First we did the primary search, which was to clear the environment and to detain people... and then we are now doing the secondary searches, which are a bit more detailed, for weapons and evidence."
Pattern of executions
The pretext for the executions was the search for weapons; looking for gunmen who were hiding; looking for anyone who could be a sympathizer or member of Dudus’ organization. Those who were lucky not to be killed were physically punished, and then detained, some of whom did not return home. Those who lived were mostly middle aged men and even they were sometimes beaten. In terms of the younger men who lived they were taken to detention centers such as the National Arena -- over 900 of them, and eventually 4,000 over a longer period.
Some stories
In one case a woman told me that after much pleading on behalf of her son, a senior police officer gave the order to another policeman to kill him in the living room in front of other family members including a young child. She subsequently saw the senior police officer on the street and he laughed at the whole matter when she confronted him. I have heard the story of a woman with two sons. The invaders put them on the ground and asked the woman to decide which one should live and which one should die. When she refused the order the executioner decided on the oldest son. That woman has lost her sanity.
One young girl I met on the street during a street protest told me that when the security forces entered her home in Tivoli and found her young teenage brother they asked for a picture to confirm that he was in fact a member of the family. This request was complied with but did not stop them from blowing away a part of his face. There is another story of vendor taking shelter in the house of a friend and when he was unable to provide proof that he lived in the house he was executed.
There are too many other stories that follow this pattern of killing for it not to be part of a plan taken at the highest level of command. Police Commissioner Owen Ellington also peddled the idea of outsiders converging on Tivoli to defend Coke. The soldiers and police were given the job of finding and dealing with imported mercenaries.
“We believe that we had to re-establish the primacy of the State and the rule of law in Jamaica that no individual or sympathisers should believe that anybody can exist in this space outside of the reach of the law.” Despite immediate reports in the media about extrajudicial killings and other abuses the police commissioner insisted on congratulating the security forces on a job well done and for their professional conduct! Commissioner Ellington and the rest cannot escape responsibility for the criminal behaviour of the men they commanded. Nor can Bruce Golding for not caring about what was happening and taking no steps to stop the massacre.
Amount killed
In terms of the discrepancy between what the security forces and the residents contend a in terms of the numbers killed (73 versus 200) there were reports of bodies being burned but never seriously investigated by the state, especially the Public Defender. This omission is a serious indictment of the effectiveness of the Public Defender.
Having left quite a number of bodies to rot in the streets, indicative of supreme contempt for the people, soldiers were observed burying these rotting corpses in the nearby May Pen Cemetery. The police commissioner in condoning this attempt to hide a massacre suggested that the bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition because they might have been killed before the SF moved in. There is absolutely no evidence to support such a claim. The question remains nonetheless: were bodies buried which were not part of the official count?
Reminiscent of the way Jewish concentration camps operated under Hitler, young men were forced to load trucks with dead bodies. Some were taken away with these trucks and in one case the young men were about to be killed but luckily were spared. How many others were not so lucky is a legitimate question. Madden’s Funeral Home, responsible for storing bodies on behalf of the state, was so overwhelmed with body collection that it was forced to borrow a refrigerated truck to store bodies.
Some families have still to account for missing male members and so the question of the numbers killed is still to be settled.
Destruction of property
There was widespread destruction of people’s household property and apartment infrastructure (sofas, television sets, closets, beds, roofs, toilets, kitchens), supposedly as part of a weapons search.
The government has accepted liability for household property damage by paying out nearly $100 million to at least 2,759 residents who claimed damage and to 59 vendors who lost goods when the Coronation Market was damaged by fire. Some people have suggested that it was the SF who burned down the market.
The government claims to have rebuilt seven houses but this is a far cry from the numbers actually burned and still not fixed.
One woman who lived in a board house constructed in PWD and paid for by her years of ‘cleaning do do” claimed that after finding nothing but children’s clothes and toys the SF torched the house as reprisal for the burning of a police station in Denham Town several days prior to the incursion.
It could be argued that the government has accepted responsibility for some of the killings by providing funeral grants to 64 families. The government could hardly claim that it was providing funeral grants to families of gunmen who fired on the SF.
Role of the media
Journalists were not allowed to cover the Tivoli ‘incursion’ even though there were images of brave TV journalists in bullet proof vests taking cover during shooting incidents in Denham Town. There are reports of journalists being threatened when they wished to continue to cover the unfolding development in Tivoli. Even so the media raised no howl about not being allowed to do their job. Their passivity failed the cause of justice and failed those who were savagely murdered.
Conclusions
1. The Tivoli incursion and the subsequent massacre of civilians was based on a counterinsurgency doctrine probably formulated by the Military Intelligence Unit. In the Jamaican context the view is that gangs and garrisons are at war with the state and the state in order to repel that perceived “insurgency” must bring greater violence to bear on the insurgents. Counterinsurgency is not a normal police operation. It is tantamount to a declaration of war by the state. Counterinsurgency as practiced by the US in Vietnam, Iraq and Pakistan makes little distinction between armed combatants and the civilian population who are regarded as the chief basis of support for the insurgents. As such this type counterinsurgency practice is by definition criminal and against the rules of war.
2. War was declared on Tivoli and the wider west Kingston area including Denham Town. No distinction was made between armed combatants and the civilian population.
3. The threat to the state posed by gunmen loyal to Coke was greatly exaggerated and was used as a pretext to carry out this planned counterinsurgency operation.
4. When Bruce Golding was no longer able to stall the extradition of Coke on legal grounds, and under pressure from both the United States and local groups, almost being forced to resign, he opportunistically fell in line with the counterinsurgency plan.
5. The MIU was already pressing by having visited both the DPP and Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne very early in the extradition process to indicate their special concern about the Coke extradition matter.
6. Bruce Golding as prime minister and head of the defence board authorized what he knew would bring bloodshed to the ordinary residents of Tivoli in order to save his political career.
7. The war crimes, and criminal conduct of the security forces must be laid squarely at the feet of Golding. Not since Governor John Eyre who in 1865 gave the orders for the massacre of thousands of people in Morant Bay has a Jamaican head of state acted in such a desperate and despicable manner.
8. The police commissioner in an attempt to cover up the massacre told enough lies to bring attention to his intimate involvement in planning of the operations or his support for what happened. Either way his involvement is of a criminal nature and ought to be prosecuted.
9. The Chief of Staff of the JDF was mostly silent but no less culpable for crimes against humanity.
10. It is known that Senior Superintendent Glenmore Hinds, since promoted to Deputy Police Commissioner was the ground commander and bears direct responsibility for the massacre.
11. Many people have been demanding a Commission of Enquiry into what happened. This may serve some purpose but will in the end result in a whitewash of the actions of the security forces and Golding’s role. The 2001 enquiry into the west Kingston operation did the same thing. One should expect the Manat Commission to do the same.
12. It is incumbent on civil society to use all legal means, and all peaceful political means to have the architects removed from office and prosecuted.
13. We advocate a People’s Commission of Enquiry where all the people of Tivoli and Denham Town who either witnessed of suffered brutality at the hands of the security forces should be allowed to testify to give Jamaica a deeper understanding of the true nature of the crimes committed in May 2010.
14. This matter should be reported to the international criminal court for action to be taken.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
The evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of garrison dismantlement. The attempt to arrest Coke was merely a pretext, not only because this was the post-incursion claim -- a “template” to be used for dismantling other garrisons, according to national security minister Dwight Nelson -- but there was not the slightest embarrassment over the fact that Coke was able to slip through the elaborate dragnet set up to nab him in Tivoli Gardens. Nor did this bring the operation to an end. It continued with intensity for at least three days resulting in a permanent SF post in Tivoli Gardens.
After having worked so hard and risked so much to prevent Coke’s extradition it could hardly have been in Prime Minister Bruce Golding’s interest for Coke to have been caught. Coke would also have had connections with senior members of the security forces so it was not surprising that he escaped. In fact, throughout the period of being of the run it turned out that he was being assisted by no other a person than the Rev. Al Miller who was working out of the Office of the Prime Minister. What a coincidence!
Without proper intelligence as to where Coke was at any precise time the SF would have been going on a fishing expedition to find him. National security expert Harold Crooks argued in an interview that a cordon along with patience would have been sufficient to eventually achieve the purposes of capturing him and dealing with whatever other provocations were presented. The calling out of 2000 police and soldiers was a declaration of war.
Bruce Golding's role
Bruce Golding, MP for the area, took no responsibility for what happened and expressed no regret or concern that so many of his constituents, some of them high school students, who had nothing to do with Coke, had been killed execution-style by the security forces. Women were also killed, one of them very much pregnant. Others were shot and injured. Golding was to tell the residents that what happened could not have been avoided. This was as if he had been a mere spectator rather than the key architect. This kind of political opportunism was so reminiscent of his famous "I was associated with gunmen, it's not a crime to be associated with gunmen …. they served their purpose which was to keep the PNP out of the community!" In other words he had nothing to gain from what was done by these gunmen whom he was associated with.
For sure Golding would have known from the very beginning about the executions because he was called by residents to complain and beg for his intervention but he chose to do nothing. He turned off his phone. It went to voicemail. Colonel Rocky Meade has dismissed a claim by Edward Seaga that Golding tried to get the army at some point to pull out of Tivoli. Said Colonel Meade "I am not aware that the army has or would ever defy an order from the chairman of the National Defence Board.” Bruce Golding cannot escape the charge of criminal negligence, that is, that he knew crimes were being committed and chose to do nothing.
Golding is tightly wrapped into the whole operation and cannot so easily extricate himself. In order deny the charge of a deliberate plan to commit murder and other acts of state terrorism, the government and the security forces would need to make public, the plan that had been drawn up long in advance to capture Coke and its evolution into Operation Garden Parish. To what extent did this plan intellectually draw on Major Wayne Robinson’s thesis on counterinsurgency ”Eradicating Organized Criminal Gangs in Jamaica: Can Lessons be Learnt From a Successful Counterinsurgency.”
Declaration of state of emergency
The other question is on what basis did the SF advise the prime minister to call a state of emergency. On the very day that Cabinet met to make that decision the police commissioner was advising the public to be calm, that the police had everything under control, and encouraging Tivoli residents to cooperate with the police because they had no intention of infringing on their rights. That was a categorical promise and an absolute lie from the head of a state organization whose motto is to ‘serve and protect.’ The police commissioner has to be held accountable for delivering the exact opposite of what he promised.
Doctrine of collective responsibility
Under the doctrine of collective responsibility, the prime minister, who gave the security forces legal cover by declaring a state of emergency, and who participated in planning the operation with the minister of national security, the police commissioner, the army chief of staff and ground commanders such as Glenmore Hinds, are as culpable, if not more so than the soldiers and police who pulled the trigger. If Jamaican law does not contain provisions for trying this kind of state conspiracy to murder, as there should be, then certainly the matter ought to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation. It should be noted that while both PNP and JLP administrations have conveniently not signed the final Rome Statute of the ICC so that crimes against humanity that are committed in Jamaica cannot be directly referred to that body, it is possible for the matter to be referred through other countries. The “law of universal jurisdiction” still applies in some parts of Europe.
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
1. For the purpose of this Statute, "crime against humanity" means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
(a) Murder;
. . .
"Attack directed against any civilian population" means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack;
The so-called battle
The security forces have provided few details about their battle with the Tivoli gunmen. After having done a review of their role in the Tivoli operations, the JDF is allegedly refusing to make this report public. So too did the police commissioner promise a review of the role of the Jamaica Constabulary Force. If this review has been it has never been made public. More than likely the commissioner is conveniently leaving investigations to the ineffective and discredited Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI). A completely untenable situation.
Much was made of the barricades set up to prevent a repeat of previous SF assaults on residents, but these would have been easily destroyed by tanks. Much was also made of a few crudely made explosive devices none of which worked for obvious reasons. There was also an initial suggestion about gunmen on high rise buildings -- a suicidal position to take up given that the security forces had helicopters, which they used quite effectively.
Security force snipers
In fact it was the 2000-odd SF contingent who dominated the battle from early by taking over the roofs of high rise buildings in Tivoli and the nearby Seprod complex. Few residents claim to have witnessed gunmen shooting at the security forces as they had to take cover inside their houses because the SF, from their sniper positions, would shoot at anything that moved and did kill and injure a number of men and women. (They refused to have the media embedded with them).
Gunmen operating on the streets would have stood very little chance against this advantage. The police commissioner confirms the deadly use of snipers when he said that “many of the thugs who were shooting at members of the security forces were hit from ‘distances of over 300 yards’”. Such a claim could be refuted forensically by the fact that most of the young men fitting the criteria of gun men would have been shot at close range and those killed by sniper fire would have included women, children, and even street people, some of them mentally challenged. The police commissioner can of course assert anything he pleases knowing fully well the challenges of doing a proper forensic examination when the crime scene has been compromised.
JDF helicopters and the White Plane
In addition to SF snipers JDF helicopters were used to drop mortar devices on many buildings burning them to the ground. A squatter settlement referred to as PWD was completely burnt after a helicopter attack. Any smart gunman would have known that there was no place to hide in Tivoli unless he was prepared to fight to the death. No explanation has so far been given by the JDF as to why such extreme measures were necessary.
Residents of Tivoli and others in the Kingston and St Andrew area reported seeing a ‘white” plane flying in tandem with JDF helicopters. The JDF needs to answer: which government supplied this plane; what was its role in the operation; was it a drone, or an electronic surveillance plane; did the government give approval for it to be used and on what basis. Col Rocky Meade, member of the National Security Strategy Committee, and former pilot and Flight Commander was very evasive when journalists tackled him on this issue. It is clear, however, that based on the description of the plane it is not part of the JDF fleet of helicopters. A curious report in the Gleaner stated: “A military aircraft circled the city and JDF helicopters provided air support.” Notice the distinction between a “military aircraft” and “JDF helicopters”.
One Observer report suggested that there was increased US electronic surveillance in Jamaica arising out of the attempt to extradite Coke. Was this white plane part of a stepped up US intervention? Was Golding’s hand being forced?
Few guns found
Four guns were declared found within the first few days after the operation. But after questions were raised by the Public Defender about the number in light of so many killed, that figure was revised upwards many days after. The simple truth is that the SF were not shooting gunmen and consequently there were no guns to recover.
In commenting on the low retrieval of guns from gunmen Police Commissioner Owen Ellington confirms the disadvantage of gun men on the streets versus SF snipers on rooftops. According to the Commissioner: "If a man is firing a rifle and he is taken out by snipers there is no way that the sniper can go and retrieve his firearm. It would be unwise, unsafe and downright irresponsible for him to attempt to do that."
“In such cases, he said, residents would have had ample time to retrieve weapons from slain gunmen.” But that would also have been “unwise, unsafe and downright suicidal” for residents as SF snipers were firing at anything and any one who dared to put out his or her head. The far more sinister intent of that suggestion was to create the impression of this fanatic relationship between gunmen and residents, ready to risk their lives to retrieve guns of fallen comrades. For what purpose? Not surprisingly, therefore, the soldiers and police did treat the residents as if they were combatants along the lines suggested by the Commissioner.
Based on a survey carried out by the Planning Committee for A People’s Commission of Enquiry into the Tivoli Massacre only two out of 175 Tivoli residents claimed to have seen gunmen firing their guns or moving about on the day that security forces invaded. One resident claimed to have seen a man in a helmet and a bullet proof vest, unarmed and with his hands in the air, pleading for his life but was shot nonetheless. He thought that this man could have been a gunman. The important fact, however, is that he was unarmed at the time he was killed
Providing cover for escape
What is clear is that any shooting by gunmen, when assessed from the point of view of military tactics was at best symbolic and designed to provide cover for Dudus and the gunmen themselves to escape. It has been suggested that the least patrolled area around Tivoli was along Spanish Town Road and it was at this end that escape was most possible in the very early stages of the operation.
The diary of Cedric “Doggie” Murray, killed by police in an alleged shootout some months later, seems to suggest, assuming that he is really the author, that the main tactic of the gunmen was indeed to provide cover for Dudus to escape, and other gunmen like himself. Doggie supposedly wrote:
“May 24, Babylon — the enemy — invaded Tivoli Gardens, gunshots rang out for hours from every corner of West Kingston and other places of Kingston to protect the man, the don of all dons, Christopher Coke aka ‘Dudus’.”
May 24 would have been a Monday but Tivoli residents claim that they were receiving fire from the security forces from early Sunday evening, the day when the State of Emergency was declared. Note that the Doggie’s diary does not speak specifically of Tivoli which is where most of the deaths took place. (Granted he could have been in Hannah Town or Rose Town).
Attorney-at-law Hannah Barrington of the Planning Committee (PCETM) stated in a radio interview with me on my radio programme “Looking Back Looking Forward” that around mid-day that Sunday she spoke by phone with Dudus (she was on her way there meet him) and he informed her that the security forces had started to fire into Tivoli. She could hear the sounds of gunshots in the background. Coke told her that he was confident about his own safety, but not necessarily so for the people around him. Was this a hint that he knew how to get out of Tivoli?
Doggie also wrote: “I fired my AK until my finger was numb. I eat gunpowder until my throat was sore.” Again, this sounds like wild shooting (and some braggadocio) rather than a credible account of a shootout. It also jibes with the theory that this excessive shooting was meant to be cover for Dudus and others to escape. There were no deaths or injuries among the security forces on Sunday onwards apart from one soldier who was shot in Hannah Town by a sniper. So who was Doggie shooting at? Whether by witnessing it or reading about it, Doggie went on to accuse the police of being worse than gunmen. By his own estimation he would have expected no mercy once they caught up with him.
In an interview with Emily Crooks on Impact, Edward Seaga said it was foolish for Coke and his gang to think that they could successfully challenge the security forces. In terms of challenge, there certainly was the burning of police stations in Hannah Town and Rose Town. But some cynics have suggested that this could have been facilitated in order to provide the ultimate pretext for the incursion. Another tactic used by the police high command to prime the public for an incursion was to feed disinformation to the media. One such piece of disinformation was that they had evidence “that residents of Tivoli Gardens are in possession of the 50-calibre Grizzly Big Boar sniper rifle”. This gun according to the manufacturer blows its targets to pieces. No such gun was ever found and nothing more was said about the evidence they had.
The message
Undoubtedly, a message was being sent by Coke and his ‘generals’ (according the Gleaner) to the effect that they could wreak havoc if they wished. Or if they were capable, to make the island ungovernable and force the government to back down. But for how long? The signing of the extradition warrant was the final signal that Golding could no longer use legal arguments to prevent the extradition.
But to be accurate, no message was being sent by Tivoli as the Gleaner editorial wrote. This deliberate blurring of the line between the vast majority of uninvolved residents who had nothing to do with what was going on, and the ‘generals’, was a deliberate ploy used by the media and the SF high command to stir up animus against an entire community and to goad the government into taking severe action.
As Seaga is able to testify in the historical relationship between the security forces and Tivoli Gardens there has never been any serious resistance to any of their operations. The last two, in 1997 and 2001 resulted in many deaths, including women and children, but no gun men were killed or guns recovered. In January 2008 shortly after Golding’s election the security forces backed by a JDF helicopter killed five men in a building in Tivoli. No member of the SF was injured and a coroner’s inquest resulted in their exoneration. Golding made no criticism of the killings which had similarities to 2010.
That Presi Coke maintained armed gunmen to support his drug dealing and other business operations is the norm for this type of semi-legal narcotic operation. Disputes arising between drug dealing competitors can never be settled in a court of law. Nevertheless, the evidence was that Coke and his business outfit Incomparable Enterprises and the Shower Posse (assuming they ever referred to themselves as such) did collaborate with elements of the Jamaican state, or tried to peacefully co-exist. The gunmen were for business not to challenge the state. That’s why Coke’s indictment originated in the United State and not in Jamaica. Despite having carried out his activities under both PNP and JLP administrations, at least since 1995 and being under the surveillance of the MIU and other such police bodies, he was never charged. Instead his legal business, Incomparable Enterprises flourished and received millions of dollars of contracts from both administrations.
Whether because of Coke or due to him Tivoli Gardens was a calm and peaceful community compared to other areas. Even Golding has made this observation on many occasions. The most notorious of Tivoli’s muscle flexing was their bloody war with Rema in the late 1990s when that area broke ranks and went over in support of the PNP. That war did not help the reputation of Tivoli and definitely not that of MP Edward Seaga, the self-described number one Don of the area. Seaga would have had a vested interest in keeping his vaunted garrison in check. The difference between Seaga and Golding was that Seaga knew how to keep his distance from Coke, Golding didn’t know how.
The actual incursion
After having met with the heads of the SF Bruce Golding declared a state of emergency on Sunday May 23. He and the SF declared that they were convinced that there had been "a calculated assault on the authority of the state that cannot be tolerated and will not be allowed to continue. The criminal element who have placed society under siege will not be allowed to triumph."
Golding said that he expected the security forces to deal “decisively” and “swiftly” with the criminal elements assaulting the state. In terms of respecting the rights of citizens, especially the residents of Tivoli Gardens, he had NOTHING to say. Instructions had been given to the SF he said to “observe and respect the rights of citizens to go about their lawful business.” But ‘going about lawful business’ was obviously not intended for residents of Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town who would be under total lockdown for up to four days. Golding was not unaware of the killings and abuses that took place in 1997 and 2001. He strategically omitted to instruct the SF not to repeat those abuses.
That omission was itself instructive. It was markedly different from Senator Tom Tavares Finson, the attorney who represented Coke and who once aspired to represent west Kingston. “Don't use it to murder innocent people in west Kingston. Don't do it; it will not put us anywhere," he pleaded with the SF according to a Gleaner report.
It should surprise no one that Golding’s words about a ‘calculated assault on the authority of the state that will not be tolerated or to triumph’ were not lost on the security forces. Their interpretation given to the victims of their abuses was that Golding ‘send we fi kill oonu off’. Everyone, including 90 year-old women were treated as suspected Dudus sympathizers, Shower Posse members, or in cahoots with criminality. Richard the Second cared so much about the integrity of his troops attacking France that he gave ordinances prohibiting plunder and other crimes against humanity. Not so caring was Bruce for the people who gave him power and a salary.
As was to be expected within a short period the superior firepower of the security forces silenced the guns of those trying to keep them out and the gun men disappeared. This did not stop the helicopters assisted by a mysterious ‘white plane’ from dropping mortar and incendiary devices on houses. The PWD squatter settlement was burnt to the ground. There was shooting into apartments. Snipers fired at anyone who moved on the streets. And then there were the house to house searches which resulted in the deaths of scores of young men who were simply shot on the spot, or taken out into the streets and executed.
Pretext for executions: Looking for weapons
Police Commissioner Owen Ellington: "First we did the primary search, which was to clear the environment and to detain people... and then we are now doing the secondary searches, which are a bit more detailed, for weapons and evidence."
Pattern of executions
The pretext for the executions was the search for weapons; looking for gunmen who were hiding; looking for anyone who could be a sympathizer or member of Dudus’ organization. Those who were lucky not to be killed were physically punished, and then detained, some of whom did not return home. Those who lived were mostly middle aged men and even they were sometimes beaten. In terms of the younger men who lived they were taken to detention centers such as the National Arena -- over 900 of them, and eventually 4,000 over a longer period.
Some stories
In one case a woman told me that after much pleading on behalf of her son, a senior police officer gave the order to another policeman to kill him in the living room in front of other family members including a young child. She subsequently saw the senior police officer on the street and he laughed at the whole matter when she confronted him. I have heard the story of a woman with two sons. The invaders put them on the ground and asked the woman to decide which one should live and which one should die. When she refused the order the executioner decided on the oldest son. That woman has lost her sanity.
One young girl I met on the street during a street protest told me that when the security forces entered her home in Tivoli and found her young teenage brother they asked for a picture to confirm that he was in fact a member of the family. This request was complied with but did not stop them from blowing away a part of his face. There is another story of vendor taking shelter in the house of a friend and when he was unable to provide proof that he lived in the house he was executed.
There are too many other stories that follow this pattern of killing for it not to be part of a plan taken at the highest level of command. Police Commissioner Owen Ellington also peddled the idea of outsiders converging on Tivoli to defend Coke. The soldiers and police were given the job of finding and dealing with imported mercenaries.
“We believe that we had to re-establish the primacy of the State and the rule of law in Jamaica that no individual or sympathisers should believe that anybody can exist in this space outside of the reach of the law.” Despite immediate reports in the media about extrajudicial killings and other abuses the police commissioner insisted on congratulating the security forces on a job well done and for their professional conduct! Commissioner Ellington and the rest cannot escape responsibility for the criminal behaviour of the men they commanded. Nor can Bruce Golding for not caring about what was happening and taking no steps to stop the massacre.
Amount killed
In terms of the discrepancy between what the security forces and the residents contend a in terms of the numbers killed (73 versus 200) there were reports of bodies being burned but never seriously investigated by the state, especially the Public Defender. This omission is a serious indictment of the effectiveness of the Public Defender.
Having left quite a number of bodies to rot in the streets, indicative of supreme contempt for the people, soldiers were observed burying these rotting corpses in the nearby May Pen Cemetery. The police commissioner in condoning this attempt to hide a massacre suggested that the bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition because they might have been killed before the SF moved in. There is absolutely no evidence to support such a claim. The question remains nonetheless: were bodies buried which were not part of the official count?
Reminiscent of the way Jewish concentration camps operated under Hitler, young men were forced to load trucks with dead bodies. Some were taken away with these trucks and in one case the young men were about to be killed but luckily were spared. How many others were not so lucky is a legitimate question. Madden’s Funeral Home, responsible for storing bodies on behalf of the state, was so overwhelmed with body collection that it was forced to borrow a refrigerated truck to store bodies.
Some families have still to account for missing male members and so the question of the numbers killed is still to be settled.
Destruction of property
There was widespread destruction of people’s household property and apartment infrastructure (sofas, television sets, closets, beds, roofs, toilets, kitchens), supposedly as part of a weapons search.
The government has accepted liability for household property damage by paying out nearly $100 million to at least 2,759 residents who claimed damage and to 59 vendors who lost goods when the Coronation Market was damaged by fire. Some people have suggested that it was the SF who burned down the market.
The government claims to have rebuilt seven houses but this is a far cry from the numbers actually burned and still not fixed.
One woman who lived in a board house constructed in PWD and paid for by her years of ‘cleaning do do” claimed that after finding nothing but children’s clothes and toys the SF torched the house as reprisal for the burning of a police station in Denham Town several days prior to the incursion.
It could be argued that the government has accepted responsibility for some of the killings by providing funeral grants to 64 families. The government could hardly claim that it was providing funeral grants to families of gunmen who fired on the SF.
Role of the media
Journalists were not allowed to cover the Tivoli ‘incursion’ even though there were images of brave TV journalists in bullet proof vests taking cover during shooting incidents in Denham Town. There are reports of journalists being threatened when they wished to continue to cover the unfolding development in Tivoli. Even so the media raised no howl about not being allowed to do their job. Their passivity failed the cause of justice and failed those who were savagely murdered.
Conclusions
1. The Tivoli incursion and the subsequent massacre of civilians was based on a counterinsurgency doctrine probably formulated by the Military Intelligence Unit. In the Jamaican context the view is that gangs and garrisons are at war with the state and the state in order to repel that perceived “insurgency” must bring greater violence to bear on the insurgents. Counterinsurgency is not a normal police operation. It is tantamount to a declaration of war by the state. Counterinsurgency as practiced by the US in Vietnam, Iraq and Pakistan makes little distinction between armed combatants and the civilian population who are regarded as the chief basis of support for the insurgents. As such this type counterinsurgency practice is by definition criminal and against the rules of war.
2. War was declared on Tivoli and the wider west Kingston area including Denham Town. No distinction was made between armed combatants and the civilian population.
3. The threat to the state posed by gunmen loyal to Coke was greatly exaggerated and was used as a pretext to carry out this planned counterinsurgency operation.
4. When Bruce Golding was no longer able to stall the extradition of Coke on legal grounds, and under pressure from both the United States and local groups, almost being forced to resign, he opportunistically fell in line with the counterinsurgency plan.
5. The MIU was already pressing by having visited both the DPP and Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne very early in the extradition process to indicate their special concern about the Coke extradition matter.
6. Bruce Golding as prime minister and head of the defence board authorized what he knew would bring bloodshed to the ordinary residents of Tivoli in order to save his political career.
7. The war crimes, and criminal conduct of the security forces must be laid squarely at the feet of Golding. Not since Governor John Eyre who in 1865 gave the orders for the massacre of thousands of people in Morant Bay has a Jamaican head of state acted in such a desperate and despicable manner.
8. The police commissioner in an attempt to cover up the massacre told enough lies to bring attention to his intimate involvement in planning of the operations or his support for what happened. Either way his involvement is of a criminal nature and ought to be prosecuted.
9. The Chief of Staff of the JDF was mostly silent but no less culpable for crimes against humanity.
10. It is known that Senior Superintendent Glenmore Hinds, since promoted to Deputy Police Commissioner was the ground commander and bears direct responsibility for the massacre.
11. Many people have been demanding a Commission of Enquiry into what happened. This may serve some purpose but will in the end result in a whitewash of the actions of the security forces and Golding’s role. The 2001 enquiry into the west Kingston operation did the same thing. One should expect the Manat Commission to do the same.
12. It is incumbent on civil society to use all legal means, and all peaceful political means to have the architects removed from office and prosecuted.
13. We advocate a People’s Commission of Enquiry where all the people of Tivoli and Denham Town who either witnessed of suffered brutality at the hands of the security forces should be allowed to testify to give Jamaica a deeper understanding of the true nature of the crimes committed in May 2010.
14. This matter should be reported to the international criminal court for action to be taken.
Lloyd D’Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
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