July 16, 2001
JAMAICANS UNITED AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY Dear Friends, It sounds almost obscene but in the aftermath of police operations in Western Kingston which left 25 people killed and 40 wounded, not to mention torture and illegal detention of people in their homes, the main concern of government is rehabilitation of Jamaica's image as a tourist destination rather than repair of what is obviously wrong with the social system. The politics of patronage has kept inner city communities divided and created young men without education and without jobs as candidates for the various armies in need of soldiers. None of the political parties has a comprehensive plan to redevelop the inner cities. None of the them is serious about radical reform of the police. Without simultaneously addressing these issues, police killings will continue and there will be no end to warfare and strife between communities. In response to those who complained about our "balance" it may be in order to make the following points: (1) It is at this time difficult to determine the exact sequence of events in Western Kingston but it is clear that the police responded in a disproportionate way to whatever attacks they came under, and, in the end acted far worse than the criminals who supposedly attacked them. (2) We make no apology for never accepting anything the police say at face value – they are compulsive liars – remember Braeton? (3) The government of the day, headed by PJ Patterson, must be held criminally responsible for police brutality; and (4) In so far as the question of human rights becomes an issue in the upcoming elections we are looking forward to radical proposals for change, not rhetoric and cosmetic fluff. Finally, the pathetic performance of KD Knight, minister of national security and justice, on a recent Breakfast Club radio program, points to one of the reasons why the government has such a dismal human rights record. Lloyd D'Aguilar
CAROLYN GOMES (Jamaicans For Justice): Minister [KD Knight], you are not coming across as Minister of Justice. You are just standing up for the police. You, as Minister of Justice, need to speak for the 21 people who were killed, and for the people who were under siege. You need to speak to the wider question of protection of the human rights of all. We have had a war with casualties that are not acceptable. YVONNE SOBERS (Families Against State Terrorism): I am following on what Carolyn said. I am not hearing your concern for the 21 or 25 bodies left on the streets. I am in touch with people in the community and I am aware of the trauma they have endured KD KNIGHT (Minister of National Security and Justice): Clearly she did not hear me on Question Time [a TV show] last night. She did not hear me in Parliament yesterday or over the years YS: Enlighten me, Minister. KDK: On my part it's always a distressing thing when anyone is killed whether in self defence or accident or deliberate killing. I keep reminding citizens that we have had excessive police behaviour over the years. We are coming from where police killed 300 plus people [killed] under Seaga SUSAN GOFFE (Jamaicans For Justice): I am tired of this business of going back. I abhor that. You continue to use that to justify the present rate. Whether the killings happen under JLP or PNP, I don't care. YS: You are politicking with people's lives. CG: I agree. KDK: I am not here to hold the phone and listen. I am not interested in a monologue. If you don't know what has happened, you cannot measure progress. No one is saying we are at the level we ought to be, but there is progress. For example, we never used to have an independent investigative body. This government repealed the Suppression of Crime Act........ YS: At the end of all this we have 21 people dead on the street, including Madda Bungle who was a mentally ill woman who walked the streets. Police killed her on Saturday and left her body on the street to rot. Is this progress? KD: We have halved the number of killings..... I have come out in condemnation of police abuse YS: Clearly your measures are not working. DAMIAN KING (Breakfast Club Co-Host): You are making comparisons with 15 years ago. We still have the highest rate of police killings. Have you seen any improvement over the past 8 years? KDK: It's kept at the same level. TONY ABRAHAMS (Breakfast Club Co-Host): I just heard Piers Bannister [Caribbean Research section of Amnesty International] on BBC saying that police killings here are the highest in the world. KDK: Bannister doesn't impress me. CG: With 21 dead, Piers Bannister is not the issue YS: What are you going to put in place so we have no recurrences? The incident has had world wide publicity and tourist trade is in problems. That ought to have some impact on you even if you are unmoved by the people dead on the streets. What are you going to put in place? KD: I have spoken about my personal grief. No one here has a deeper sense of regret than I. The difference is that I do something about it. TA: What? KDK: I have set up investigative processes to ferret out the truth YS: In a practical sense, what are you going to do to help people bury their dead? [Silence] KDK: We have helped many with funeral expenses TA: I have a concern about the security forces... KDK: I am concerned about gunmen. The security forces have rights too. I have the right to walk without fear of gunmen. CG: Or police. TA: What about those who couldn't walk around and were kept confined to their homes? KDK: That's an allegation. If [Seaga] admits that an exchange of gunfire took place, couldn't it have been criminal gunfire that kept people in their homes? How do we know that people were killed by the police? Since these people on this programme are such paragons of virtue and of justice, why are they jumping to conclusions? YS: The people were killed in a police operation. Police were therefore responsible for the loss of citizens' lives. When we have an operation like this, what is the point? I agree we need to contain gunmen, but Tivoli was not searched, despite the siege. Police claim to have intelligence when all they may have is something somebody told them....... KDK: Whenever you want to have discussion and set ground rules, I will return. This is not discussion but monologue. TA: There has been a tendency toward monologue all round this morning. KDK: Something is not coming through. People have been trying to present themselves as caring and others as callous. I used to defend persons for free. Sometimes I see people on the streets who need medical help. I want a professional police force. The government put a Public Defender in place. I don't want people to keep talking because there is no Utopia CG: In JFJ we have not presumed to know how people died. The issue is not whether it was by security force bullets. DK: Yvonne raised a crucial point. If police have an operation and gunmen kill people, the operation is a failure. It doesn't matter who fired the bullet. KD: I didn't know I was being asked whether or not the operation was a failure. If police killed citizens, they must face the full consequences of the law. TA: I understand the police picked up some men and some were released KD: That's normal. CG: It's not an allegation that people were kept off the street. I saw it myself when I went to the community on Tuesday with the church. We were returning to our cars and residents behind us were turned back by security forces and not allowed to go to a shop. KD: The police would have imposed a curfew if they wanted to restrict movement DK: Carolyn was an eyewitness. KDK: I have cross-examined many eye-witnesses and found them to be liars. DK: Carolyn is here. Cross-examine her. KD: I don't have time for that. DK: Are you saying Carolyn is lying? SG: We saw many policemen without ID numbers. They were dressed in blue. They had vests on, and showed no numbers. KD: When policemen reach certain levels, they don't have numbers SG: How then are citizens to be able to identify policemen when they are abused? KDK: I think all policemen should wear numbers. SG: So why don't they? KDK: Rome was not built in a day YS: Since you can't believe Carolyn's account, why don't you got to Tivoli Gardens and find out for yourself what happened? [Silence and mumble] KDK: This was to have happened years ago but it didn't materialize. Click here to return to Jamaicans United Against Police Brutality homepage. |