September 21, 2000
 

JAMAICANS UNITED AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY 

Dear friends, 

 We are happy that the British Government has decided to maintain its ban on selling guns to Jamaica's police force. We already called for the maintenance of that ban in a recent press release. Note, however, that a defiant Prime Minister has said that they will get the guns elsewhere. And note that Baroness Scotland, a black woman born in Dominica, says the British  are looking for a way to resolve the matter.

 Our  mission must be to keep up the pressure  in order  to prevent a back door deal; and to keep highlighting police brutality in Jamaica.

 As Frederick Douglass once said: 'Our oppression, as pervasive and organized as it is, will seem utterly undefeatable, even 'till the last hour of its demise.' Thanks to Monique Jarvis for that quote.

 Gun ban stays SHAUNA BRANDON - Observer Staff Reporter

 British foreign office minister, Baroness Scotland, made clear yesterday that the Tony Blair government maintained its concern for the human rights record of the Jamaican police force and would maintain its ban on the sale of guns to the constabulary until it was convinced that there was an improvement.

 BARONESS YOUNG...told Knight that gun ban stays "I was obliged to tell the minister of national security (K D Knight) that at the moment we are not comfortable about selling arms that he had asked for," Baroness Scotland said yesterday in luncheon speech to the Jamaica/British Business Association.

 "...We hope that this position will not be a permanent one and we are looking for a way to resolve this problem."

Britain has been particularly concerned about the level of police homicide in Jamaica and it was revealed last month that Blair's Labour government had refused a licence to a UK arms manufacturer to sell 500 handguns to the Jamaican police.

 Jamaican police shot dead 151 people in 1999, and have so far this year killed more than 100.

 The police frequently claim that they shoot in self-defence and point to Jamaica's high crime rate and the number of police officers killed in the line of duty -- six so far this year -- as defence for their own shootings.

 Baroness Scotland explained that the decision by her government on withholding the guns stemmed from a tougher stance on police excesses in the UK and the desire to apply similar standards to its external relations.

 In any event, the authorities have stressed that police homicides are significantly down from the 1980s and point to recent efforts to halt the excessive firing of weapons by the police. Police commissioner, Francis Forbes, recently re-issued the constabulary's policy on the use of force and Knight called a major meeting of policemen to tell them about the government's concern about their use of the gun.

 Forbes himself has argued that Britain's ban on gun sales to the constabulary placed his men at risk, and others have pointed out that it would be better for Jamaican officers to be armed with handguns rather than M16 rifles with which they often patrol the streets.

 However, Baroness Young, the Dominica-born black peer who entered joined the Foreign Office a year ago with responsibility for the Caribbean, said that the decision on Jamaica was in step with Britain's approach to gun sales around the world.

 "The UK government adopted a tough policy on the export of arms to police and military forces, particularly where deaths of civilians have been questioned," she said.

 It was UK policy, she explained, that arms should not be used unless "absolutely critical", an approach that the British public had demanded from its own police. This had led to increased scrutiny of police action.

 "In Britain, each and every incident where guns are used or police actions have to be questioned, has to be fully investigated by the Police Complaints Authority, which is made up only of civilians," Baroness Young said.

 Baroness Scotland arrived in Jamaica on Monday, just in time to pick up on the angry response by Prime Minister P J Patterson, to the UK's position when he spoke at the public session of the annual conference of his ruling People's National Party (PNP), on Sunday.

 Patterson made clear that his government would go elsewhere to get the guns, and suggested that Britain was behaving like a colonial power.

 However, such public posturing would unlikely have carried over in the meetings between Knight and the Foreign Office minister and that which she has planned with Patterson today before departing for Cuba.

 In fact, the Baroness stressed that the UK was supporting law and order programmes in Jamaica. Including training to enhance the effectiveness of the local police force.

 Among the programmes she announced was £3-million ($190-million) project, starting next month and running for five years, for the modernisation of the Jamaican police.

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