September 23, 2000
 

JAMAICANS UNITED AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY 
 

  Dear Friends,

 The website for Jamaicans United Against Police Brutality (JUAPB) is in construction as we speak and when completed our discussion will be posted on that site.

  For those who are rapidly joining this widening group discussion (not all by choice we admit, and you simply have to respond "Remove From List" if you do not wish to receive any further emails about what we are doing)  let me quickly summarize  our objectives:

 1. To build an international campaign against Jamaican state policy of police executions.  For over thirty years the Jamaican police have been killing innocent people with impunity. Governments have come and gone and done nothing to end the practice. Clearly it suits their purposes, politically,  and as a method of social control. We merely have to remind ourselves that there is a structural unemployment rate hovering near 20%. A national disaster in any European country. The response in Jamaica is to use to the most brutal police methods to intimidate  and contain those who most feel the pain of poverty and underdevelopment.

 2. Our search for solutions must involve Jamaicans at home and abroad and all those other non-Jamaicans who equally believe that we are all entitled to enjoy our inalienable rights as human beings whether we are Jamaicans or not.

  3. JUAPB started in New York among a group of Jamaican activists who believe enough is enough. On September 7, we had a demonstration on the occasion of Prime Minister PJ Patterson's visit to the UN. We plan to have another rally on October 14 at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn where we intend to strengthen our support amongst the progressive community. At this rally we will be circulating a petition calling upon Patterson to institute certain changes to check the practice of police executions. One of those demands is for a Coroner's Court to hear all cases of police killings. Another is to place criminal investigation of the police into  the hands of an independent body of investigators who will bypass the Director of Public Prosecutions and submit their  findings directly to the Coroner's Court.

 We are under no illusions that this will stop this endemic and criminal practice tolerated by governments and sections of the state machinery and the political establishment, but we are firm in our resolve that if within a reasonable period of time Prime Minister Patterson refuses to acknowledge or make the appropriate moves to deal with the problem, then we reserve the right to call for an international boycott of Jamaica's tourism industry as a method of forcing changes.  New York is the media capital of the world and Patterson should not underestimate our ability to use that access.

 There have been responses to this threatened move against the tourist industry as we expect there would be and so we are using this medium to facilitate debate and discussion.

 We should emphasize,  however, that the debate is not just about tourism. The debate in its broadest sense  is about the lack of opportunity and human rights enjoyed by poor Jamaicans; state sponsored repression; and how to bring about justice.

 Patterson recently started a debate about gay rights when he said that homosexuality would not be legalized though he will establish  a commission to consider decriminalizing the use of ganja. Why not also establish a commission to end the criminalization of people on the basis of their sexual orientation?

 We would like to thank Staceyann Chin, a very dynamic Jamaican poet and open lesbian advocate on behalf of  the human rights of lesbian and gays for having the courage to start off this aspect of the debate.

 We look forward to your comments.

 Lloyd D'Aguilar  Coordinator  Jamaicans United Against Police Brutality

STACEYANN'S RESPONSE TO COMMENTS ALREADY POSTED

 Thank you Aisha and Karen- I appreciate that you can hear me.

  Sondjata,  I am happy to be in dialogue with you. If we are talking, then the ball is rolling. I suppose, though, your response only proves that what we need more than anything in this struggle is visibility.

      With all due respect. If in any given society, only 10% of the population is   Homosexual, I fail to see how even with all of them gone or under pressure to be    "invisible," would affect the economy of Jamaica. The overwhelming reason why     persons who leave Jamaica and stay gone are economic, and that economic     condition has little of anything to do with homosexuality or phobia on the island.

  Only 10%? Where do your statistics come from? I doubt that those numbers are in keeping with any study done after the medical profession admitted that homosexuality was not a disease. In Jamaica, the visible number is low- especially for men- because they get killed- lose their jobs and their families, if we know who they are.  Not everyone can afford the bars we need to protect us from ourselves. So they remain in hiding and live the secret lives that give them at least the appearance of safety.

  I lived that life in Jamaica. The 10% you so proudly boast is what most people would like to think. I wish you could truly know how many people are here in just New York because of this. Many of us could eke out a life- and because uncle sam's land is no bed of roses, some of us could do better at home- but we can't live there- because voices like yours continue to insist that we are not a viable sector of society, and that voice is sanctioned by the very laws of the land. That is some kind of Hitler regime. How can you make a state of being illegal? I can't change being lesbian, just like I cannot change being black, or woman, nor would I want to.

  And even if you do believe in the "10% facade" take a look at the success rate of any oppressed group. The Jews have serious economic power in this country, the black middle-class is growing in leaps and bounds, even the Chinese in our own backyard have the kind of money that makes the island sit up and take notice. Individuals of oppressed groups work harder, because it takes twice the convincing- twice the qualification and twice the elbow grease for us to be hired. Just like the women who have to be twice as good to work alongside the men- so it is with us. America is not the Utopia- but here we have a chance- and if you take a look at Caribbean Pride- the gay and lesbian organization here in New York- you will see the large and moderately successful middle-class, for which, Jamaica has no room.  Come on, now, even at 10%, the devaluing dollar could do with our help.

  Perhaps your friends and your fathers and your sisters and your cousins will not admit their "imagined crimes" to you- you seem particularly unsympathetic to the cause- but take the chance- ask them.  Perhaps some of them will tell you, and it might help you to dispense with a theory based on lack of knowledge, steeped in the Christian dogma- that has everyone believing that we should all wear the same kinds of clothes, think the same way and have orgasms the same way.

  We are here, Sondjata.  In real numbers, with real checkbooks, and real feelings and real connections to you and those you love.  We only hide, because you would kill us if you could see us.

  Thank you again, for your response.   Staceyann Chin

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