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Potential of the Tivoli incident
Friday, January 18, 2008
Last Sunday's raid on West Kingston's Tivoli Gardens, in which the security forces took out five men, has thrown up some interesting developments which should not be overlooked.
The announcement of a coroner's inquest into the incident by Prime Minister and Member of Parliament Bruce Golding is not the most significant of those developments, we suggest.
Tivoli Gardens is easily the most well-known enclave in West Kingston. In fact, some people refer to the two as if they are synonymous. The community, once called 'Back 'O' Wall', has been an ardent supporter of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) since 1963 when the West Kingston constituency returned former Prime Minister Edward Seaga as the MP.
Under Mr Seaga's stewardship, it was transformed into a model community, with modern facilities that caught the attention of other Third World settlement authorities. But the area never managed to shake off the stigma of its designation as a garrison community, where members of the opposing People's National Party (PNP) ventured at their own risk.
Importantly, Tivoli Gardens also had a tenuous relationship with the police force, which wrongly or rightly perceived it as off limits to the security forces. Several attempts by the police to carry out operations in the community ended up in raging controversy.
The last two operations before Sunday's are still fresh in people's minds: the Reneto Adams-led one in which 27 persons lost their lives, and the raid which caused now Police Commissioner Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin to describe it as "the mother of all garrisons". He was at the time chief of staff of the Jamaica Defence Force.
Sunday's incident, and we come to our point, had two very significant departures from the previous ones. First, the councillor for the area, Mayor and Senator Desmond McKenzie, praised the professionalism of the security forces; and MP Bruce Golding allowed some days to elapse before commenting on the matter. When he did it was measured and appeared to be more objective than we had come to expect.
Secondly, the comment by the Opposition spokesman on National Security, Dr Peter Phillips, was that of a statesman among statesmen. He resisted the temptation to score political points by drawing attention to the difference in the response of Messrs Golding and McKenzie when raids were conducted under the PNP's watch.
This is the first time that we can remember since the 1970s that a police operation in Tivoli Gardens has not been mired in political kass-kass.
Within those two departures lies true potential for a different approach to political treatment of police operations from henceforth. This should be the model for all future operations by the security forces.
We don't share the view of the cynics that Commissioner Lewin is laying the basis for raids on political enclaves, like Arnett Gardens, which are controlled by the Opposition PNP. In fact, we believe that the forces entered Tivoli Gardens based on a tip that wanted men from St James' vicious Stone Crusher Gang were holed up there.
Prime Minister Golding did the right thing by putting the matter to a coroner's inquest where the facts have a chance of being sifted. The court of public opinion often has very little interest in the truth.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Last Sunday's raid on West Kingston's Tivoli Gardens, in which the security forces took out five men, has thrown up some interesting developments which should not be overlooked.
The announcement of a coroner's inquest into the incident by Prime Minister and Member of Parliament Bruce Golding is not the most significant of those developments, we suggest.
Tivoli Gardens is easily the most well-known enclave in West Kingston. In fact, some people refer to the two as if they are synonymous. The community, once called 'Back 'O' Wall', has been an ardent supporter of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) since 1963 when the West Kingston constituency returned former Prime Minister Edward Seaga as the MP.
Under Mr Seaga's stewardship, it was transformed into a model community, with modern facilities that caught the attention of other Third World settlement authorities. But the area never managed to shake off the stigma of its designation as a garrison community, where members of the opposing People's National Party (PNP) ventured at their own risk.
Importantly, Tivoli Gardens also had a tenuous relationship with the police force, which wrongly or rightly perceived it as off limits to the security forces. Several attempts by the police to carry out operations in the community ended up in raging controversy.
The last two operations before Sunday's are still fresh in people's minds: the Reneto Adams-led one in which 27 persons lost their lives, and the raid which caused now Police Commissioner Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin to describe it as "the mother of all garrisons". He was at the time chief of staff of the Jamaica Defence Force.
Sunday's incident, and we come to our point, had two very significant departures from the previous ones. First, the councillor for the area, Mayor and Senator Desmond McKenzie, praised the professionalism of the security forces; and MP Bruce Golding allowed some days to elapse before commenting on the matter. When he did it was measured and appeared to be more objective than we had come to expect.
Secondly, the comment by the Opposition spokesman on National Security, Dr Peter Phillips, was that of a statesman among statesmen. He resisted the temptation to score political points by drawing attention to the difference in the response of Messrs Golding and McKenzie when raids were conducted under the PNP's watch.
This is the first time that we can remember since the 1970s that a police operation in Tivoli Gardens has not been mired in political kass-kass.
Within those two departures lies true potential for a different approach to political treatment of police operations from henceforth. This should be the model for all future operations by the security forces.
We don't share the view of the cynics that Commissioner Lewin is laying the basis for raids on political enclaves, like Arnett Gardens, which are controlled by the Opposition PNP. In fact, we believe that the forces entered Tivoli Gardens based on a tip that wanted men from St James' vicious Stone Crusher Gang were holed up there.
Prime Minister Golding did the right thing by putting the matter to a coroner's inquest where the facts have a chance of being sifted. The court of public opinion often has very little interest in the truth.
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