Tweet
MARK WIGNALL
Thursday, May 21, 2009
After the almost total devastation of the PNP at the polls by the JLP in October 1980, newly elected prime minister, Eddie Seaga, made his famous "malice towards none" speech which pretty much left many of the shenanigans of the PNP government of 1972 to 1980 un-investigated and dead in our history books.
MARK WIGNALL
The glory and the euphoria which follow the winning of general elections lie 180 degrees apart from the rough, the tumble and the usually sombre and mentally racking business of running a country.
Following the 1980 elections, a dose of reality must have dawned on Seaga. Any public pressures which had surfaced during the heady campaign stage to "lock dem up" had to be placed alongside the serious business of rescuing an economy which had suffered a 25 per cent decline between 1974 and 1980.
The more we apply hindsight to guide our 20:20 vision of Michael Manley is the clearer it becomes that it was political naivety of the highest order that made Michael Manley believe that he could face down the bosses of the World Bank and the IMF and their stereotyped positions against "state centred" social policies and the super-powerful US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, who declared in another forum that "America has no friends, only interests". As sub-headings, Manley also gravely underestimated the power of the local business elite and worse, the individualistic profile of the little man and woman at street level. And of course, the CIA.
And all that after he had, apparently without much thought, declared in 1974 his administration's "democratic socialist" path, embraced Cuba's Fidel Castro at the height of the Cold War, conveniently forgot the basic tenets of the Monroe Doctrine and totally misread the political directions of the American electorate, most of whom wanted America the Brave to redeem itself after its destructive intrusion into Vietnam and its embarrassing, tail-turning run out of the Asian theatre.
As much as Manley made his impact on rewriting many social ills which many were pretending did not exist, the Great Conceptualiser made a grievous error by seemingly placing his personal historical perspective in a position of greater priority than the everyday business of keeping the economy on track. Although both were by no means mutually exclusive, Manley's role as giant killer resulted in no giants dead, the social fabric of the country ripped apart, the rise and preponderance of the gun culture in politics (in both political tribes) and the economy in tatters.
In any case, official inquiries into the State of Emergency (1976) and the Green Bay killings (1978) which were instituted after the JLP win resulted in not a single person even being spanked on the rear end. As an example that administrations in power do poorly at investigating their own, in May 1976 gunmen shot up a tenement at Orange Lane, torched the place, 10 people died, including at least one baby who was snatched from a woman's arms as she ran out and thrown back into the inferno.
A Commission of Inquiry was ordered by Governor General Sir Florizel Glasspole and it was conducted by the eminent Justice Ronald Small who was the father of Hugh Small, a legal luminary and then a cabinet minister in the PNP government.
When the results of the inquiry were secretly released prior to the PNP's win in December 1976, it had made mention of then PNP housing minister Tony Spaulding's involvement in the Orange Lane fire. In what became famous because of its infamy, Justice Small referred to Tony Spaulding as having "more than a blushing acquaintance with gunmen".
The PNP did what all derelict, Third-World administrations would do. It turned on the messenger, in the process excoriating Justice Small while his son, a man of unquestionable integrity, witnessed the rot and began placing distance between himself and that sort of politics.
When Omar Davies, then PNP finance minister in the 1990s, began the process of dismantling the Century National Bank, it was done immediately after the Don Crawford-run entity had bought a significant sum of US dollars at a few dollars more than the price that the official exchange rate indicated. The bank did nothing which other banks were not doing in a time when an inept PNP government was struggling with managing a market economy which it knew little about.
What the sale of those dollars did was reveal that the very same Finance Ministry was covertly dispatching agents with huge stocks of cash in the trunks of their cars to buy US dollars at prices above the official exchange rate.
With blood rushing to its head, an embarrased PNP government set about withdrawing public funds from the Century National Bank, making it publicly known, and in the process it started a run on the bank which was seemingly designed to end its life. That, however, is a sad history for the most progressive bank existing in Jamaica at that time.
In 2003 in a letter to the Gleaner, Don Crawford, now reduced to an endless wave of persecution and penury and subject to arrest should he return home from Atlanta, said, "It is also significant to note that neither Finsac nor the Minister of Finance has provided any account reconciliations for the hundreds of millions of dollars of assets so far collected from proceeds of sale of CNB Group assets, nor has there been any transparency in terms of prices negotiated or settled, persons or entities to whom they are sold or adjustments to the judgement claims, despite formal requests in writing, including a letter sent by senior counsel on May 17, 2001."
At all junctures Mr Crawford has been made to feel as if he is a criminal, while over the years assets which once were covered under the Century Group have been sold off at way below market value. The question is, why the secrecy? With Mr Crawford's 89-year-old mother and his 60-year-old ex-wife unable to access even the minimum of funds for medication to ease their recurring ailments, one is forced to conclude that "other objectives" were involved in bringing ruination to Crawford and the entities his entrepreneurial spirit had brought about.
`The inquiry into the operations of Finsac is anxiously awaited. Although there are real horror stories involving those who dared to put their money into a belief that business in Jamaica was more than a possibility, I am of the firm opinion that the Century Group should be placed as a special item in the inquiry.
It says volumes about an administration that destroys the best that its native population can produce. The black entrepreneurial class which manifested itself in the late 1980s to the early 1990s was eventually wiped out - totally - by the dictates of the Finance Ministry in the mid-1990s.
The PNP government of that time and Omar Davies can take "pride" in the fact that men and women, proud people who produced and stood tall, have been broken, brought to their knees and devastated to the point that all they can look forward to now is an early death to save them from the pain of relentless persecution and penury. Lord knows they have already died a thousand deaths.
At this stage, can we expect the JLP administration to walk out to the bat and attempt to reverse some of the heinous wrongs perpetrated against Don Crawford? With bated breath, we wait.
observemark@gmail.com
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum..._CRAWFORD_.asp
Thursday, May 21, 2009
After the almost total devastation of the PNP at the polls by the JLP in October 1980, newly elected prime minister, Eddie Seaga, made his famous "malice towards none" speech which pretty much left many of the shenanigans of the PNP government of 1972 to 1980 un-investigated and dead in our history books.
MARK WIGNALLThe glory and the euphoria which follow the winning of general elections lie 180 degrees apart from the rough, the tumble and the usually sombre and mentally racking business of running a country.
Following the 1980 elections, a dose of reality must have dawned on Seaga. Any public pressures which had surfaced during the heady campaign stage to "lock dem up" had to be placed alongside the serious business of rescuing an economy which had suffered a 25 per cent decline between 1974 and 1980.
The more we apply hindsight to guide our 20:20 vision of Michael Manley is the clearer it becomes that it was political naivety of the highest order that made Michael Manley believe that he could face down the bosses of the World Bank and the IMF and their stereotyped positions against "state centred" social policies and the super-powerful US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, who declared in another forum that "America has no friends, only interests". As sub-headings, Manley also gravely underestimated the power of the local business elite and worse, the individualistic profile of the little man and woman at street level. And of course, the CIA.
And all that after he had, apparently without much thought, declared in 1974 his administration's "democratic socialist" path, embraced Cuba's Fidel Castro at the height of the Cold War, conveniently forgot the basic tenets of the Monroe Doctrine and totally misread the political directions of the American electorate, most of whom wanted America the Brave to redeem itself after its destructive intrusion into Vietnam and its embarrassing, tail-turning run out of the Asian theatre.
As much as Manley made his impact on rewriting many social ills which many were pretending did not exist, the Great Conceptualiser made a grievous error by seemingly placing his personal historical perspective in a position of greater priority than the everyday business of keeping the economy on track. Although both were by no means mutually exclusive, Manley's role as giant killer resulted in no giants dead, the social fabric of the country ripped apart, the rise and preponderance of the gun culture in politics (in both political tribes) and the economy in tatters.
In any case, official inquiries into the State of Emergency (1976) and the Green Bay killings (1978) which were instituted after the JLP win resulted in not a single person even being spanked on the rear end. As an example that administrations in power do poorly at investigating their own, in May 1976 gunmen shot up a tenement at Orange Lane, torched the place, 10 people died, including at least one baby who was snatched from a woman's arms as she ran out and thrown back into the inferno.
A Commission of Inquiry was ordered by Governor General Sir Florizel Glasspole and it was conducted by the eminent Justice Ronald Small who was the father of Hugh Small, a legal luminary and then a cabinet minister in the PNP government.
When the results of the inquiry were secretly released prior to the PNP's win in December 1976, it had made mention of then PNP housing minister Tony Spaulding's involvement in the Orange Lane fire. In what became famous because of its infamy, Justice Small referred to Tony Spaulding as having "more than a blushing acquaintance with gunmen".
The PNP did what all derelict, Third-World administrations would do. It turned on the messenger, in the process excoriating Justice Small while his son, a man of unquestionable integrity, witnessed the rot and began placing distance between himself and that sort of politics.
When Omar Davies, then PNP finance minister in the 1990s, began the process of dismantling the Century National Bank, it was done immediately after the Don Crawford-run entity had bought a significant sum of US dollars at a few dollars more than the price that the official exchange rate indicated. The bank did nothing which other banks were not doing in a time when an inept PNP government was struggling with managing a market economy which it knew little about.
What the sale of those dollars did was reveal that the very same Finance Ministry was covertly dispatching agents with huge stocks of cash in the trunks of their cars to buy US dollars at prices above the official exchange rate.
With blood rushing to its head, an embarrased PNP government set about withdrawing public funds from the Century National Bank, making it publicly known, and in the process it started a run on the bank which was seemingly designed to end its life. That, however, is a sad history for the most progressive bank existing in Jamaica at that time.
In 2003 in a letter to the Gleaner, Don Crawford, now reduced to an endless wave of persecution and penury and subject to arrest should he return home from Atlanta, said, "It is also significant to note that neither Finsac nor the Minister of Finance has provided any account reconciliations for the hundreds of millions of dollars of assets so far collected from proceeds of sale of CNB Group assets, nor has there been any transparency in terms of prices negotiated or settled, persons or entities to whom they are sold or adjustments to the judgement claims, despite formal requests in writing, including a letter sent by senior counsel on May 17, 2001."
At all junctures Mr Crawford has been made to feel as if he is a criminal, while over the years assets which once were covered under the Century Group have been sold off at way below market value. The question is, why the secrecy? With Mr Crawford's 89-year-old mother and his 60-year-old ex-wife unable to access even the minimum of funds for medication to ease their recurring ailments, one is forced to conclude that "other objectives" were involved in bringing ruination to Crawford and the entities his entrepreneurial spirit had brought about.
`The inquiry into the operations of Finsac is anxiously awaited. Although there are real horror stories involving those who dared to put their money into a belief that business in Jamaica was more than a possibility, I am of the firm opinion that the Century Group should be placed as a special item in the inquiry.
It says volumes about an administration that destroys the best that its native population can produce. The black entrepreneurial class which manifested itself in the late 1980s to the early 1990s was eventually wiped out - totally - by the dictates of the Finance Ministry in the mid-1990s.
The PNP government of that time and Omar Davies can take "pride" in the fact that men and women, proud people who produced and stood tall, have been broken, brought to their knees and devastated to the point that all they can look forward to now is an early death to save them from the pain of relentless persecution and penury. Lord knows they have already died a thousand deaths.
At this stage, can we expect the JLP administration to walk out to the bat and attempt to reverse some of the heinous wrongs perpetrated against Don Crawford? With bated breath, we wait.
observemark@gmail.com
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum..._CRAWFORD_.asp
Comment