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The secret behind the political secret
WIGNALL’S WORLD
MARK WIGNALL
Sunday, May 23, 2010
IN late 2006 when the Trafigura revelations had caught the PNP's bare feet on the burning hot pavement, and the party's general secretary and government Minister of Information Colin Campbell was offered up as a sacrificial lamb via his resignation, a senior member of the PNP told a radio journalist by telephone that "more heads should roll".
Before the journalist could return from the commercial break he quickly called back and asked that the journalist consider what he had said as confidential. He asked that it be withdrawn. By journalistic codes, there was no choice but to comply but, in doing so, a bigger story suffered a stillbirth.
PHILLIPS… said he had only known Willie Haggart as a “corner youth”
SEAGA… attended the funeral of Jim Brown
SIMPSON MILLER… has found cause to go angelic
var caption4515127 =
PHILLIPS… said he had only known Willie Haggart as a “corner youth”
1/3
Regularly politicians, in opposition and those holding power, will hold face-to-face conversations with columnists like myself and totally frustrate us by giving us crucial, confidential information that we cannot report on. What it does, however, is provide us with a broader context in which to frame our articles.
In the 17 years that I have been writing newspaper columns it has been driven home most forcefully to me that what comes out as news to the public is only about 20 per cent of what actually happened because party politics, which has as its main objective the advancement of the people's welfare, operates like a secret, fraternal order even though it advertises 'transparency' as its calling card.
It has always been an understanding of so-called simple folk in Jamaica that politicians from both sides of the political fence tend to bond across hotel poolside tables and in uptown bars even as they flay each other in heated 'debate' in Gordon House. But sometimes the bonding may be even closer.
As Prime Minister Bruce Golding grapples with the biggest battle of his political life over the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips affair and the 'Dudus' extradition and arrest order, the PNP has been doing what all opposition parties do — wade headlong into the issue and hurl barbs, especially while the issue of garrison politics is fully on the front burner.
While the PNP rails against the prime minister, and Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller has found cause to go angelic, I was really amazed when I heard Dr Peter Phillips (to me, a better choice for PNP president) telling Emily Crooks that when he attended the funeral of PNP enforcer Willie Haggart he had only known him as a "corner youth".
When just about everyone within 50 miles of the Black Roses Crew corner knew the shady connections of Willie Haggart, like Dr Omar Davies, Peter Phillips — a highly educated and intelligent man and himself the holder of a garrison constituency — seemed to have found it convenient to play 'hear no evil, see no evil'. More candour is expected from him as he places himself in the forefront of criticising the government over the Dudus extradition matter.
Dons on the radar since the late 1990s
After the Special Intelligence Unit was disbanded in 1999, many of the details of what went on there were surreptitiously 'slipped under my door'.
Set up under Police Commissioner Francis Forbes, it was headed by super spy Roderick 'Jimmy' McGregor and it was disbanded after it was revealed that Jimmy had tapped the phones of people, including senior policemen, politicians and community dons.
From the documents I saw, among some of the names whose phone conversations were intercepted were Zeeks (PNP), Willie Haggart (PNP) and Dudus (JLP) and certain well-known politicians. I was not able to see a transcript of the conversations so I cannot say that any illegal activities were detected as a result.
I have written extensively on the links between JLP and PNP street forces which I first detected in September 1998 when gunmen from Tivoli, Rema and Hannah Town forgot their party tribal differences and openly walked along the streets of the western side of downtown Kingston with high-powered rifles and kept the security forces fleeing after Zeeks, the PNP enforcer for Matthews Lane, was detained by the police.
It was obvious to me at that time that the PNP and JLP street forces had had enough of the stale and tired political leadership which in previous years merely abused poor people's trust, sucked the vote out of them every five years then left them to their own devices.
As those street forces increased their trade in illicit drugs, more arms were brought in and the extortion racket, otherwise known as 'tax', was partitioned off along PNP and JLP lines. Much more importantly, the dons became the effective government as most of these taxes were used to fund the poor and send their children to school, feed them and assist in dealing with health matters and the funerals of old people.
The loyalty now being shown to Dudus extends to the western end of the island and it would be foolish for the security forces to underestimate the resolve of these well-armed factions.
While we must never condone criminality and the rule of the gun, there is a large constituency of people who have grown up under the 'government' of these dons because of the retreat of political leadership, political expediency and that destructive link between the politics and the gun.
It is quite OK for us who are educated, have reasonable incomes and can plan ahead, to lambast the people who will come out in support of Dudus, but if we are not in their skins and have not lived their despairing lives when politicians fed them only lip service, we will never have a complete understanding of the reality facing them.
In the interim, based on my gut feeling, I hope we survive this weekend.
How so quiet, Mr Seaga?
In 1984, after Shower Posse (muscle) leader Lester Lloyd 'Jim Brown' Coke left Tivoli Gardens with many goons and guns and, in the aftermath, eight men in nearby Rema were shot dead, then Prime Minister Eddie Seaga and other senior JLP ministers drank beer with him in Rema after the predictable not-guilty verdict. To Seaga, it was his way of brokering the peace between the JLP factions in Rema and Tivoli.
In 1991, Seaga attended the funeral of Jim Brown after a mysterious fire consumed him while he was in a jail cell awaiting extradition. And yet, three years later, that same Seaga had the temerity to draft a list of 13 'troublemakers' from Tivoli, a list which included Brown's son, 25-year-old Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
My question to Seaga is, what made Jim Brown palatable to you in the years leading up to 1991 but yet, you could not find common cause with Dudus? Many know the answers, but of course you are as quiet as a church mouse.
Did known JLP funders assist Peter Phillips?
In the 2006 PNP presidential race it was widely reported that the campaign for Dr Omar Davies had amassed about $300 million. With him securing just about 300 delegate votes, at $1 million per vote, that had to have been the most expensive election anywhere in the world.
In the 2008 presidential race between Portia Simpson Miller and Dr Peter Phillips, funding was always going to be a problem because very few were prepared to spend money on a party which had just lost a general election.
It was no secret that the JLP would always prefer to see Peter Phillips as PNP president than Portia Simpson Miller whom they quite rightly saw as a more formidable candidate because of her ready appeal to the so-called 'masses'.
In this connection a JLP source 'pushed something under my door', hardly earth-shattering, that in the 2008 PNP internal elections Dr Peter Phillips had approached a certain JLP person with a view to seeking funding for him through JLP sources which were thought to be cash rich. According to the document 'pushed under my door', significant funding was obtained for Dr Phillips.
When I spoke to Dr Phillips on Thursday he told me a slightly different story. While he did not call a name, he said, "It was they (the JLP) who approached me, in a very informal setting and offered to assist me. They gave me a set of names and on the list were some people whom I had already approached. Plus, many promised but nothing materialised. Is there something wrong with that?"
I agree with Dr Phillips that there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, but I couldn't help but wonder if some of those contributors were among those who contributed to the JLP in the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips matter.
A first step in 'dismantling' garrisons
My friend, Denzil 'Wizzy' McDonald, an ardent supporter of the PNP, had a telephone conversation with me last week. I expressed the view that the JLP Cabinet should convince the prime minister to eventually divest himself of the West Kingston constituency where he has been made persona non grata and seek a seat in one of the new ones being formed. Wizzy dismissed my argument and put forward a different solution.
Many people who are fed up of garrison politics and the rule of the gun simplistically believe that the garrisons can be dismantled by political decree, that is, sing some hymns, read a few Bible verses and tell the people to love PNP and JLP. It is much bigger than that because there are people living in those enclaves who will vote either PNP or JLP even if they travel to Jupiter.
According to Wizzy, the Electoral Commission should make a close examination of these constituencies and carefully carve and create new physical boundaries where each new constituency will have about a 50:50 split of JLP and PNP voters. "What that would do is force the representative to make an equal appeal to ALL voters across the political divide. They would have to work their butts off to secure the vote and only results would matter in that case."
It would not be easy, of course, but it would be a meaningful start.
You missed the point, Mr Cecil Thoms
In a response to two columns which I wrote on the activities of DYC Fishing, Mr Cecil Thoms, director, communications and public relations in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, took the opportunity to outline a nice little PR piece for the ministry.
He began with, "In an article yesterday, following on another written by him two Sunday's ago, surrounding the detention of the fishing vessel, the MV Abbey, and the seizure of its cargo [in this case lobsters] by the Jamaica Customs Department, Mr Wignall argues that 'if the Jamaican authorities are serious about regulating those who're given licences to fish in our waters, much more due diligence must be applied especially in the face of dwindling fish supplies.'
And then he went on to outline the successes of the ministry.
Mr Thoms, all I was pointing out was that DYC shipping has two fishing licences and it has two proven breaches in the US courts, one of which included the catching and shipping of undersized lobsters to the US.
It was more than implied that I was exhorting the ministry to pay special attention to the two fishing licences in the possession of DYC.
But if I brought out an opportunity for PR on behalf of the ministry, then at least there was something positive in the whole matter. Plus I need to point out that I am a great admirer of the work of Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Chris Tufton and had no pressing need to criticise the ministry.
Hope you understand that, Mr Thoms.
observemark@gmail.com
WIGNALL’S WORLD
MARK WIGNALL
Sunday, May 23, 2010
IN late 2006 when the Trafigura revelations had caught the PNP's bare feet on the burning hot pavement, and the party's general secretary and government Minister of Information Colin Campbell was offered up as a sacrificial lamb via his resignation, a senior member of the PNP told a radio journalist by telephone that "more heads should roll".
Before the journalist could return from the commercial break he quickly called back and asked that the journalist consider what he had said as confidential. He asked that it be withdrawn. By journalistic codes, there was no choice but to comply but, in doing so, a bigger story suffered a stillbirth.
PHILLIPS… said he had only known Willie Haggart as a “corner youth”
SEAGA… attended the funeral of Jim Brown
SIMPSON MILLER… has found cause to go angelic
var caption4515127 =
PHILLIPS… said he had only known Willie Haggart as a “corner youth” 1/3 Regularly politicians, in opposition and those holding power, will hold face-to-face conversations with columnists like myself and totally frustrate us by giving us crucial, confidential information that we cannot report on. What it does, however, is provide us with a broader context in which to frame our articles.
In the 17 years that I have been writing newspaper columns it has been driven home most forcefully to me that what comes out as news to the public is only about 20 per cent of what actually happened because party politics, which has as its main objective the advancement of the people's welfare, operates like a secret, fraternal order even though it advertises 'transparency' as its calling card.
It has always been an understanding of so-called simple folk in Jamaica that politicians from both sides of the political fence tend to bond across hotel poolside tables and in uptown bars even as they flay each other in heated 'debate' in Gordon House. But sometimes the bonding may be even closer.
As Prime Minister Bruce Golding grapples with the biggest battle of his political life over the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips affair and the 'Dudus' extradition and arrest order, the PNP has been doing what all opposition parties do — wade headlong into the issue and hurl barbs, especially while the issue of garrison politics is fully on the front burner.
While the PNP rails against the prime minister, and Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller has found cause to go angelic, I was really amazed when I heard Dr Peter Phillips (to me, a better choice for PNP president) telling Emily Crooks that when he attended the funeral of PNP enforcer Willie Haggart he had only known him as a "corner youth".
When just about everyone within 50 miles of the Black Roses Crew corner knew the shady connections of Willie Haggart, like Dr Omar Davies, Peter Phillips — a highly educated and intelligent man and himself the holder of a garrison constituency — seemed to have found it convenient to play 'hear no evil, see no evil'. More candour is expected from him as he places himself in the forefront of criticising the government over the Dudus extradition matter.
Dons on the radar since the late 1990s
After the Special Intelligence Unit was disbanded in 1999, many of the details of what went on there were surreptitiously 'slipped under my door'.
Set up under Police Commissioner Francis Forbes, it was headed by super spy Roderick 'Jimmy' McGregor and it was disbanded after it was revealed that Jimmy had tapped the phones of people, including senior policemen, politicians and community dons.
From the documents I saw, among some of the names whose phone conversations were intercepted were Zeeks (PNP), Willie Haggart (PNP) and Dudus (JLP) and certain well-known politicians. I was not able to see a transcript of the conversations so I cannot say that any illegal activities were detected as a result.
I have written extensively on the links between JLP and PNP street forces which I first detected in September 1998 when gunmen from Tivoli, Rema and Hannah Town forgot their party tribal differences and openly walked along the streets of the western side of downtown Kingston with high-powered rifles and kept the security forces fleeing after Zeeks, the PNP enforcer for Matthews Lane, was detained by the police.
It was obvious to me at that time that the PNP and JLP street forces had had enough of the stale and tired political leadership which in previous years merely abused poor people's trust, sucked the vote out of them every five years then left them to their own devices.
As those street forces increased their trade in illicit drugs, more arms were brought in and the extortion racket, otherwise known as 'tax', was partitioned off along PNP and JLP lines. Much more importantly, the dons became the effective government as most of these taxes were used to fund the poor and send their children to school, feed them and assist in dealing with health matters and the funerals of old people.
The loyalty now being shown to Dudus extends to the western end of the island and it would be foolish for the security forces to underestimate the resolve of these well-armed factions.
While we must never condone criminality and the rule of the gun, there is a large constituency of people who have grown up under the 'government' of these dons because of the retreat of political leadership, political expediency and that destructive link between the politics and the gun.
It is quite OK for us who are educated, have reasonable incomes and can plan ahead, to lambast the people who will come out in support of Dudus, but if we are not in their skins and have not lived their despairing lives when politicians fed them only lip service, we will never have a complete understanding of the reality facing them.
In the interim, based on my gut feeling, I hope we survive this weekend.
How so quiet, Mr Seaga?
In 1984, after Shower Posse (muscle) leader Lester Lloyd 'Jim Brown' Coke left Tivoli Gardens with many goons and guns and, in the aftermath, eight men in nearby Rema were shot dead, then Prime Minister Eddie Seaga and other senior JLP ministers drank beer with him in Rema after the predictable not-guilty verdict. To Seaga, it was his way of brokering the peace between the JLP factions in Rema and Tivoli.
In 1991, Seaga attended the funeral of Jim Brown after a mysterious fire consumed him while he was in a jail cell awaiting extradition. And yet, three years later, that same Seaga had the temerity to draft a list of 13 'troublemakers' from Tivoli, a list which included Brown's son, 25-year-old Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
My question to Seaga is, what made Jim Brown palatable to you in the years leading up to 1991 but yet, you could not find common cause with Dudus? Many know the answers, but of course you are as quiet as a church mouse.
Did known JLP funders assist Peter Phillips?
In the 2006 PNP presidential race it was widely reported that the campaign for Dr Omar Davies had amassed about $300 million. With him securing just about 300 delegate votes, at $1 million per vote, that had to have been the most expensive election anywhere in the world.
In the 2008 presidential race between Portia Simpson Miller and Dr Peter Phillips, funding was always going to be a problem because very few were prepared to spend money on a party which had just lost a general election.
It was no secret that the JLP would always prefer to see Peter Phillips as PNP president than Portia Simpson Miller whom they quite rightly saw as a more formidable candidate because of her ready appeal to the so-called 'masses'.
In this connection a JLP source 'pushed something under my door', hardly earth-shattering, that in the 2008 PNP internal elections Dr Peter Phillips had approached a certain JLP person with a view to seeking funding for him through JLP sources which were thought to be cash rich. According to the document 'pushed under my door', significant funding was obtained for Dr Phillips.
When I spoke to Dr Phillips on Thursday he told me a slightly different story. While he did not call a name, he said, "It was they (the JLP) who approached me, in a very informal setting and offered to assist me. They gave me a set of names and on the list were some people whom I had already approached. Plus, many promised but nothing materialised. Is there something wrong with that?"
I agree with Dr Phillips that there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, but I couldn't help but wonder if some of those contributors were among those who contributed to the JLP in the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips matter.
A first step in 'dismantling' garrisons
My friend, Denzil 'Wizzy' McDonald, an ardent supporter of the PNP, had a telephone conversation with me last week. I expressed the view that the JLP Cabinet should convince the prime minister to eventually divest himself of the West Kingston constituency where he has been made persona non grata and seek a seat in one of the new ones being formed. Wizzy dismissed my argument and put forward a different solution.
Many people who are fed up of garrison politics and the rule of the gun simplistically believe that the garrisons can be dismantled by political decree, that is, sing some hymns, read a few Bible verses and tell the people to love PNP and JLP. It is much bigger than that because there are people living in those enclaves who will vote either PNP or JLP even if they travel to Jupiter.
According to Wizzy, the Electoral Commission should make a close examination of these constituencies and carefully carve and create new physical boundaries where each new constituency will have about a 50:50 split of JLP and PNP voters. "What that would do is force the representative to make an equal appeal to ALL voters across the political divide. They would have to work their butts off to secure the vote and only results would matter in that case."
It would not be easy, of course, but it would be a meaningful start.
You missed the point, Mr Cecil Thoms
In a response to two columns which I wrote on the activities of DYC Fishing, Mr Cecil Thoms, director, communications and public relations in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, took the opportunity to outline a nice little PR piece for the ministry.
He began with, "In an article yesterday, following on another written by him two Sunday's ago, surrounding the detention of the fishing vessel, the MV Abbey, and the seizure of its cargo [in this case lobsters] by the Jamaica Customs Department, Mr Wignall argues that 'if the Jamaican authorities are serious about regulating those who're given licences to fish in our waters, much more due diligence must be applied especially in the face of dwindling fish supplies.'
And then he went on to outline the successes of the ministry.
Mr Thoms, all I was pointing out was that DYC shipping has two fishing licences and it has two proven breaches in the US courts, one of which included the catching and shipping of undersized lobsters to the US.
It was more than implied that I was exhorting the ministry to pay special attention to the two fishing licences in the possession of DYC.
But if I brought out an opportunity for PR on behalf of the ministry, then at least there was something positive in the whole matter. Plus I need to point out that I am a great admirer of the work of Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Chris Tufton and had no pressing need to criticise the ministry.
Hope you understand that, Mr Thoms.
observemark@gmail.com
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