Are there tunnels in Tivoli?

[Sir X]

Are there tunnels in Tivoli?
Mark Wignall

Sunday, June 06, 2010

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FORMER Commissioner of Police Francis Forbes was appointed at a time when Tivoli was in one of its perennial conflicts with the police. It was some time in 1996.
In one of his first TV appearances in 1996 he told viewers that he had been informed by his senior officers that there were tunnels in Tivoli Gardens. I took him to task on that revelation and was of the belief that if he had that information, the place to divulge it was not on national television.

SEAGA… should never get away with this fable



SEAGA… should never get away with this fable

1/1

It was at a time when I had just left writing for the Sunday Herald and began doing the same for the much wider readership of the Jamaica Observer. After I had spoken on various radio programmes about the matter, Mutty Perkins and myself were invited to tour Tivoli Gardens in an effort to determine if there were indeed tunnels there.
Fourteen years later, I still feel foolish to have even attempted such an exercise. Perkins and Seaga arrived in Tivoli together while I had taken a taxi there. As I suspected, Perkins was more mouth than bravado so he did the safe thing by travelling to Seaga’s house on Paddington Terrace then hopped a ride with Seaga to Tivoli Gardens.
I had taken with me a tape measure and some other stuff that I cannot recall now.
Tell the truth, Mutty Perkins

While Mutty basked in the adoration of his many fans in Tivoli, with the help of some young men in Tivoli Gardens I set about looking for tunnels. I tried to examine the spots where we would least expect to find them while saying to myself, “If I should find a tunnel, what then?” Would I have said, ‘Over here, I have found one. Nuff gun in deh.” Damn fool me.
The following Monday, Perkins was in his element on his programme declaring that both he and Mark Wignall had gone looking for tunnels and none were found.
Incredibly, Eddie Seaga was recently on Impact telling Emily Crooks that he had taken Mutty Perkins in Tivoli to look for tunnels. If he was referring to that time, which I believe he was, that was rank dishonesty and merely exposes Seaga once again for the fake ‘nationalist’ that he claims he is.
Perkins and his lovely wife did not at any time move from the spot close to the community centre. He did not at any time look for any tunnels. I was the one who did so. Seaga should never get away with this fable which lies conveniently in some space in his apparently calcified mind, and of course Perkins seems to believe that he should just let that story run.
I would suggest that the former commissioner, wherever he is, should consult with those who were his senior officers and ask them if all they were doing was running off their mouths. But are there tunnels in Tivoli?
Ask Tivoli.
Don’t come back, Bruce, says West Kingston

After having survived the predictable outcome of the no-confidence vote in the House, Prime Minister Golding, still being bombarded by calls for his resignation, made a tour of Tivoli Gardens to witness first-hand the damage inflicted on Tivoli by the eyewall of the recent ferocious social hurricane.
Hoping that the operations of the security forces would quickly position him as the author of the ‘assault on criminal elements’, early readings from his political operatives on the ground must have told him that he was persona non grata in West Kingston. Backed into yet another corner, he would be harshly criticised by the media and Tivoli residents if he didn’t visit and damned by Tivoli residents if he did.
Forced to the wall yet again, he did the next best thing. He visited but used the security forces to block out the media cameras, the angry stares and the numerous voices which would have starkly reflected the truth of his unwelcome status.
“Dat deh man deh,” said one of my contacts there. “Him done inna West Kingston. Wi nuh want him yah so. A Babsy wi want!” I suspect, however, that Babsy Grange would not want to take on the hot potato that West Kingston is.
It is not guesswork that many of the main armed street forces in Tivoli and the wider West Kingston hurriedly packed up and left once they felt the ferocity of the army incursion inside Tivoli. The question as to how many of those killed were gunmen and how many were just civilian casualties caught up in a war zone have not yet been determined, but knowing how we do business in this country, it is rather doubtful that those facts will ever come to light.
The very lack of young men in the community tells a sobering if tense and fearful truth. No war has been won and a peace treaty has not been presented to this nation. The Tivoli ‘soldiers’ have retreated for their own preservation and the guns have been stashed away. It is more than a possibility and even a likelihood that some of those young men who were drawn into a destructive subculture years ago are, wherever they are, seething and planning for another time. Could their anger spill over and be reflected in any future regrouping and renewed attack?
The prime minister and his team will be doing what politicians all over the world do; spinning the recent events to his benefit. It may not be right in the eyes of many in the population but, in politics, it is quite valid simply because politics is not a game for the angelic.
I cannot see him returning to West Kingston anytime soon. He cannot agree to a switch with Babsy Grange, his sports and culture minister, to return to his old stomping ground of Central St Catherine because the strongest support in that garrison constituency has all of the flavour of a little Tivoli.
So, castigated and openly spurned by ‘the heart of Seaga’s baby’ and still teetering on the razor’s edge with calls for his resignation, where can he go? If he survives the rest of the term and if the forces of disorder do not get up and smack him and the nation in the face, he will be forced to go on the hustings for one of the three new constituencies being carved out.
A commission of enquiry into the circumstances which led to the deaths of so many in Tivoli must be set up as soon as possible to determine who were killed, how they were killed, who were innocents and who were gunmen firing at the security forces. It seems to be a long shot for
anyone of us to believe that the security forces were simply firing at duppies, but it is obvious that something went wrong.
If, however, the verdict for the enquiry is already in before it is appointed, then it simply means that Jamaica has no interest in purging itself of a past that has done more to destroy us than deliver us into social, civil and economic betterment.
The Case for Golding’s Resignation

When questioned by Dr Peter Phillips in the House in March about the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips (MPP) matter, knowing what we know now by Golding’s own admission, the force and confidence with which he responded to Phillips and denied that there was any such arrangement points to a leader whose word on any matter in the future must be taken as very suspect.
Second, when the enormity of the pressure from the PNP Opposition and the media closed in on him, the prime minister relieved Information Minister Daryl Vaz of further comment on the matter and appointed Karl Samuda, Cabinet minister and JLP general secretary, to investigate and report on the issue.
Knowing what we know now, the prime minister was the very person who had removed the lock from his office door and allowed in others, yet months after doing so and burdened with public pressure, he appointed Karl Samuda to make a determination as to who had removed the lock from his office door. Absolutely incredible!
Third, when calls for his resignation bombarded his office and his consciousness, he came to this nation and, apologised, but failed to properly address both points while firmly insisting that the engagement with MPP was a JLP party initiative.
One year after Digicel exploded in Jamaica, a text message came upon my phone while I was asleep. My lady heard the beep, looked over at me snoring and, not seeing any movement on my part, she did what any other woman would do. She read it. But she took it a step further. Pretending she was me, she engaged in a series of exchanges with the lady on the other end. When the lady sent, ‘I was thinking of you. Call me now,’ my more than impish Chupski sent back, ‘My girlfriend is beside me. Will call you later.’
It was foolish of me to have given this person my phone number and the indiscretion on my part was close to unforgivable.
After awaking me with the phone hard on my forehead and bites on my chest she asked me to declare all that had happened. I explained and pointed out to her my imperfections, my weaknesses and apologised to her, declaring my undying passion. “You are apologising only because you were caught,” she reasoned.
I said to her, “Had I not been caught, there would have been no reason to apologise, but it was a moment’s indiscretion and I had long told her that there was nothing for us beyond the moment.”
I was forced to search my soul because, at that moment, faced with the possibility of damaging something real good, I had to divulge ALL, plus she listened in as I called the other lady to tell her that we could no longer communicate, by phone or by personal intimate contact.
Many of us in the nation are still of the view that Golding’s apology was only made to stave off the blow to his head and the bites to his chest. The indiscretion remains and, more than anything else, the fact that he is taking us all for fools suggests that he is still seeing the lady.
I maintain that the MPP engagement was one arranged by the JLP administration and not by the JLP as a private entity to act in conflict with the elected Government.
When all the ducks are lined up, the case for the prime minister’s resignation is a very sound one.
The Case against Golding’s Resignation

A day after I had expressed in an email to a VIP that I would be calling on the PM to resign, the man, a scholar but more of a pragmatist, wrote back, “And who would you suggest is there to replace him?”
Important consideration. Chairman of the JLP and Deputy Prime Minister Dr Ken Baugh did significant damage to his reputation when he sat down with Gen Sec Karl Samuda, a man used to the political trenches, and proclaimed solidarity with the prime minister before his apology.
Had the PM resigned and the constitutional requirements were met to place Baugh in Jamaica House, would he have the political savvy to control the troops until there was a special conference to allow delegates to elect a leader? Additionally, in the months following, surely the pressure would be on for general elections with a good chance for the PNP to be elected.
What would the nation have accomplished? We would have had Golding’s convenient apology, then his resignation, then an election, then the PNP, then Portia Simpson Miller as prime minister. And as much as we would have congratulated ourselves for ridding ourselves of the JLP and Golding’s deceptions, we would have to remind ourselves that Portia Simpson Miller had never even halfheartedly offered an explanation of her own role in Trafigura or deemed it necessary to extend an apology to this nation.
The two Cabinet ministers who have set themselves apart from the rest have been Education Minister Andrew Holness and Agriculture/Fisheries Minister Christopher Tufton. Both have been executing their portfolio responsibilities without the usual hype of the Neanderthals cluttering up the JLP Cabinet.
Both men have been on the radar, but they are political neophytes and it is doubtful whether they could control what would increasingly become a very fractious JLP administration and political party.
The other consideration inside the JLP would be their electoral viability relative to Simpson Miller. For this reason and the very real fact that the economy would have been at a delicate point that could become derailed by an election in, say, October 2010, JLP insiders would consider that the only pragmatic option available would be to slog it out, bear the public criticism and govern day-to-day in the hope than an economic turnaround in mid-2011 to 2012 would bear fruit at the next general elections.
And we should never omit from the equation the external influences, usually kept under the radar, of the US and/our EU partners on our internal political affairs. One suspects that Golding in this instance has to dance to another country’s tune, especially because of our delicate balancing act on the economy.
When the cases of both scenarios are placed alongside each other, it is my belief, albeit a personal one, that the case for resignation stands on a firmer moral foundation. In the real world, however, some may adopt the view that when both cases are examined, political pragmatism will always win out.
Minister Tufton, look carefully into this
Over the last few weeks I have written two columns in reference to the Customs seizure of the fishing vessel, the MV Abbey which was detained in Port Antonio in April.
I had pointed out that the owner, Frank Cox of DYC fishing, had had established fishing breaches in two instances in the US courts system and had suggested that DYC fishing should no longer have fishing licences in the Jamaican jurisdiction.
Every little fisherman in Jamaica with his 15-foot canoe with outboard motor must have a fishing licence and the occupation is one of the most hazardous in the world. Why therefore should we allow a company with a large motor vessel to take undersized lobsters from our waters and sell them to the Americans, and bask in the glory of getting away with that particular breach in our jurisdiction by being rewarded with the maintenance of his licenc?.
On Thursday I called Mr Cecil Thoms of the Agriculture/Fisheries Ministry to ask him a question about DYC fishing. Is the wife of Mr Frank Cox also in possession of a fishing licence?
Yes, he told me.
I am imputing nothing here, only that if by some investigation occurring as this column is read and Mr Cox’s fishing licence is revoked, he has an option, a very obvious one. Enough said.

[Sir X]

The time for purging
HOWARD GREGORY

Sunday, June 06, 2010




THERE is a tradition of which the younger generation may be unaware but into which most of us were initiated and which we could not escape. It was the practice of the administration of the purgative at the end the long summer vacation and in preparation for the new academic year and the return to serious business.

From the perspective of the older generation, the alimentary canal of the youngsters needed to be purged off all the summer fruits and extraneous matter which had been consumed if it were to be restored to optimal health. Notwithstanding the fact that the science on which this tradition was practised was of a dubious nature, and some of the purgatives administered, including some of the worm medicines, were determined to be potentially harmful to the health of the children, these practices, like many others of our cultural practices, have been dismissed as mere superstition and folk science.

GOLDING... has made some serious errors of judgement in the handling of matters relating to the Coke extradition



GOLDING... has made some serious errors of judgement in the handling of matters relating to the Coke extradition

1/1

At the same time, I would posit the notion that, far from being a mere meaningless exercise, it represented a ritual expression of a time of transition in the life of the youngsters with the movement toward a new school year and the end of extended play.

This nation now finds itself in a situation of crisis which demands the administration of a serious dose of purgative if we are to transition from the quagmire in which we now find ourselves and on to a path of national health, development, and wholeness. The social decline in Kingston and St Andrew has been in the making for a long time. For several decades the nation has watched its political leaders and activists create political garrisons which were intended to serve the narrow political interests of its architects and those of the political parties.

It functioned not only by creating a situation of dependence and loyalty on the part of residents but was propped up by a culture of violence and control through an alliance with armed thugs, who through violence and intimidation were able to maintain a monolithic culture of political allegiance.

Where these communities were not built by such megalomaniacs with public funds, they encouraged the mushrooming of squatter communities, usually while they were part of the opposition party in Parliament, and then sought the granting of tenure for residents who now represented a solid block of votes.

There is ample evidence to support the process of development of this political culture of garrisons and the alliance of political leaders with thugs who were subsequently armed with guns and became a full-scale criminal arm of the political parties in constituencies all across the nation. Our political culture has now developed to a stage where it is probably impossible for any candidate to be elected to Parliament without having such a support base.

Thus was born a political culture of alliance between political leaders and the criminal element held in place by corruption, pork barrel politics, and a system of award of contracts and the disbursement of public funds which, even today, attempt to defy the best efforts of the contractor general to bring conformity to the procurement policies.

Laurie Gunst, in the book Born Fi' Dead: A Journey Through The Jamaican Posse Underworld, provides a clear articulation of the way in which the armed thugs of the political garrisons claimed their freedom from the politicians and moved into a more lucrative option of migration, drug-trafficking, and gun-running. Freed from dependence on handouts from politicians, this criminal element became the patrons and godfathers of communities, filling the void left by the failure of the political system to deliver social services to the people of these communities in-between election campaigns.

Unlike the position taken by many, I do not believe that criminality simply begins in the mind and heart of the criminal and then finds expression in criminal acts. I believe that we have nurtured a culture of indiscipline, neglect, corruption, and patronage, which has led persons to believe that doing the right thing and conforming to the law will only bring them the shaft.

Boorishness, violence, roadblocks, graft, and circumvention of the law became the means by which many persons sought to survive and pursue their way of life. This is evident in the level of violence and the multiplicity of gangs in evidence in schools and in communities among the youth, and in the prominent place in which women now figure in acts of criminality and in the defence of criminals as we have seen in Spanish town and in the "white" demonstration last month in West Kingston.

Some Jamaicans sought to deal with the developing situation by opting for migration, while the majority of us tended to settle for a position which ensured the perpetuation and growth of the alliance between criminality and the political leaders and aspirants. Many of us decided to take the party line and to justify every manifestation of criminality in this sphere by citing the wrongs committed by the other political party. So even as hundreds of lives are snuffed out in any one year or campaign, we can find justification for what is transpiring by citing the perceived greater evil that transpired under the watch of the other party.

And so, even today as we deal with the extradition request, it is impossible for some of us to have a rational discussion of the issue without citing what is perceived to have been the failures in the Trafigura Scandal as a vindication of any course which may be followed in resolving this issue.

Others of us just dismiss the situation as another expression of the nature of politics and politicians. Others claim powerlessness in effecting any changes to the political culture, even as others turn to religion as an escape from responsibility by claiming adherence to an apocalyptic world view which leaves the resolution of these matters to God who will ultimately defeat the demonic forces of the world.

Even as we witnessed the carnage of the 1980s with the murder rate soaring to new heights, we muttered words of protests from our verandahs and excused this development by consoling ourselves with the rationalisation that both major political parties were guilty. There was, however, no sustained demand that the political parties and the government of each decade should take a strong stand against the culture of crime and violence which had been cradled in the bosom of party politics. For the most part, we simply awaited a messiah in a commissioner of police, a minister of justice, or some charismatic political leader who would bring the situation under control.

Unfortunately, things had to come to a head at some point, and this is what we have been witnessing over the last few weeks in Jamaica leading to the declaration of a limited State of Emergency. This was a necessary step to which I lend my support, and for this the Government and the security forces need to be commended.

What we have witnessed over the last few weeks is a challenge by criminal elements to the forces of law and order and our democracy. This was no manifestation of persons at play and whose game was simply misread as a war in progress. I witnessed first-hand the nature of the criminal attack on the forces of law and order when I made several attempts to reach the airport on Tuesday, May 25 and ran into live exchanges of gunfire on three different thoroughfares in the city of Kingston.

As expected, there are voices which would seek to minimise the reality of what we are witnessing and to put a political label on what has transpired. The security forces should be allowed to proceed with their mission unfettered, while the Government ensures that the execution of the same is in conformity to the laws of the country and international conventions.

Recognising the fact that Tivoli Gardens is not the only garrison or seat of criminal activity, the State of Emergency should be extended to other communities as deemed necessary so that we can arrest this tide of criminality, and those who have retreated to a culture of silence or support for criminals in their communities, or who thrive on their patronage, must learn from the Tivoli experience that such a stance is not child's play.

This is now the time for purging, but who will undertake it? One of the realities of the back-to-school purge is that parents never left the children to administer their own medicine as they knew there was always an avoidance strategy in place. Notwithstanding the pious proclamations from representatives of both political parties, I do not believe that we will see any significant change if we simply leave it up to them. I believe a coup has taken place in Jamaica which has not been acknowledged and which has to be taken to its logical conclusion.

The protests of citizens and civic groups over Prime Minister Bruce Golding's handling of the extradition request for Christopher Coke and the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips fiasco have forced the Government into retreat and to an unprecedented apology from the prime minister. The attempt of the party functionaries to close ranks against the protest of the society did not work. We have now realised that we have power to effect changes beyond the periodic use of the ballot box.

What does this exercise of power look like? Sadly, I still believe that the prime minister has made some serious errors of judgement in the handling of matters relating to the Coke extradition and has done serious damage locally and internationally to his credibility and ability to continue to lead this country. Whether he wins a lawsuit five years down the road against the ABC network will make little difference.

The international media have already carried the story across the globe. In addition, the responses coming from the Diaspora are nothing short of shock and disbelief concerning the handling of this matter. The jury will be out for a while yet, but the question of whether the violence which was witnessed over the last few weeks would have taken this form if the situation had been handled differently by the Government is a serious issue for many.

For now, the Government needs to remain intact to see us through the State of Emergency. Nevertheless, I do not believe that it can be business as usual for the leadership and the administration.

The citizens of this country must realise that there is a serious challenge before us of values and strategy. When mothers of children who are frequently violated by criminal elements can insist that one who has been accused of the most heinous crimes should be left alone because he is their source of financial support, then you know we have a monumental problem.

This is a long-term challenge to which the society must wake up in demanding justice, equity, and responsiveness of our system of governance to addressing the needs of citizens. Additionally, we must use all of the leverage at our disposal as individuals and civic groups to demand a dismantling of the criminal alliance between politics and the criminal element, and greater transparency and accountability in the administration of the affairs of this country.

We can choose to go back to the long, lazy summer of pretence as we watch criminality prosper and take over our country, undermine our institutions, and count the spiralling murder statistics. On the other hand, we can choose to make this a truly significant moment of transition in the life of our nation when we take back our country from the forces of destruction and death and settle down on a path that makes for healing, growth, and development. There may be some political casualties along the way, but if that is what it takes, bring on the purgative.

-- Howard Gregory is the Suffragan Bishop of Montego Bay

[Exile]

The incestiousness of the socio-politico diatribe....

[Muadib]

Whatever you said.... nutting nuh guh suh !

[Exile]

Drink some coffee and come back...that's your offering?

[Sickko]

Poor Mark, his last two Sunday columns were so far off the mark it was not even funny...seems his so called people on the ground either dont exist or they dont know squat..he made so many wrong statements last week about bombs being dropped in the community as well as bodies being burnt yet no one found any such evidence and we can only assume he wrote his lies before the truth came out...once again if you cnat verify with solid sources...best leave it out...

didnt he see the tunnells on the CVM news cast earlier in the week?

Cme on Mark get the facts right