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A commission of the three blind mice
CHRIS BURNS
Monday, June 27, 2011
THE verdict is in and it reads "Half 'N Half", but we cannot pour it into our coffee. Seriously, though, I take no pleasure in saying I told you so.
In fact, it is awkward now having to admit that I was correct in declaring that the Dudus/Manatt Commission of Enquiry was not only going to be a colossal waste of taxpayers' money, but that it would also turn out to be a brutal misuse of time and a charade of unprecedented proportions. And although passions ran high and tempers flared when this column made the pre-emptive strike by assailing our proclivity to celebrate announcements, like when Prime Minister Bruce Golding announced that he had asked the Governor General to empanel the Manatt/Dudus Commission; in the deep recesses of my heart and for Jamaica's sake, I prayed to be wrong.
Admittedly, I came to my conclusion about the uselessness of a commission before I reviewed the commissioners' bona fides and the terms of reference. I was uncomfortable with the prime minister choosing the judges to adjudicate a matter in which he was materially involved. I was not optimistic that the commissioners would be strong enough to "call a spade a spade", let alone rule in a manner consistent with an independent and brave commission.
I did not feel that the commissioners, collectively or individually, had a sound reading on the situation at hand. I made it clear that if at the time leading up to, during, and after the Tivoli incursion, these guys were "under tight wraps" and knew nothing of the 74 people who were killed and of the hundreds left traumatised at the hands of the state, then they had an obligation to recuse themselves. But in a bizarre turn of events, they all accepted Golding's invitation and jumped feet first into the boiling ocean of controversy. Evidently, they accepted without due consideration the obviousness of the irreparable damage they were about to do to their reputation. It is very sad that the construct of the commission gave little comfort, by way of confidence; no wonder the public's negative perception of it.
Nevertheless, and in true Machiavellian style - where the tendency to deceive and manipulate is always paramount - PM Golding advised the Governor General to create the Commission of Enquiry. Thereafter, Émil George, Donald Scharschmidt and Anthony Irons were named commissioners with the mandate to "look into" the handling of the US extradition request for Christopher "Dudus" Coke, and the circumstances surrounding the hiring of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips. Readers may find the "look into" instruction ironic, given the tenure of the report.
That aside, the mishandling of the extradition request, the subsequent hiring of Manatt Phelps and Phillips and the efforts to cover it up remind me of several things that are unsettlingly complex about human behaviour, and confirm an inconvenient truth my late father shared with his children about vision and actions. He told us: "Vision is not merely the ability to see. Blindness, therefore, cannot just be an inability to see, but human actions consolidate the two and are most demonstrative of human thinking which will, over time, remove all doubts - good or bad". For, in his attempt to cosy up to certain sectarian and business interests and as an act of political appeasement, PM Golding announced the expensive commission, but did nothing to dislodge the very "straw man" his government not only created, but also defended when it spoke about Coke's constitutional rights, and alas, the three blind mice upheld this specious rhetoric.
Given the foregoing, there was no need to establish a commission of enquiry to examine something the PM, and all of us already knew and which, by the PM's own admission, he sanctioned. Again, all that was required was for Mr Golding and Ms Lightbourne to resign, for at the very least, the cost to the national treasury would have been substantially less.
The Jamaican public cannot absolve itself from the expensive "dolly house" that went on at the Jamaica Conference Centre under the guise of a Commission of Enquiry, because it too failed to bring pressure on Mr Golding and Ms Lightbourne to resign. We abdicated our responsibility as citizens to "stand up for justice, brotherhood and peace" and we shall continue to pay dearly for our reticence in this matter. As I saw it, the only acceptable remedy for this impeachable breach of trust was for Mr Golding and Justice Minister Ms Dorothy Lightbourne to resign and make way for a fresh start - because good public service demands no less.
But back to the commissioners. Having read their 58-page, "Grand Old Duke of York" kind of a report, the public is asking: How could they conclude that no one was responsible for the slaughter of innocent people, or for the social and economic disaster that ensued? Were these commissioners lying in their recliners listening to Mozart's Symphony #40 in G Minor and sipping wine, totally oblivious to the many "nine-nights" where chants of "Go dung a Manuel Road, Gal and Boy fi go bruck rock stone" rang from the empty bellies of the poor? Were the commissioners unaware of the fact that citizens' constitutional rights were abridged through the imposition of the State of Emergency and the fiasco that cost the economy almost $11 billion? The people now believe that these gentlemen were blinded by their own refusal to see that our parliament was treated with contempt; that the office of the prime minister was brought into disrepute, that the country's image was sullied, that the buck stopped somewhere and that somebody should have been held responsible.
Many more believe that these gentlemen were transported from another world and knew not that the entire saga was manufactured by a political party, whose leader decided to pursue a path of reckless interference in a matter he and his party had no business interfering with.
But as hard as it may appear, if any good should emerge from this circus, it must take the form of a national call for us to "rise and trim wi lamp" because ominous clouds are about to descend on us. Going forward, it should not be in the remit of a prime minister to name commissioners or commissions of enquiry. All commissions of enquiry should be approved by parliament, requiring more than a simple majority; mandating that a sitting or retired Supreme Court Justice preside over these proceedings and with full powers of a Supreme Court.
Burnscg@aol.com
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1QTja95ye
CHRIS BURNS
Monday, June 27, 2011
THE verdict is in and it reads "Half 'N Half", but we cannot pour it into our coffee. Seriously, though, I take no pleasure in saying I told you so.
In fact, it is awkward now having to admit that I was correct in declaring that the Dudus/Manatt Commission of Enquiry was not only going to be a colossal waste of taxpayers' money, but that it would also turn out to be a brutal misuse of time and a charade of unprecedented proportions. And although passions ran high and tempers flared when this column made the pre-emptive strike by assailing our proclivity to celebrate announcements, like when Prime Minister Bruce Golding announced that he had asked the Governor General to empanel the Manatt/Dudus Commission; in the deep recesses of my heart and for Jamaica's sake, I prayed to be wrong.
Admittedly, I came to my conclusion about the uselessness of a commission before I reviewed the commissioners' bona fides and the terms of reference. I was uncomfortable with the prime minister choosing the judges to adjudicate a matter in which he was materially involved. I was not optimistic that the commissioners would be strong enough to "call a spade a spade", let alone rule in a manner consistent with an independent and brave commission.
I did not feel that the commissioners, collectively or individually, had a sound reading on the situation at hand. I made it clear that if at the time leading up to, during, and after the Tivoli incursion, these guys were "under tight wraps" and knew nothing of the 74 people who were killed and of the hundreds left traumatised at the hands of the state, then they had an obligation to recuse themselves. But in a bizarre turn of events, they all accepted Golding's invitation and jumped feet first into the boiling ocean of controversy. Evidently, they accepted without due consideration the obviousness of the irreparable damage they were about to do to their reputation. It is very sad that the construct of the commission gave little comfort, by way of confidence; no wonder the public's negative perception of it.
Nevertheless, and in true Machiavellian style - where the tendency to deceive and manipulate is always paramount - PM Golding advised the Governor General to create the Commission of Enquiry. Thereafter, Émil George, Donald Scharschmidt and Anthony Irons were named commissioners with the mandate to "look into" the handling of the US extradition request for Christopher "Dudus" Coke, and the circumstances surrounding the hiring of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips. Readers may find the "look into" instruction ironic, given the tenure of the report.
That aside, the mishandling of the extradition request, the subsequent hiring of Manatt Phelps and Phillips and the efforts to cover it up remind me of several things that are unsettlingly complex about human behaviour, and confirm an inconvenient truth my late father shared with his children about vision and actions. He told us: "Vision is not merely the ability to see. Blindness, therefore, cannot just be an inability to see, but human actions consolidate the two and are most demonstrative of human thinking which will, over time, remove all doubts - good or bad". For, in his attempt to cosy up to certain sectarian and business interests and as an act of political appeasement, PM Golding announced the expensive commission, but did nothing to dislodge the very "straw man" his government not only created, but also defended when it spoke about Coke's constitutional rights, and alas, the three blind mice upheld this specious rhetoric.
Given the foregoing, there was no need to establish a commission of enquiry to examine something the PM, and all of us already knew and which, by the PM's own admission, he sanctioned. Again, all that was required was for Mr Golding and Ms Lightbourne to resign, for at the very least, the cost to the national treasury would have been substantially less.
The Jamaican public cannot absolve itself from the expensive "dolly house" that went on at the Jamaica Conference Centre under the guise of a Commission of Enquiry, because it too failed to bring pressure on Mr Golding and Ms Lightbourne to resign. We abdicated our responsibility as citizens to "stand up for justice, brotherhood and peace" and we shall continue to pay dearly for our reticence in this matter. As I saw it, the only acceptable remedy for this impeachable breach of trust was for Mr Golding and Justice Minister Ms Dorothy Lightbourne to resign and make way for a fresh start - because good public service demands no less.
But back to the commissioners. Having read their 58-page, "Grand Old Duke of York" kind of a report, the public is asking: How could they conclude that no one was responsible for the slaughter of innocent people, or for the social and economic disaster that ensued? Were these commissioners lying in their recliners listening to Mozart's Symphony #40 in G Minor and sipping wine, totally oblivious to the many "nine-nights" where chants of "Go dung a Manuel Road, Gal and Boy fi go bruck rock stone" rang from the empty bellies of the poor? Were the commissioners unaware of the fact that citizens' constitutional rights were abridged through the imposition of the State of Emergency and the fiasco that cost the economy almost $11 billion? The people now believe that these gentlemen were blinded by their own refusal to see that our parliament was treated with contempt; that the office of the prime minister was brought into disrepute, that the country's image was sullied, that the buck stopped somewhere and that somebody should have been held responsible.
Many more believe that these gentlemen were transported from another world and knew not that the entire saga was manufactured by a political party, whose leader decided to pursue a path of reckless interference in a matter he and his party had no business interfering with.
But as hard as it may appear, if any good should emerge from this circus, it must take the form of a national call for us to "rise and trim wi lamp" because ominous clouds are about to descend on us. Going forward, it should not be in the remit of a prime minister to name commissioners or commissions of enquiry. All commissions of enquiry should be approved by parliament, requiring more than a simple majority; mandating that a sitting or retired Supreme Court Justice preside over these proceedings and with full powers of a Supreme Court.
Burnscg@aol.com
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1QTja95ye
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