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EDITORIAL - JLP: Absence Of Leadership
Published: Sunday | June 30, 2013
We are unclear whether the Jamaica Labour Party will participate in the proposed commission of inquiry into the May 2010 operation by the security forces in Tivoli Gardens, during which nearly 80 civilians were killed.
That uncertainty, we believe, extends to the JLP itself, of which we are not surprised. For it sums up the state of confusion within which the opposition party finds itself, as well as the failure of Andrew Holness to assert his leadership.
In that regard, the JLP's failure to articulate an intellectually defensible position on the Tivoli Gardens issue is just a manifestation of, or a metaphor for, the party's crisis of ideas - and leadership.
It is urgent that the JLP crystallise, and promulgate, a set of sensible ideas, among which should be a robust defence of why it is in its, and Jamaica's, interest that there be a public inquiry into the Tivoli incident and that the party take part.
For Tivoli Gardens in May 2010 represented an intersection of politics, criminality and, many insist, a wanton disrespect by the Jamaican State for the lives of many citizens. Tivoli Gardens, developed by the former JLP leader and prime minister, Edward Seaga, as a kind of peripheral appendage to Jamaica, whose great loyalty rested with the party of its founder and his parliamentary successors.
For many outside the community, it was the archetypal garrison, those zones of political exclusion where criminals and influential power brokers rub shoulders with politicians whose electoral interest they help to preserve.
Summary executions
Such a figure was presumed to be Christopher Coke, whose supporters barricaded themselves in the community to prevent his arrest and extradition to the United States.
According to the public defender, Earl Witter, whose job it is to protect the rights of citizens against arbitrary erosion by the State, at least 76 persons were killed. More important, Mr Witter concluded that many of those who died appeared to have been victims of summary executions. The implication is that the executioners were members of the security forces.
Only during the Morant Bay Rebellion, 145 years earlier, were more Jamaican citizens killed in a single incident. We should know the truth of what happened and how we might prevent such incidents in the future.
Mr Witter proposes a commission of inquiry. A separate coroner's inquest into each of the Tivoli Gardens deaths would be impractical. We agree!
The JLP, however, staggers about.
First, Mr Holness, the party leader, declared against the inquiry. He then appeared to leave open the possibility of an engagement.
However, JLP West Kingston MP Desmond McKenzie said he would not encourage his constituents to testify, followed by a declaration by the general secretary, Horace Chang, that an inquiry would be a waste of time. Mr Holness followed by declaring that the party has made no decision, but has said nothing since.
The JLP's fear is that a commission will be used to demonise Tivoli Gardens and as a campaign tool against it. A response to the Tivoli incident, however, demands more than small-bore political calculus.
It represents an opportunity for transformational thinking and ideas - for a deepening of the disengagement of criminality from politics, for the advance of human rights and for holding the State accountable, if necessary. The JLP should be capable of that.
Published: Sunday | June 30, 2013
We are unclear whether the Jamaica Labour Party will participate in the proposed commission of inquiry into the May 2010 operation by the security forces in Tivoli Gardens, during which nearly 80 civilians were killed.
That uncertainty, we believe, extends to the JLP itself, of which we are not surprised. For it sums up the state of confusion within which the opposition party finds itself, as well as the failure of Andrew Holness to assert his leadership.
In that regard, the JLP's failure to articulate an intellectually defensible position on the Tivoli Gardens issue is just a manifestation of, or a metaphor for, the party's crisis of ideas - and leadership.
It is urgent that the JLP crystallise, and promulgate, a set of sensible ideas, among which should be a robust defence of why it is in its, and Jamaica's, interest that there be a public inquiry into the Tivoli incident and that the party take part.
For Tivoli Gardens in May 2010 represented an intersection of politics, criminality and, many insist, a wanton disrespect by the Jamaican State for the lives of many citizens. Tivoli Gardens, developed by the former JLP leader and prime minister, Edward Seaga, as a kind of peripheral appendage to Jamaica, whose great loyalty rested with the party of its founder and his parliamentary successors.
For many outside the community, it was the archetypal garrison, those zones of political exclusion where criminals and influential power brokers rub shoulders with politicians whose electoral interest they help to preserve.
Summary executions
Such a figure was presumed to be Christopher Coke, whose supporters barricaded themselves in the community to prevent his arrest and extradition to the United States.
According to the public defender, Earl Witter, whose job it is to protect the rights of citizens against arbitrary erosion by the State, at least 76 persons were killed. More important, Mr Witter concluded that many of those who died appeared to have been victims of summary executions. The implication is that the executioners were members of the security forces.
Only during the Morant Bay Rebellion, 145 years earlier, were more Jamaican citizens killed in a single incident. We should know the truth of what happened and how we might prevent such incidents in the future.
Mr Witter proposes a commission of inquiry. A separate coroner's inquest into each of the Tivoli Gardens deaths would be impractical. We agree!
The JLP, however, staggers about.
First, Mr Holness, the party leader, declared against the inquiry. He then appeared to leave open the possibility of an engagement.
However, JLP West Kingston MP Desmond McKenzie said he would not encourage his constituents to testify, followed by a declaration by the general secretary, Horace Chang, that an inquiry would be a waste of time. Mr Holness followed by declaring that the party has made no decision, but has said nothing since.
The JLP's fear is that a commission will be used to demonise Tivoli Gardens and as a campaign tool against it. A response to the Tivoli incident, however, demands more than small-bore political calculus.
It represents an opportunity for transformational thinking and ideas - for a deepening of the disengagement of criminality from politics, for the advance of human rights and for holding the State accountable, if necessary. The JLP should be capable of that.
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