The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) - A liberating force for 70 years

Jamaica Observer:

The following is an edited version of the address by the former prime minister Edward Seaga on the occasion of the JLP's 70th anniversary function held on July 8, at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel.

TODAY, we gather on the very date, July 8, at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, which, exactly 70 years ago, in 1943, Alexander Bustamante and a team of like-minded political pioneers founded the Jamaica Labour Party.

The JLP was to have a profound influence on the affairs of Jamaica in the 70 years that followed. It charted the critical direction at many cross-roads in the life of the nation.

When the first rush of political determination raised doubts and anxieties as to whether worthy leaders would emerge in 1944; when the Federal alliance subverted Jamaican goals, and confounded and bewildered the nationalist agenda in the 1950s; when the fledgling nation had to steady itself and find sure feet in the early years of Independence; when socialist experimentation and communist flirtation consumed the national consciousness with fear and plunged the nation into panic in the 1970s, it was the sure-footed, unswerving leadership of the JLP that steadied the country and charted a course of certainty.

Emerging Vision

Unmistakably, the surge of militancy of the 1930s was not to achieve self-government. This was the objective of the nationalists whose mission at the time was more concerned with self-determination and the replacement of colonial government. As such, that was a replacement of colonial bondage in which ideas of brotherhood and equality and ideals of a benevolent godfather state stirred personal commitment and patriotic response.

It was this compelling drive springing from the hopelessness of everyday conditions of the life of the mass of Jamaicans in the 1930s which surged to prominence in the last half of that decade. It was this flow of events, driven by the imperatives of economic deprivation and social desperation that converged in 1938 with a bang. As a result, it was the ordinary people who settled what needed change and when, by pooling their own demands for improved conditions into a momentous clamour and monstrous protest that broke loose on the waterfront, the sugar estates and in the public streets. That powerful surge was to take Bustamante, who had been riding the tide, to the forefront of leadership and change forever the course of Jamaica's history.

Bustamante harnessed the anger of the working class and organised it into a force which liberated the strength of Jamaican workers to pave the way for that better future. This liberated force of labour is the recurrent theme that was to dominate individual enterprise and political policy over the decades to come. It was the first of many critical stages of our history in which the JLP liberated a new dimension of internal strength from within the people to power them into the next stage of take-off.

That next stage grew out of another phase of brewing frustration and bewildering directions. As an emerging nation gearing toward full independence and self-determination in the 1950s, the course shifted dramatically as the decade aged. Those who championed self-determination from the socialist struggle shifted the focus away from the growing confidence of Jamaicans ready and willing to shoulder the responsibilities of independence as a nation. Great doubt was cast; it was believed that we could not shoulder the responsibilities of independence as a nation. Great doubt was cast; we could not shoulder those burdens alone, it was said. We needed to share the weight with other states much smaller, less populous and at a great distance, who were brothers and sisters we hardly knew. It was, in fact, almost ludicrous: The stronger was to seek succour from the weaker. Resentment grew about our need to rely on lesser states in which we could be bound in a federation as a minority player. The nationalism which had little strength at the outset in the thirties and throughout the forties, was strident enough in the fifties to reject the notion that Jamaica was unable to make its own way as an independent nation.

The Next Phase

Alexander Bustamante and the JLP were absorbed earlier with liberating the power of the working class and focusing their energies on securing a better life. That was the opening mission statement of the JLP. Nationhood was not on the agenda in the early days. Two decades later, as the energy of the worker movement became more and more absorbed in the political drive, a new national focus with a new thrust was needed. As the fifties drew to a close, the frustration and ambivalence of Jamaica's involvement in Federation would provide exactly the ferment that would be required to create the surge to the next dynamic phase of Jamaican history.

The JLP, led by Sir Alexander Bustamante, moved to the forefront of the impasse, took the driver's seat, directed the traffic and pulled Jamaica out of its paralytic association in the Federation of the West Indies with a resounding victory in the Referendum of September 19, 1961, a pivotal date in our history.

The independence of Jamaica which followed the JLP-led withdrawal from Federation was to be the new springboard. But it had its uncertainties. Many wondered, as in 1944, whether we were ready for leadership, this time entirely on our own. And the same people who doubted the process of political advancement in 1944 were the same who expressed fears in 1962: the money interests, landed proprietors, and the emerging middle class of substance. From these fears once again, the call was for a steady hand holding a steady course. The JLP again was the people's choice, by general elections on April 10, 1962, to take Jamaica through this period of uncertainty.

New Dynamism

As Independence dawned on August 6 of that year, a new dynamism emerged: The creation of national symbols - the flag, the anthem, the motto; the showcasing of our traditional culture, now feelingly more so our own than ever before - the Jamaica Festival; the surge of art and craft and a showcase for these talents - Things Jamaican and Devon House; the salute to national heritage - designation of our National Heroes and the return of the body of Marcus Garvey to Jamaica; the birth of our popular music - ska, rocksteady, reggae.

The first salvo urging Jamaican ownership, the Jamaicanisation programme which led to:

The birth of the Jamaican Life Insurance Industry;

The Jamaicanisation of the financial sector;

Jamaican share ownership in publicly quoted stocks on the stock exchange,

The self-confidence of a nation of emerging economic strength expanding rapidly in mining. manufacturing, tourism and commerce;

The launch of a national airline, Air Jamaica;

The introduction of landmark social legislation and the expansion of social facilities - introduction of the National Insurance Scheme, new hospitals (Cornwall Regional and the Children's Hospital), introduction of family planning and doubling the number of secondary schools;

Membership in international institutions, giving us pride of place.

The decade of the sixties was no mere release of energy. It was an outburst of positive, patriotic, productive, broad-based initiative, exuberance, creativity, enterprise and application of effort which has not been duplicated since. It was Jamaica's golden age, the second wave of liberation of the positive energies of the Jamaican people with the JLP leading the way.

Had we continued on this route, the Jamaica of today would have been among the noted success cases of the developing world. But that was not to be the case. The People's National Party was elected to govern on February 29, 1972. It was their second period as government. Where the first effort under Norman Manley was dominated by the failed federal adventure, the second period under Michael Manley became dominated again by a foreign adventure, this time with an alien ideology and uneasy fraternity with socialist and communist bloc nations. This adventure also failed but not before Jamaica was torn and shredded.

Michael Manley tried to do what Bustamante and the JLP had done in the first and second terms of government. Where Bustamante had liberated the dynamic of the working class and energised a prideful independent people, Manley wanted to unleash the Jamaican psyche, to raise social consciousness and create an egalitarian society.

Great Difference

There was a great difference in the two approaches. The JLP liberated a positive dynamic which created a bigger cake to share. It was a "pulling-up" process which was fuelled by the inner need to create, and achieved more. The PNP was more concerned with dividing the cake into equal slices, a process which fed on envy of those whose bigger shares should be sliced thinner, a negative, "pulling-down" process.

Recent events recall the rejection of the "pulling down" ideologies as we have now come to see in the world-wide demise of socialism and communism. They failed not because they were devoid of noble ideals, but because they were ideologies created from the top by authors who never asked the poor what was the first priority on their agenda. Had they done so they would have understood that economic betterment is the simple ideological priority of ordinary people which ranks first and second. The anger and frustration of diminishing slices of the national cake toppled the Berlin Wall and crushed the distributive ideologies.

Mission of the '80s

The forces liberated by adventure in socialism in the seventies did not succeed in expanding or building substance to increase the national cake. Hence, once again, the seventies were a period of intense frustration and danger, as in the thirties, and to a lesser extent the late-fifties. This set the stage for the third liberating movement which was to unleash a whole new dynamism in the 1980s. And again, the JLP led this thrust and charted the course which was to shape Jamaica's future. I had the responsibility to lead Jamaica into this new dynamic phase of the 1980s.

A legacy of the 1970s was the dependency of the individual on the state, a natural outcome of the primacy of the state in socialist doctrine. In contrast, individual initiative and enterprise were to be the theme of the 1980s. This was the untapped reservoir of energy to be liberated, a process began in the early days but stifled in the seventies. The mission of the 1980s was to open this valve and release the energy of this enormous human potential responding to the push of achievement and the pull of reward.

In contrast to the closed society of the seventies, the eighties were to become the stage for the new lifestyle of the open society, In this process of "freeing-up", encumbrances to initiative and enterprise would have to go.

Government beauracracy would be deregulated starting with import controls, price controls and the simplification of the tax system. Later, exchange control regulations would have to follow.

Demotivating taxes would be reduced to levels which did not stifle incentive. Punitive income tax rates were simplified and reduced; import tariffs were decreased in stages to more acceptable levels.

The change of government on February 9, 1989 shattered the fragile model of economic management which had successfully restored the economic path of progress from which the country had been diverted over the previous dozen years. What followed was painful recent history.

Gentler Nation

The valve to unleash new energies to propel the country forward to the end of the decade and century has its roots in the turmoil and abuses of the 1970s. It was in that decade that Jamaicans awoke to the realisation that the Constitution of Jamaica chartered for Independence in 1962 was devised for a much kinder and gentler nation. Certainly it was written in the shadow of those unwritten understandings which ensured that the subjects of the United Kingdom needed no written charter. Everyone knew where the lines of misconduct were drawn and if the letter of the law did not spell out precisely the limits of power, no one would misuse the laxity of law to abuse the parameters of power because that simply wouldn't be cricket. Long and great traditions established the boundaries of permissible levels of tolerance.

As a young nation we have no such long and great traditions of our own. We borrow from other nations those values -- which govern society and reject what we wish, when we wish to abuse the system. That plainly was the mode followed to instigate the most draconian violation of human values in our nation's history when the infamous State of Emergency was declared on June 19, 1976, on the flimsiest of grounds to justify the meanest of ends: political survival. Jamaicans learned then that our constitution was elastic and could be stretched to shape many unconstitutional conveniences.

The JLP learned too, that year, that something had to be done to limit the elasticity of our Constitution which was not so much defective in what it says, but that it spoke in a soft voice where a stronger, firmer and more definite position should be stated. And where the Constitution was not the instrument of abuse the spirit of the Constitution was mauled by the power of the prime minister. In the late-1970s, the JLP charted the course to whittle down these powers that opened the way to abuses in sensitive areas of our national life.

Landmark Decision

The power of the prime minister was the first phase of this mission and his right through his minister to control electoral affairs, the first target. Out of this came the landmark decision in 1979 to remove the control of the minister over electoral affairs and the establishment of an independent Electoral Committee to take his place.  The mechanism for selecting the independent members by the governor general after consultation with the prime minister and leader of the opposition removed the final power of decision by the prime minister to make the choice on his own. Next came the removal of that same power of unilateral decision making from other sensitive legislation already in existence: the ombudsman and the Integrity Commission, both in 1985.

Thereafter, legislation establishing the contractor general and media commission followed this course in 1985 and 1986, again ensuring that the prime minister would have no unilateral power to name the membership of these commissions but would have only consultative power on the same basis as the Leader of the Opposition in advising the governor general in making his choice.

The next phase in this course was to reduce the unilateral power of the Prime Minister in the appointment of members of the Police Service Commission and to remove the control of the police force from the minister, exactly as was done 14 years earlier with the electoral system.

People's Expectation

The struggle does not end with reducing the power of government at the level of the prime minister. The abuse of human rights still continues. I set our position clearly before the country in advocating the enactment of a new constitutional figure, the public defender, to deal with such abuses.

This would strengthen the hands of "we the people" in contrast to the existing structure which protects and licences "we the government". It is a reversal of the role of power and resolution of whose hands ultimate power will reside that the new dynamic of a truly free people will evolve.

Mission of the '90s

Having freed the working class in the thirties, freed the federal bonds in the fifties to pave the way for Independence in the sixties, freed the country from the blight of socialism in the seventies, freed the economy in the eighties from stifling controls, it remains now to free "we the people" from our own excesses in political empowerment. The JLP has led the struggle through each of the stages of liberalisation and must accept this as a further mission. Notwithstanding the imminent hardships of today there are fundamentally deeper concerns which we fail to observe, prejudicing the ability of the nation to protect its poor and vulnerable.

All men are equal under the law, says the Constitution. But, in practice, we ignore this precept honouring some as first-class citizens but dishonouring the great majority as second-class. Those in the underclass cannot contribute effectively to the building of the nation. They lack the education and the will to work condemning themselves to the seventy per cent of the population that are dependent on others for help. Until all men have equal respect and equal education they cannot contribute equally because they are unwilling and unable. The building of the nation will rest on the 30 per cent who are more privileged but they are insufficient to give the nation growth.

Chapter 111 of the Constitution, the Human Rights section, has been virtually rewritten to produce a Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. This is the instrument required to ensure that men have the right to be equal. The Charter, of which I was the principal initiator, shifts the power of constitutional authority to "we the people". This prevents any more draconian measures of injustice which widen the gap between "we the people and them", the "haves and the have nots".

Every year, schools graduate twice as many students who are uneducated as those with an education. The uneducated are left behind with crippled careers while the educated go forward. This is the wellspring of poverty, the source from which all injustice is derived, the splitting of the society into first- and second-class citizens.

The Charter of Rights, if put to work and not left to rot, or to serve the elusive benefit of the privileged, can create what all the plans of the past have failed to do: it will lay the course with the sure hands that guided Jamaica through the uncertain pathways of the crossroads of our history when it steadied the ship, righted the course and sailed into safe harbour.

And now having freed the working class in the thirties; freed the bonds of federation in the fifties to pave the way for Independence in the sixties; freed the country from the political blight of socialism in the seventies; freed the economy for production in the eighties, it remains now to free "we the people" through the Charter of Rights.

Let the Charter be your Magna Carta, let it be your book of life to complete the liberation led by the JLP. "We the people" must be satisfied with nothing less than to unleash the powerful energies of the Charter of Rights to fulfil our destiny as a people. That will be our greatest liberating mission of all.

July 14, 2013

Jamaica Observer

Bahamas Blog International

Jamaica: What we do not learn from history?

What we do not learn from history

jamaica-gleaner


JAMAICA HAS a track record of prime ministers and opposition leaders who have, for one reason or another, denied themselves the luxury of seeing out the maximum potential of their leadership careers. The exceptions, of course, being those two fathers of the nation, Norman Manley and Sir Alexander Bustamante, who both bowed to old age and infirmities.

A relatively younger Michael Manley was forced by illness to retire early in his third term when it seemed that he still had more to offer.

Edward Seaga, Percival Patterson, Hugh Shearer, and now Bruce Golding, all announced their resignations as prime minister or opposition leader while still in the saddle and, on all accounts, brimful of vim and vigour.

There are interesting parallels in each instance of resignation or transition. There are also some interesting lessons to learn from the different party election campaigns, if we care to learn from history, bearing in mind Georg Hegel's famous adage that what we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.

Norman Manley announced his retirement at a People's National Party (PNP) testimonial held in honour of his 75th birthday at the Sheraton Kingston Hotel on July 5, 1968. He retired officially on February 9, 1969, at a party conference held at the National Arena. He sent members a message of commendable restraint coming from a party leader: "I am not with you today because I have promised not to influence the decision of the party in any way. That fact makes it important for me to keep away." Lesson number one.

Lesson number two

There were several would-be contenders who eventually dropped out, allowing a clear, sometimes bruising race between Michael Manley and Vivian Blake. On the eve of the election, both men issued a statement vowing "to accept the will of the people and to give unqualified support to whoever is the leader of their choice." Lesson number two.

It would be Michael Manley's turn, some 23 years later and at 68 years old, to announce his retirement as prime minister at a special delegates' conference on March 15, 1992. Health considerations were the main reasons, but he made a telling point on youth succession similar to the one laboured by Bruce Golding last Sunday night.

"I have always believed that political leaders must know when to step aside and make room for others", said Manley. "And because of my strongly held conviction about making room for young people, I had long decided I would not lead the PNP into the 1994 election." Lesson number three.

Waiting in the wings were P.J. Patterson, 57 years, and his main rival, Portia Simpson, a girlish 47 years.

It was P.J.'s turn the next time around. On January 22, 2006, he announced his intention to retire as prime minister, the dust settling on February 26 to see Simpson Miller emerge as party leader after an intense and sometimes bitter race.

Dirty laundry in public

Do we learn from history that we do not learn from history? Hark to the PNP that has always managed to display a semblance of unity in spite of their differences. The JLP, now in the middle of a succession process, tends to let it all hang out, to their disadvantage. Bob Lightbourne refused at first to be sworn in by Donald Sangster in 1967, because he was not named deputy prime minister. Hugh Shearer resigned as JLP opposition leader when the party knives were drawn at a Montego Bay meeting in 1974.

Edward Seaga was pilloried by the famous gangs of the JLP while he was leader, but gave as good as he got in a battle that was played out in the public arena.

Golding himself enjoyed a seamless transition following Seaga's resignation. Dr Ken Baugh was appointed acting leader of the Opposition, but made it clear he was only holding the position "until Bruce wins, his seat in Western Kingston when I will resign and make way for him to become opposition leader". By that time, Pearnel Charles had dropped out of the race to make it a one-horse contest. The JLP went on to win the 2007 elections.

Do we learn anything here from history?

Comments to columns@gleanerjm.com or lanceneita@hotmail.com

October 6, 2011

jamaica-gleaner

Bahamas Blog International

Jamaica: Pope Benedict, the church, Brady bunch, PNP audit

Pope Benedict, the church, Brady bunch, PNP audit
BY FRANKLIN JOHNSTON



ALL churches in Jamaica owe their origins to the Pope and the trend to abuse by some -- from Rasta to revivalist is disrespectful and ignorant. As 3,000 local church leaders meet for a talkfest, this fragile 83-year-old head of the Vatican state and the Catholic Church visits the UK. His job is serving God and man. To some he is "antichrist", to most a lighthouse. His shock and sadness at the crimes of some priests, and his soft rant at "militant secularism" pushing good values to the margins resonate with us too. His trip is the second to the UK by a Pope in 600 years and the first State visit. He gave the Queen lost gospels from 500 CE. I would like "a read"! The Pope is first among equals as our conduit for the Bible. The British church fought the slave trade and slavery; yet after 178 years our churches make no progress on "mental slavery". Whether by illiteracy or denial we make up a past and they approve our fictions being princes and queens in Africa, exiled and so we will not toil. Some form a group of 89 members and say it's the true church.

They speak in tongues; say they have visions of some deacons lusting, hell fire and lottery numbers, yet none of martyrs or thinkers of the global church; all are limited by the little they know. Ask your pastor about the church in 1962, 1862 and 1000? What says he? The Pope is an affront to ignorance as he embodies 2,000 years of faith with archives to show good and bad, crusades and Inquisition! Your pastor got a Bible, a vision to start a church; a penchant for fine robes, titles, ham and eggs prayer breakfasts, but no vision to tackle state corruption or a mission to subdue the land, produce and live in love — imagine that! The riches of many new churches are an affront to poverty. Are some pastors in the pocket of politicians? Who is using whom? They stipple our landscape with tasteless buildings paid for by the poor; they get honours, land and permits — a sop for keeping us quiet! British churches delivered for us! These have not! Foreign missions acted and removed our chains. For 30 years Wilberforce was dedicated to freedom for blacks he didn't know! Our churches collude in keeping us in mental slavery! Is corruption on their agenda? No! New MPs for old? No! I went to Westminster Cathedral and lit a candle for my sins, my friends and my nation -- anything for JA! The Pope is our link to 2,000 years of Christ's blood, guts and glory! Pastors cannot ignore politics, they were born in it. The Pope called Henry VIII to account, so the king beheaded Sir Thomas! Our bishops "see an' blin', 'ear an deaf". Who will say "Bruce, enough!"

The Pope's armour-plated Benz M class Popemobile is as incongruous as his elite Swiss Guard and his retro-red shoes - emblem of blood of martyrs. Let us "hail the man" as the patriarch of all Christians in the West and invite him to JA. Sir Thomas Moore, the Pope's envoy, refused to annul King Henry's marriage. The king executed him in 1535, took England out of the Catholic (universal) church and had royal sex with Anne Boleyn. This break-up was not the Pope's doing, and now for the first time a Pope visits Lambeth Palace and Westminster Abbey, the Anglican power base. All churches derive from one man who could not keep his pants on! What a bam-bam! Anglican, Adventist, Baptist, Rasta, Church of God, all exist because the king desired a woman, the Pope said, "No, stay with your flippin' wife", and lust tore apart the global church! Even today new churches are born of lust and sex. The Pope just visited Westminster Cathedral and love flowed; brown faces of Eastern Catholic priests in mufti and British youth of all colours testify that faith is strong! Our churches want "repentance healing, renewal", why not protest and action? They have the numbers. Prayer is OK, but why not call out members to picket Gordon House and demand good government? Is there a Daniel?

The Bruce, Brady, Manatt debacle is in a primal twist --the don, JLP hacks, suborned writers and civil servants, now a heavyweight! Bruce disowns Brady! Adopt him, Portia! The man "gie weh 'im fren Dudus an now 'im fren Harold". Who next? Brady is credible in and out of the JLP and knows if we follow the money we find truth. No lawyer goes abroad with US$50k, no contacts, no client and no brief. Bruce is playing "business as usual" but is seen by many as damaged goods, a weak heir, disloyal, indecisive, power-hungry, he "sang sankey" and many in the JLP rejoice at his misery! Revenge is better cold! It is as Seaga left it; autocratic, arthritic, no one dares open his mouth! Bruce is no match for Brady; can he buy him off by retraction, apology or rewards? The executive must regret not taking his resignation and they will not fight Brady as he can exhume bodies and make the Dudus episode seem a tea party. I fear for his safety. The spotlight moves to donors, so watch things escalate. What can good JLP donors do now? The donor of the US$50k is the key. If he comes out freely, he clears his name and sanitises all honest donors! He runs a private firm; gets legal permits, contracts and deposits; is an old friend of the JLP; affects the Abe Issa mantra and donates to both parties as "business must always be in power". He has nothing to fear. He is the "game changer" we must pray for. He is the catalyst to make it OK for all of us to support a party openly, if we so wish! This donor is not tribal or criminal and to be a pioneer in our twisted nation is a hard decision to make. He may begin an avalanche of openness; a catalyst to a Parliamentary vote for disclosure! Sir, you can change the tone of our politics! In the sweep of history Bruce is nothing, but our country we can count in history if we defeat the Goliath of ignorance and secrecy and prosper. Please help us. Stay conscious, my friend!

Congratulations to the PNP on a watershed audit! Transparency begins here. Please ensure the next audit is vouched by a registered public auditor and the donor schedule given to the OCG and the taxman "for their eyes only". Most big firms are on both JLP and PNP lists anyway. Whoever loses, business always wins. More power to you!

Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston Consultants currently on assignment in the UK. franklinjohnston@hotmail.com

September 24, 2010

jamaicaobserver

Bahamas Blog International

Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding admits lobby on behalf of drug accused Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke

Jamaica PM admits lobby on behalf of wanted man
caribbean360.com:


KINGSTON, Jamaica, Wednesday May 12, 2010 – A controversy surrounding efforts by the United States to have a drug accused extradited, and the Jamaica government’s resistance to those moves, yesterday became even more contentious as Prime Minister Bruce Golding admitted that he gave the nod for a law firm to be hired to lobby the US government on the extradition issue.

His admission was met with strong criticism across the floor of Parliament, even as he insisted the company was hired and paid by his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and not the government.

Golding came clean on his involvement in the matter following weeks of allegations and claims that the government had engaged the services of US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips to intervene as the US pushed its request for the extradition of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, a member of the JLP stronghold of West Kingston who is wanted on gun and drug charges in the US.

“I sanctioned the initiative, knowing that such interventions have in the past proven to be of considerable value in dealing with issues involving the governments of both countries. I made it clear, however, that this was an initiative to be undertaken by the Party, not by or on behalf of the government,” Golding said yesterday.

“A payment of US$49,892.62 was made to Manatt, Phelps & Phillips on September 18th 2009. These funds were sourced from financial contributors to the Party. Rumours and speculation carried in the media that these funds were provided by Christopher Coke are completely false as the Party is fully aware of the source of these funds,” he added.

Prime Minister Golding further insisted that there was “absolutely nothing illegally or surreptitious” about what had been done, arguing that the engagement of lobbyists to act on behalf of foreign governments, political parties or corporations is a well-known practice in the United States governed by law.

Golding has been strongly resisting the attempt to extradite Coke on the grounds that wire-tap evidence gathered by the US authorities in their case against him was illegally obtained.

He said that the Extradition Treaty between Jamaica and the US specifies the type of information that must be provided in support of a request for extradition and maintained that the information presented in the Coke matter is unacceptable because “it has been used in violation of Jamaican law and in contravention of the expressed order of a Judge of the Supreme Court”.

“For the (Justice) Minister to ignore this violation and issue the authorization to proceed would be to condone and legitimize this violation and would be a dereliction of duty,” he said, adding that although the Jamaica government wrote formally to the US authorities back in September 2009 requesting additional or separate information that would enable Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne to sign the authorization to proceed, the US has “steadfastly refused to do so”.

“I wish to make it clear that the government will, without hesitation, facilitate the extradition of any Jamaican citizen wanted to stand trial for extraditable offences once the obligations under the Treaty are met. Christopher Coke is wanted for an alleged crime in the US for which he ought to be tried and the government of Jamaica, consistent with its obligations under the Treaty, will do everything necessary to facilitate his extradition once it is done in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty and the laws of our country,” Golding told the Parliament.

“Some argue that this is a matter for the Courts and not the Minister to determine. They are wrong! As I have already pointed out, the Treaty makes it clear that information sufficient to allow the Minister to authorize extradition proceedings must be presented before the request is submitted to the Courts. What we have, therefore, is a dispute regarding the application of the Treaty. A treaty dispute cannot be resolved by the Courts of either party to the dispute. This is why we have used every conceivable means to resolve this dispute through dialogue with the US authorities.”

Prime Minister Golding said that since the controversy and the suggestion that the government's stand is motivated by partisan considerations, his administration retained the services of a senior attorney to seek a declaration from the Court as to the duties of Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne and the matters she must properly take into account in exercising her authority under the Extradition Treaty.

JLP parliamentarians yesterday blasted Golding for not acknowledging his involvement in hiring Manatt, Phelps & Phillips earlier.

But the Prime Minister insisted that he replied truthfully when asked whether the Government of Jamaica had engaged the law firm’s services.

caribbean360

Bahamas Blog International

Christopher Dudus Coke may be the most powerful man in Jamaica, says Phillips

'Dudus' may be the most powerful man in Ja, says Phillips
BY KARYL WALKER Online editor walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com:


FORMER minister of national security Dr Peter Phillips says Tivoli Gardens strongman Christopher 'Dudus' Coke is possibly more powerful than the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government which has been attracting a lot of flax over its refusal to act on a United States extradition request for Coke.

The Americans submitted the extradition request last August, accusing Coke of drug- and gun-running. However, the Bruce Golding-led Administration has said that the evidence gathered against Coke breached Jamaica's Interception of Communications Act.

But for Phillips that argument holds little water and is an indication of the fear that Coke drives into the hearts of the ruling party. According to Phillips, Coke may be the most powerful man in the country.

"That inference can be drawn when we see all the resources they are putting in to defend him. It certainly looks like he is very powerful," Phillips told the Sunday Observer yesterday.

Phillips, whose questions in Parliament in March threw the spotlight on the JLP's dealing with the US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, said Jamaica's reputation had been terribly sullied and the Government should move to clean up the country's image.

The JLP has since admitted that persons in the party engaged the services of the law firm to negotiate extradition issues with high-ranking members of the Obama administration.

"It is time we decide if we are going to be a narco state or we are going to abide by the rules of law and order," Phillips said.

Last week, Toronto police arrested 12 members of the Shower Posse and have charged them with drugs and weapons offences. The cops said the arrested persons had links to drug traffickers in Panama, the US and the Dominican Republic.

Coke has been named by North American authorities as the leader of the 'international cartel who had been pulling the strings in Toronto's north-west end, supplying drugs and guns to smaller gangs and fuelling violence in the area'.

Headquartered in Tivoli Gardens in Kingston, the Shower Posse reportedly has branches in over 20 US cities, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Phillips himself earned the wrath of People's National Party (PNP) supporters when, during his tenure at the security ministry, Clansman boss and known PNP supporter, Donovan 'Bulbie' Bennett, was cut down in hail of police bullets at a palatial residence in Tanarkie, Clarendon in November 2005.

In the aftermath of Bennett's death, irate PNP supporters burnt effigies of Phillips and T-shirts bearing his image in sections of St Catherine and Clarendon.

Party insiders say Bennett's demise may have cost Phillips the leadership of the PNP in the contentious presidential race which he lost to Portia Simpson Miller in September 2008.

May 09, 2010

jamaicaobserver

Bahamas Blog International

Jamaica: Deceptions, dons and underdevelopment

Claude Clarke, Contributor:


It was Mahatma Gandhi who said "to believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest". In election after election in post-Independence Jamaica our leaders have invited us to trust what they professed to have been their beliefs; but they have failed in almost every instance to live up to them. Gandhi would have condemned them all as dishonest.

We need only compare the ideals expressed by our recent prime ministers while campaigning for office to their actions when those beliefs were put to the test. The most recent and I believe most striking example of this is Bruce Golding's abrupt about-face on his professed abhorrence of garrison politics.

We should have known better. Many of us were prepared to put the most favourable interpretation on this 'new and different' Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader's choice of 'the mother of all garrisons' to be his home constituency; and were willing to believe that his purpose was to reform from within, and in so doing create a model on which all other garrisons could be reformed. But recent events have proven us to have been far too generous with our trust.

Two and a half years after coming to office, and 15 years since he walked away from the JLP and declared his independence from the garrison form of politics, Golding's constituency is as deeply steeped in garrison politics as it ever was.

In two and a half years as chief executive of our country, Mr Golding, despite his earlier strong human-rights advocacy, has missed every opportunity to take a public stand in defence of the rights of our citizens; that is until he was confronted by the case of Christopher Coke. His stout defence of Mr. Coke's rights, from all appearances at the risk of Jamaica's international relationships and economic well-being, speaks powerfully to the value he places on this individual.

Not that the Government is not duty bound to stand up to the mightiest of forces in defence of the rights of the least of our citizens. It is. Not that the Government does not have the right to deny an extradition request in Jamaica's public interest. It does. What is remarkable about the prime minister making Coke's extradition case his first notable effort to protect the rights of a Jamaican citizen is that he has obviously calculated that, notwithstanding the consequences to Jamaica, a greater interest is served by protecting Coke.

Since the prime minister's human-rights epiphany so strains credibility and logic, we are forced to conclude that he believes that Coke's protection is in the public interest; in which case he is allowed by the treaty to deny the request.

But what is it about Mr Coke that makes him so valuable? 'Dudus' Coke is widely believed to be the country's most prominent and effective practitioner of the garrison style of social and economic organisation. He is Jamaica's 'chief don' and commands the title 'President' in the area that he controls. What is the message conveyed to him and his 'subjects', to Jamaica and to the world, when a prime minister invests him with such high national value?

So much so that the Government now has to be defending allegations that it directly or indirectly engaged a firm of US lawyers to lobby the United States government, with a view to preventing his extradition. Doesn't this effectively provide the ultimate imprimatur for the activities for which Mr. Coke is notorious? And doesn't this seriously contradict the anti-don, anti-garrison beliefs Mr Golding earlier espoused?

For those of us who believe economic development cannot take place in a social and economic environment dominated by garrisons, this is a most frightening situation. Not simply because of our opposition to garrisons and dons, but because we recognise that the growing control of our society by garrisons and their dons has been a major cause of the underdevelopment of our economy and society. Their suppression of our people's 'unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' is manifested in the growing lawlessness and fear under which we have lived since this freakish phenomenon began to engulf our society in the 1960s.

The right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness is no less an entitlement of the Jamaican citizen than it is of the American. And the obligation to secure these rights for Jamaicans is as binding on the Jamaican Government as securing them for Americans is binding on the US government. But garrisons undermine the ability of Government to deliver on this obligation. Dons usurp the role of government, and have no purpose but to use the people under their control to secure and strengthen their own wealth and power.

They operate through patronage, intimidation and fear; it is never their purpose to secure freedom and opportunity for the people they control. Despite this, respective Jamaican governments have been prepared to condone and co-opt the garrison into their practice of politics, even while they grandly inveigh against them officially.

Social and economic freedom is at the core of successful economic activity. Without it, no effort by Government to promote investments, production and development will ever achieve the peace and prosperity our people crave. The garrison system not only denies our people these basic conditions, it sucks life and substance from the economy. It channels taxpayer-funded government contracts to dons, and feeds official corruption. The enforced 'protection services' of the dons is an unwanted and unproductive cost of doing public and private business, compounding the uncompetitiveness of our economy. They are a deterrent to production and the efficient functioning of the formal economy. Above all, the garrison form of organisation denies economic opportunity and employment for our people and leads them instead to a future of street scuffling, crime and servitude.

warlords

Garrisons must be seen and treated as what they really are: the means through which our people are kept enslaved and denied the right to be all that they can be. They will take us in the direction of Somalia, controlled by warlords, rather than Singapore, characterised by order and prosperity. They lead us towards backwardness and jungle justice, not modernity and the rule of law. The loud, clear and eloquent statement made by the prime minister by his stance in the Dudus affair is that he will pay any price and force the country to do likewise to protect the favourite don of his favourite garrison. In doing so, we may have crossed the Rubicon towards the utter failure of Somalia, rather than climb the first rung towards the success that is Singapore.

I do not know whether the prime minister will change direction before our final disintegration into the squalor of a failed state; but for Jamaica's sake, I hope that he or someone else will salvage the situation and pull us back towards sanity. Jamaica can still develop into a state which can deliver on the promise of freedom and the optimisation of human potential. But our approach to leadership must be radically changed.

This fiscal year, the Government spent almost 45 per cent of the country's output, and yet it could not provide the public goods and services that a modern democratic government is expected to deliver. When Government takes so much of what we produce, we have every right to expect top-quality affordable health care, education, water, electricity, public transportation, roads, public safety and justice.

We have every right to expect a social and economic environment that encourages and facilitates our hopes for economic upliftment. We have every right to expect our Government to foster a high-quality social capital that enables us to achieve levels of production that can create peace and prosperity. The Jamaican Government squanders much of our resources through general economic mismanagement, but has made the situation far worse by rendering itself hostage to dons and garrisons.

Now that the very leadership which we were led to believe was committed to breaking the links to these garrisons has instead elevated itself to a position of national importance, we seem to be perched on the precipice of social and economic disorder.

Our country desperately needs to be rescued. Do any of our political leaders have the honesty, moral authority, courage and political gravitas to make this change? Are there men and women who will live what they say they believe and summon the courage to act on those beliefs?

The Christopher Coke case has found our prime minister wanting. Can anyone else in the Government or the Opposition rise to the required standard of leadership? And will he or she speak up before it is too late?


Claude Clarke is a former trade minister and manufacturer. Send feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.

March 28, 2010

jamaica-gleaner

Bahamas Blog International

Jamaica Prime Minister, Bruce Golding says the Jamaican government may re-evaluate its position on the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ)

KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) -- Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, indicated on Tuesday night that the Jamaican government may be contemplating re-evaluating its position on the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

Golding told Tuesday night's Town Hall Meeting in the assembly hall of the University of the West Indies(UWI), Mona, that a number of changes had been made to the Court, since his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and other regional groups raised concerns.

"I think we are in a position now, where we can do a revaluation of that now. I put it no stronger than that. But, I think we are now in a position where that proposal can be re-evaluated," he said.

He explained that the JLP had reservations about the original concept of the Court, including having CARICOM political leaders appoint the judges, as well as the possibility of the Court becoming hostage because of lack of finances. He said that the JLP also needed to see the court function, in order to evaluate its jurisprudential quality.

Golding said that the Government was satisfied with the appointment of a judicial commission to appoint the judges, as well as the setting up of a trust fund to finance the Court and felt that, in terms of the performance of the court, a re-evaluation was possible.

October 8, 2009

caribbeannetnews

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International