RIGHTS-JAMAICA: Street People Issue Brings Political Fallout

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Dionne Jackson Miller

MONTEGO BAY, Aug 11 1999 (IPS) - The Jamaican government is now in full damage control mode, four weeks after news broke that over 30 street persons had been forcibly trucked from the country’s major tourism city of Montego Bay and dumped in the neighbouring parish of St. Elizabeth, allegedly on the orders of government officials.

The story continues to spark widespread outrage both locally and internationally, with international Human Rights Group Amnesty International getting into the act, and calling for explanations from the government.

Soon after the incident became public, the government ordered a thorough investigation.

But with developments still making front pages in local newspapers, and generating heated discussions on local radio and television, Prime Minister Percival Patterson is now promising sanctions for anyone involved.

“Those who are guilty of criminal culpability will have to face the music,” he said in a statement, while also hinting at political fall-out.

The Commissioner of Police has already transferred three senior officers from Montego Bay “in order to allow the investigations to proceed expeditiously”.

In a tersely worded statement, the Police Information Centre said that the decision to remove the officers “comes in the wake of information reaching the police, confirming allegations that members of the force, parish council and other government agencies were involved in the operation”.

The St. James Parish Council is Montego Bay’s local government authority, and many believe that the Prime Minister’s talk of political fall- out must affect Mayor of Montego Bay Hugh Solomon.

The editorial in one major local newspaper declared that the Mayor must take responsibility for the incident and do the decent thing by resigning.

But the Mayor, while refusing to give interviews to most reporters, has maintained that the council is awaiting the outcome of the official investigations into the matter.

In the meantime, the Parish Council is now working with a broad- based committee, hastily convened a week after the incident, “to come up with positive recommendations on how this situation could be addressed”, according to a statement from the Mayor.

At the centre of the group is the Committee for the Upliftment of the Mentally Ill (CUMI), a nine-year-old non-governmental organisation which has been quietly working, through often severe financial difficulties to better the lot of Montego Bay’s mentally ill, many of whom live on the street.

CUMI currently operates a day shelter, where medication and occupational therapy are provided, and a night shelter, and has long wanted to establish a long term residential rehabilitation facility.

But although the Parish Council was represented on CUMI’s board, that didn’t help the organisation in its bid over the past nine years to get the council to turn over 20 acres of land long ago promised for the rehabilitation centre.

Now, the project is on the fast track.

Other measures recently announced by the Mayor to help street people in Montego Bay are temporary shelter for the homeless, establishment of a halfway house in the neighbouring parish of Trelawny, and daily food supplies from the hotel sector.

CUMI Administrator Joy Crooks has seen flurries of concern over the mentally ill and street persons before, and is adopting a wait and see approach to the latest surge of public outrage.

“I can’t judge what will happen in the future. I can only hope that it will be the beginning of a successful project. Something needed to be done and every party concerned appears to be making what effort they can to make sure that everything is in motion,” she said.

There are also signs that street people throughout Jamaica now stand to benefit from the government’s embarrassment.

Plans have been announced to develop a national policy, and the government has designated a lead agency to coordinate the programme of activities.

Although concerned citizens in several parishes across Jamaica like St James, Westmoreland and Clarendon have formed groups to assist street persons, this will be the first time that national recognition and assistance will be provided to the effort.

A key element of the programme will be the eventual establishment in every parish of a centre for assistance.

“(There will be) one designated centre in each parish, most likely in the major urban centres, which is accessible and could provide feeding programmes, personal hygiene facilities, regular changes of clothing, medical attention, night shelter if appropriate,” said the Prime Minister.

The capital city of Kingston, and Montego Bay, the centre of the controversy will be the designated sites to start the programme.

But even while the government scrambles to put its own house in order, and official investigations continue, the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has launched its own investigations into the matter, vocally criticising the government’s efforts to date.

“I just think it’s very slow and foot dragging,” says Opposition spokeswoman on legal affairs Senator Dorothy Lightbourne. “A decision must have been taken to move these street people, who took the decision? Who gave the instructions? Actions were carried out, who carried it out? That should not take more than 24 hours to find out.”

The JLP has declared its intention to assist the street persons with legal advice and to take the issue to the country’s constitutional court.

Prime Minister Patterson says, however, that he has already asked Jamaica’s Attorney General to advise what breaches of constitutional rights may have occurred, so that appropriate redress to the victims may be forthcoming.

Although talk, especially talk of court cases, is cheap, Lightbourne insists that this is one issue that will not be allowed to die.

“Clearly it was degrading and inhumane treatment, we’re claiming interference with their rights to liberty and freedom of movement,” she said.

She says that apart from any constitutional breaches, there is also a case to be made for false imprisonment and assault.

“In the past, an outrage is committed, it’s a nine-day wonder and we move on, because it’s happening to the poor, to the disadvantaged, and nobody really cares,” said Lightbourne.

“(But) it is moving closer and closer to home, and people are beginning to wake up, and I am glad about it.”