RIGHTS-JAMAICA: Reporter in Thick of Controversy Over Extrajudicial Killings

By Zadie Neufville Reprint | | Print |

Zadie Neufville

KINGSTON, Apr 13 2001 (IPS) - “It’s my job, nothing more,” is all Claude Mills will say, on the record. The reporter whose story led to Amnesty International’s (AI) becoming involved in the case of seven young men killed here on Mar. 14 is insistent there is nothing more to say. He believes he has done his job, that all he did was write a story that his editors believed worthy of a by-line.

But colleagues believe Mills, a reporter with The Gleaner newspaper, fears that the story he wrote may have repercussions, but that he is not yet ready to admit it. Some suspect that there could be reprisals from the police. Others believe he was forced to write the article by his community or risk being harmed. Some 39 percent of all killings here are reprisal killings.

But Mills scoffs at the conjecture. “I am not afraid. If I was, I wouldn’t have written it,” he said.

Human Rights groups were already angered by police reports about the death of the seven young men on the morning of Mar. 14, when Mills weighed in with his storyá a sort of ear-witness report of the whole ordeal.

The men, between the ages of 15 and 20, were killed by members of the police Crime Management Unit (CMU), in a house in Braeton, St. Catherine a housing complex about 13 miles southeast of the capital Kingston. The CMU, established in May 1999 to combat rising crime in this northern Caribbean island, insists they died in a shoot-out.

Braeton remained silent. After all, a few hours earlier, the principal of a local school had been shot to death in a robbery attempt. “These were the men that did it,” Senior Superintendent Renato Adams in charge of the CMU told residents.

But it was Mills’ vivid description of what he had heard during the police operation that set the phone lines to radio talk shows ringing and prompted louder calls for investigations into the incident.

In the Sunday Gleaner of Mar. 18, Mills reported awaking to gunshots. In an article entitled: ‘Reliving the horror in Braeton Phase 3′, he told of the happenings between 5:10 and 5:39 am the morning of the killings.

“The voice was full of despair and desperation, a man begging for his life … gunshots followed his desperate plea. Then stony silence,” he wrote.

Mills reported more screams and at least one other person begging for his life. The article also quoted other residents who said that while in bed, they too had heard the screams and pleas of the young men.

Police say the men were involved in the murders of at least three people: school principal Keith Morris, who had been playing dominoes at a nearby shop and a policemen and private citizen who were killed two weeks earlier.

Yvonne McCalla Sobers, convenor of Families against State Terrorism (FAST) said the story encouraged witnesses to come forward and “validated what the community knew and what was suspected, that the boys were executed”.

Local human rights lobby group Jamaicans for Justice (JJ) used Mills’ story in a campaign to demand an investigation from Minister of National Security and Justice Keith Knight.

The story also spurred Amnesty International into sending a pathologist to represent the families at the autopsy. That pathologist was Dr. Peter Leth, from Denmark, who has also worked as a consultant to the International War Crimes Tribunal on Yugoslavia in The Hague. Dr. Leth’s brief included ensuring that the autopsies conformed to international requirements and practices.

Leth’s report, released on Tuesday by AI, not only confirmed that the men had been executed, but noted that that the autopsies were not done strictly according to international standards.

The 35-page report said the men had been shot at close range. Six of the seven had received lethal gunshot wounds to the head while three had received “potentially lethal” shots to the chest and abdomen. Four of the seven had also been shot from behind.

Leth reported: “It is highly unlikely that the pattern of gunshot wounds on the deceased should have occurred by random shooting from outside the house through windows with closed aluminium persiennes.”

And how does Mills feel that his story has had such reach and impact?

“I don’t really want to comment on it, I was just doing my job,” he said yet again. He doesn’t believe he should “grandstand” on the misfortunes of others, or become part of the story.

“It’s just not me,” he said.

The killings occurred just as the 2000 AI report that listed the Jamaican police force as one of the worst for human rights abuses was released, and a few days after the police force had published information showing that about one-quarter of all serious crimes – murders, rapes, shootings and robberies – were being committed by teens between the ages of 12 and 19 years old.

Jamaica’s Attorney General Senator A.J. Nicholson has accused AI of giving “support to the criminal elements in society”.

He said the organisation should tell the world of the level of crime existing in Jamaica rather than ask for sanctions that would affect the economy and result in more crime.

But Amnesty’s Piers Bannister denied that his organisation is seeking sanctions against the island.

“Amnesty does not lobby for sanctions, that would hurt the people, we are asking that assistance be given in training and properly equipping the security forces,” Bannister said.

“We have taken the message to the UN and the international community. We are talking to the people who give aid to Jamaica and we are asking them to use the aid to influence change,” he added.

Responding to locals’ animosity toward human rights organisations, he said Jamaicans must realise that everybody has rights, even those accused of crimes. “The changes we are asking for will benefit all citizens, not only those accused of crimes,” he said

A point of view shared by Sobers who pointed to the coroners’ office as one area that needed urgent attention if Jamaica were to solve its crime problem.

“Dr. Leth’s findings, and the recommendations of Amnesty says to me the criminals are having a field day because there is no evidence to convict them,” Sobers said.

Leth found that there were serious inadequacies in crime scene management, scientific work in autopsies and evidence gathering.

He also said the Coroners office needed to be independent of the Ministry of National Security and that tools and staff were badly needed. An example, he said was that only one pathologist carried out the autopsies instead of the two required.

Bannister believes that the Jamaican government can learn from what has happened. He noted that they must position themselves to make the changes.

“We believe that some good can come from the bad publicity,” Sobers said.á