POLITICS-JAMAICA: Inquiry into Killings Postponed

By Zadie Neufville Reprint | | Print |

Zadie Neufville

KINGSTON, Jul 27 2001 (IPS) - Prime Minister PJ Patterson failed Friday to meet his own deadline to name a three-person commission of inquiry into recent civil violence in the western part of this capital city.

At least 25 people were killed and twice as many injured in gun battles between gangs and security forces Jul 7-10. Another four people were killed when fresh violence erupted Wednesday.

Patterson pushed back the deadline to Aug 1 because his choice to head up the investigation has not yet agreed to take up the position. Patterson declined to identify the candidate except to say the person is a “recognised jurist” from outside the region “whose release from present duties will require the approval of the requisite authority.”

Reportedly, Patterson had asked a member of the Barbadian High Court to lead the commission but that official declined. This apparently forced the prime minister to look beyond the Caribbean for a chief commissioner acceptable to the government, the opposition, and civil society groups.

“I confidently expect to soon be in a position where I can advise the governor-general as to the full composition of the commission,” Patterson said in a statement from Jamaica House.

The commission – one foreign head and two locals – is expected to probe the link between the violence, the drug trade, and organised crime. It will examine the conduct of security forces in the affected communities; the circumstances in which police and civilians lost their lives; the setting up of roadblocks in other parts of the country; and whether citizens’ rights were violated.

The appointment of a foreigner to head the commission is designed to win confidence in the body’s integrity. However, the main opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) already has questioned the broad terms of reference.

“The opposition expects to be provided with the proposals of government for the terms of reference and for commissioners and after study, to have meaningful discussions with government regarding our own views,” said Edward Seaga, the JLP leader.

Seaga said he had written to Governor General Howard Cooke to request that the commission, announced by Patterson two weeks ago, deal specifically with the three days of shooting that followed Jul 7 police operations in Seaga’s stronghold of Tivoli Gardens and the other volatile West Kingston communities of Denham Town, and Hannah Town, Rema and Fletcher’s Land.

Jamaicans for Justice, a local human rights group, has asked Patterson to focus on the events of Jul 7 as well as the recommendations of previous reports on policing.

“The commission should be charged with discovering which of these recommendations have been implemented and with what results as well as the reasons for not implementing those that have not been implemented” the group said in its letter to the prime minister.

Awash in crime and with the world’s highest murder rate, Jamaican policing has been the subject five reports. The most recent one was prepared by the US-based Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) and was commissioned by the American Chamber of Commerce in Jamaica last October.

Eighty of the 83 crime-fighting and police-reform recommendations in the PERF report were accepted but on May 7, two days into the start of a pilot programme in troubled sections of Kingston, rival gangs squared off over guns and turf.

Uncertainty surrounds the origin of the violence, but local gang members said what began as a fight over guns and turf took on a political hue when communities supporting the JLP and the governing People’s National Party (PNP) began sniping at each other, leading to intervention by the JLP leader and his bodyguards.

Unless the JLP agrees with the terms and the commissioners chosen for the investigation, peace talks between Seaga and Patterson, brokered by the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, likely will not take place.

Seaga has set two preconditions for the talks: acceptance of the commission and a withdrawal of security forces from Denham Town and Tivoli Gardens.

Patterson has refused to negotiate the latter issue, pointing out that the political parties should not dictate the terms of police operations. New joint police and army patrols were deployed in the neighbourhoods following Wednesday’s renewed fighting.

The mediation between the PNP and JLP is aimed at quelling years of political clashes between the parties. Several peace talks have been called over the years, the most memorable in 1978 between Seaga and Michael Manley, then prime minister, with Reggae superstar Bob Marley as host.

Patterson has expressed a willingness to talk and this announced a widening of the inquiry to not only include the communities suggested by Seaga but also the reasons for the ongoing gun violence in which more than 72 people have been killed since the beginning of the year.

The Jul 7 clash that closed the city’s commercial centre for three days began, police said, when attempts officers searching for guns in Tivoli Gardens came under fire. The opposition, however, has accused police of firing wildly at civilians.

To support their claims, police have produced video evidence they said was gathered by a surveillance helicopter. Local broadcaster Fay Ellington and print journalist Desmond Richards said the fuzzy images appeared to support police assertions that armed men were present in the communities.

Patterson said he hopes the commission will help to find ways to retrieve illegal guns and stem the flow of drugs onto the island. While there are concerns about national security and the risk of reprisals, he said he would allow the commission freedom to determine which of its sessions will be public and which will be held behind closed doors.

The prime minister also raised “the possibility of civil or criminal proceedings resulting from the facts and circumstances giving rise to the inquiry”.