Todays News in a Nutshell

Friday, 27th August 2010

Digging for Congo Worms???

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No Better Herring...

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Thursday, 26th August 2010

IMPROPER???

But di Pickings big!!!

CONTRA Jamaica Gleaner News - Cane farmer probe - AG asked to audit private group - Business - Friday | August 27, 2010 $(document).ready(function() { $("#hi-temp").html(tempF + "°F"); $("#lo-temp").html(tempC + "°C"); $("#ww-icon").html(""); $("#blogs-list").html(latestposts); //$("#blogs-list-popular").html(popularposts); }); CTOR General Greg Christie has described as "irregular and highly improper" the execution of a contract between the Government and Dehring, Bunting and Golding (DB&G) for the sale of receivables before a formal written agreement was finalised.

At the same time Christie, in his probe of what Finance Minister Audley Shaw had labelled "Sweetheart Deals" between the People's National Party Government and the investment bank in March 2004, concluded that the transaction was not subject to competition.

As such, he said, he was unable to conclusively determine that the transaction was fair, transparent and/or indicative of the most beneficial terms and conditions which could have been derived by the Government, given the lack of competition.

Christie opened his probe into the matter in May 2008 after Shaw told the Parliament a month earlier that receivables from the sale of National Commercial Bank shares as well as receivables due from AIC were sold to DB&G by the finance ministry at a discount.

Shaw had alleged that the instruments were sold to DB&G "under very questionable circumstances" because the firm was close to the then Government.

But Peter Bunting, one of DB&G's principals at the time who is now an Opposition parliamentarian, argued that the deal was struck at a time when the Government was facing a challenge to meet its fiscal target.

Failure to meet that target, Bunting said, would have been damaging to the economy, as it would result in expectations of higher public sector borrowings and higher interest rates in the coming year.

Christie, in his report, said he found that the AIC receivables were sold at a discounted rate to DB&G and included the payment of a one per cent arrangement fee by the finance ministry.

According to Christie, it was DB&G that approached the ministry with the idea.

However, he said that sworn evidence obtained from the finance ministry indicated that "it is not a common practice to offer discounts on financial instruments whilst simultaneously paying a handling fee".

The contractor general also said that DB&G sold $852 million of the AIC receivables to the National Housing Trust (NHT) and the National Insurance Fund (NIF) "at a price which varied from that at which it had bought the said receivables".

He concluded that DB&G presented the NHT with the terms and conditions of the AIC receivables transaction on March 15, 2004, prior to the finalisation of a formal signed agreement with the finance ministry on March 26, 2004.

As such, Christie described DB&G's action as "premature" despite the short timeline identified as being available to complete the transaction.

Based on his findings, Christie recommended that the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee of Parliament as well as the Auditor General undertake an immediate review of the evaluation and approval processes for commercial agreements by the finance ministry.

He also repeated his recommendation that "the concept of the unsolicited proposal, which has found its way into the country's procurement conventions, should be immediately excised from the Government's procurement guidelines".

He expressed concern that the unsolicited proposal mechanism "is a corruption-enabling device which can be utilised by unscrupulous public officials to direct lucrative multimillion-dollar state contracts to connected, undeserving or desired contractors".

All such proposals, he insisted, should be tested for propriety, legitimacy, cost-effectiveness, quality, value for money and competitiveness in the open market.

He also said he was referring the matter of the NIF's purchase of the AIC receivables to the solicitor general and the auditor general for a determination to be made as to whether the fund's actions amounted to a breach of the National Insurance Act.

Yesterday, Daryl Vaz, the minister who has responsibility for information and whose government has been under attack by the PNP over the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips affair, said the contractor general's report demonstrated that the Opposition party has no moral authority to question anybody, based on its 18-year tenure in Government.

"It shows hypocrisy at the highest level, and I go further to say that the PNP has more nerve than a bad tooth," said Vaz.

He said the contractor general's recent findings do not give the Government any good feeling, as the revelations are not good for Jamaica.

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Wednesday, 25th August 2010

Nationalism vs patriotism

Monday night when Ms Yendi Phillipps placed second in the prestigious Miss Universe pageant in Las Vegas is reminiscent of the mood among Jamaicans — both here and abroad — when our athletes excelled at the Beijing Olympics in August 2008 and at the World Championships in Berlin a year later.

Ms Phillipps created history by being the first Jamaican to finish among the top three in this contest and as such deserves our heartiest congratulations.

Her achievement, we submit, was no easy feat, and it could not have come at a better time, as Jamaica is still recovering from the damage to its image sparked by the late May operation in Tivoli Gardens to arrest Mr Christopher 'Dudus' Coke and to repel a brazen attack on the state by gunmen.

But even as we celebrate Ms Phillipps' accomplishment, we cannot avoid highlighting the stark difference we have noticed here between nationalism and patriotism.

For despite the swell of national pride in our chests, there are still too many of us who do not appreciate the value of pitching in to help build the country.

Take, for example, the people who avoid paying taxes, yet are among the first to complain about poor infrastructure. The sad fact is that the majority of these people are professionals who know better but choose to ignore their responsibility to the country. They, of course, will proudly display their nationalism when necessary. But being nationalistic does not mean that Jamaica is a land we love.

For if we did indeed love Jamaica, we would care for the country in much the same way we care for our families and will do almost anything to help them develop and make them safe and happy.

Jesus Christ exhorted and challenged mankind to extend that willingness to help others beyond our immediate circle of family and friends. When He said love thy neighbour, He was telling us to be willing to help others whether we like them or not, and even if they are strangers.

This dictum, we submit, is not idealism but good sense, because if practised it makes us all better off.

We acknowledge, of course, that there are some Jamaicans who are trying to live by this credo, but they are a small minority, overwhelmed by the vast majority who care only about themselves.

However, a country cannot achieve its full potential for economic and social development without the majority of its citizens having a spirit of patriotism which, we recognise, is largely lacking among the generation born after Independence.

The task of instilling in that generation the patriotism that this country so badly needs will be difficult, given that so many of us are unapologetically materialistic, self-centred and prone to migration.

It is, however, not impossible. What it will require is outstanding leadership -- leadership of the kind displayed by the late United States president Mr John F Kennedy, who is remembered for his famous charge to America: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

....The politicians should try to do the same.... we hope????.....................................................................................................................................................

 

Tuesday, 24th August 201

 

Monday, 23rd August 2010

Greedy or Needy ???

In the United States town of Windermere in Florida, Pastor Ainsley Blair convinced dozens of people to invest millions with the David Smith-headed Olint.

In Jamaica, a similar message went out from several church pulpits as clergymen told their congregations about the "heaven on earth" that was being offered by the huge returns on investments in Olint.

Smith was a member of Church on The Rock, the 'uptown' of local churches, and self-appointed prophets declared that God had blessed him with a special gift to cure poverty. From populace pulpits, men of the cloth encouraged congregants to invest. The message became part and parcel of the prosperity gospel, and some church leaders dared to shift their organisations' acounts - made up mostly of tithes and offerings - to Olint.

Pastor Blair believed the prophetic claim, and he announced plans to use the money made from Olint to open a shelter for the poor in Jamaica.

On paper, Pastor Blair thought he had turned US$4 million into US$11 million, but when he tried to make his first withdrawal to start work on a hospital he was planning to build in Jamaica, he found out the money was all gone.

"It's heartbreaking. It's a terrible thing, and I hope he (Smith) pays for it," Blair told a United States publication recently.

Bishop Peter Morgan of City Life Ministries was one of the few local clergymen admitting to losing money in Olint.

According to Bishop Morgan, some of his "friends and colleagues suffered more - mostly churchfolk - both locally and overseas."

That is a story that is being repeated hundreds of times over as persons in Jamaica, the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI), and the United States come to the realisation that it is unlikely that they will get back any of the billions of dollars invested in Olint.

The Pied Piper

Instead, Smith, the man they once referred to as the "Pied Piper of the financial world", is now facing 30 charges in the TCI and 23 charges in the US.

According to a businessman who lost millions in Olint, it was the investors who sought out Smith.

"I don't remember David ever asking a man for money. He is like the Pied Piper - people just following and wanting to give him money."

This has left hundreds of people burnt in what could turn into a US$1 billion international investment scam.

The victims were all promised big returns, but many of them lost everything, and US prosecutors now claim that Smith fooled thousands of people into buying into a Ponzi scheme.

The prosecutors charge that Smith promised low-risk and high returns in one of the riskiest markets, and used money from new investors to pay old investors to trick them into believing that the foreign-exchange trading scheme was flourishing.

According to the prosecutors, Smith used his clients' money to "finance a lavish and expensive lifestyle, and from which he and others received millions of dollars in goods, services and other benefits".

Those who benefited are many; but those who got burnt are even more.

Local politicians enjoyed riding in Smith's jet, and many made no secret of their annual trip to the TCI to attend his birthday party.

Others sent him emails thanking him for his campaign contributions, which "made our annual conference a success".

Emails which have been going the rounds suggest that the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) general election victory in 2007 was largely funded by Olint.

The emails contained messages purportedly sent by the members of the JLP hierarchy asking Smith for funds or thanking him for his support.

Olint was also a one-time sponsor of the annual Jazz and Blues Festival, with entertainment insiders putting his contribution at US$400,000. That figure was never confirmed.

But several questions have always surrounded the operations of Olint, which promised high returns based on trading in one of the most unpredictable markets in the world.

By 2006, after almost two years of operations, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) in Jamaica turned its spotlight on Olint.

The FSC and the Financial Investigations Division of the Ministry of Finance and Planning executed search warrants under the Securities Act on the offices of Olint and LewFam Investments on March 3 and March 6, 2006, and seized documents.

The FSC determined that although claiming to be carrying on foreign currency trading activities, Olint and its associate entities were engaged in securities activities in breach of Sections 7 and 8 of the Securities Act.

The FSC issued cease and desist orders against them on March 24, 2006.

Bomb threat

By July, Olint closed its offices in Jamaica, and in an email sent to club members, Smith claimed that the closing was a result of threats to staff, including a bomb threat.

The email acknowledged that the threats might have resulted from the failure of the scheme to honour redemption, which it blamed on FSC actions, court conditions for the stay of execution, and actions by local commercial banks to close Olint accounts.

The banks, particularly National Commercial Bank (NCB), came in for immediate criticism from the Smith backers as a court battle went all the way to the Privy Council to determine if Olint's accounts could be closed.

With the Privy Council siding with NCB, Smith packed up and moved to TCI, where he set up shop.

But by July 2008, the authorities in the TCI moved against Smith, sparking what now appears to be the beginning of the end.

He was arrested and charged before being granted bail to the tune of US$1 million.

With that matter before the courts in the TCI, the prospect of investors getting back their money seemed less likely when regulators closed down the Turks and Caicos Bank which left Olint accounts entombed in that bankrupt entity and subject to the process of liquidation.

Extradition

If that was not enough, US authorities last week indicted Smith on 23 charges and hinted that they would be seeking his extradition.

But despite the obvious issues surrounding the failed foreign exchange trading club, Smith's defenders remain many.

On the social network site Facebook, there is a group christened Defenders of David Smith/Olint. One posting on the site says: "If you are like us and sick and tired of the rumours and the vampires who are trying to destroy David Smith and Olint, join this group and let us tell the world and all his detractors to go directly to hell."

Another posting says: "The man has way better intentions than most, and believe it or not, he's fighting for more Jamaicans to make some more money."

They obviously still have faith in Smith, who had worked for several years as a licensed representative of Jamaica Money Market Brokers Limited, reputedly specialising in international foreign-exchange trading.

He branched out on his own, forming a "club", where a few friends would trade foreign currencies.

Flood of investments

The word quickly spread, as members reported making hand-some returns of as much as 15 per cent a month.

That sparked a flood of investments as persons sold property, sought loans, and broke open their savings accounts to cash in on what was to many easy cash.

The foreign-exchange market is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average turnover estimated at well over US$1 trillion.

About five per cent of daily turnover is from companies and governments that buy or sell products and services in a foreign country or must convert profits made in foreign currencies into their domestic currency.

The other 95 per cent is trading for profit, which Smith claimed to do before being exposed by the authorities.

As the world of the 'Piped Piper' began to crumble in 2008, Smith said: "I have not appropriated members' funds for my own purposes, nor have I engaged in criminal activity. However, I need around nine months to pay back Olint members. The funds remain intact."

Those nine months have long gone, but, still, Olint investors are waiting to get back their money.

And They Preach Against Gambling....
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Sunday, 22nd August, 2010

Oh, What a Web we Continue to Weave

Email correspondence involving Solicitor General Douglas Leys, local attorney Harold Brady, and officials of the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips confirms that the United States law firm was working on behalf of the Golding-led Government of Jamaica, even if it had been engaged by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

The emails also suggest that the claim by Manatt that it had not been engaged to address the extradition request involving Christopher 'Dudus' Coke was not true.

Using the Access to Information Act, The Sunday Gleaner acquired copies of the emails, which span a seven-month period from September 2009 to March 2010.

In a statement to Parliament in April of this year, Prime Minister Golding said he had sanctioned the retention of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips on condition that it was "undertaken by the party, not by or on behalf of the Government." However, not only was the solicitor general, a senior government officer, giving instructions to the law firm, he was actioning instructions from its officials.

The emails also indicate that the prime minister and the attorney general were updated at intervals on the discussions and were apparently involved in the next-steps decisions as the Government sought to lobby the US on the Coke issue.

"We have to talk on Monday after we have had a chance to brief the PM and the AG (Dorothy Lightbourne)," said Brady in an email to Manatt, which was copied to Leys.

That conference call was requested on December 23 by Susan Schmidt of Manatt who indicated to Leys and the others that she would like to talk about meetings and the next steps.

Seeking clearance

The emails also include directions from Manatt for the solicitor general to write to a high-ranking member of the US Justice Department seeking clearance on a proposed press release to be issued locally during the heat of the 'Dudus' controversy.

The first email contact between Leys and Manatt came on September 19, less than one month after the Government received the extradition request for Coke.

At that time, Leys sent the law firm an email outlining his suggested questions and other legal issues pertaining to the request.

But in a cover statement to The Sunday Gleaner, Leys declared that the email was sent to Manatt for the attention of Brady because efforts to send it to the local lawyer's email address had failed.

Unaware of MPP

"At the time I sent this email, I was not aware of the existence of the firm MPP (Manatt, Phelps & Phillips) or who were the owners of these email addresses. Therefore, the first email to MPP was done at a time when I did not know of the existence of the firm," Leys said.

However, three months later, Leys invited a representative of Manatt to sit in on a meeting he had in Washington with US officials to discuss the Coke extradition request.

Schmidt later prepared two versions of a press release, which she indicated the law firm wanted to "run by the US government".

"If the US government agrees, then it can say the two governments are committed together. If they don't want the Government of Jamaica to speak for it, then the version we would provide to the US government for its information is ... ," Schmidt said.

Leys had previously told The Sunday Gleaner about the draft press release, which he claimed he decided not to issue, although in his response to Schmidt the solicitor general indicated that he would prefer the first release, which represented the position of the two countries.

"Why don't we put the joint one first, and if they object, we could always say we will reconsider and then come back with the last option as an alternative?" said Leys in a December 28 email to Schmidt.

Leys also wrote the law firm, giving permission to go ahead with the release following questions from officials of the company if "further review or approval at your end is required ... "

With the release not issued by December 31, Brady pointed his colleagues at Manatt to an editorial in The Gleaner which was biting in its criticism of the Government's handling of the Coke extradition request.

"Any feedback from your end? Please see page A6 of today's Daily Gleaner. It would be helpful if we could put something out from this end," Brady said.

Return call

The response from Manatt was that it was awaiting a return call from ranking member of the US Department of Justice, Justice Molly Warlow.

Two weeks later, Manatt official Kevin Di Gregory wrote to Leys indicating that the US Department of Justice wanted any discussion to be with a Jamaican government official.

Di Gregory recommended that Leys send the Justice official the proposed release.

The Manatt official also suggested the language that Leys should use and requested that he be informed of the response from the Justice Department.

"... Because of the intense media and public interest in the Coke extradition, we feel it necessary to inform our citizens that a process is under way to reach a mutually satisfactory conclusion ... ," read a section of the text proposed by Di Gregory.

With that release apparently going nowhere, Manatt wrote to Leys in February, pointing to an extradition hearing taking place in the US, and argued that a ruling by the judge could be considered in the Coke case.

The emails end on March 8, 2010, when Manatt sent Brady and copied to Leys the US narcotics report, with the references to the Dudus extradition request highlighted.

arthur.hall@gleanerjm.com

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Monday, 22nd August 2010

It appears the Government quickly shot down a proposal from Solicitor General Douglas Leys that alleged drug kingpin Christopher 'Dudus' Coke should be tried in Jamaica.

Leys made the suggestion in his initial memorandum to Attorney General and Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne 25 days after the United States sent an extradition request for Coke.

"In order to avoid an outright refusal and prevent a diplomatic stand-off, the minister should indicate to the United States (US) that if it is willing to withdraw the request for Mr Coke's extradition it would be prepared to give an undertaking to submit to the director of public prosecutions for decision as to prosecution of the charges in the Jamaican courts provided that the US authorities agree to turn over all the evidence to the prosecuting authority in Jamaica," Leys wrote.

Former National Security and Justice Minister K.D. Knight had made a similar proposal at the height of the extradition controversy.

"There is the possibility of prosecuting the person locally. If there is the evidence and you don't want to send the person abroad and the evidence was gathered here in accordance with the Interception of Communica-tions Act, then prosecute the person here. You don't have to extradite the person," Knight said then.

But that issue appears not to be have been explored by the Government, and neither Lightbourne nor Prime Minister Golding has indicated what became of that proposal.

In her chronology of events leading up to the extradition of Coke, which she presented in the Senate, Lightbourne made no reference to this option.

According to Lightbourne, diplomatic negotiations centred around the failure of the US to honour its obligations under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty and other agreements.

While agreeing with Light-bourne that the information provided by the US was not enough to cause her to sign the document for the extradition hearing to begin, Leys made several proposals about how the process could be handled.

He also raised a number of questions about the US handling of the matter.

Among the questions raised by Leys was that there was a significant delay in seeking the extradition of Coke and this could be prejudicial to him.

"We should ask the US authorities to explain the delay," Leys said.

Request

He also raised concerns that the US had made known the request for the extradition of Coke to "unauthorised persons before the minister of justice received the request through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade".

The unauthorised persons referred to by Leys would be then Police Commissioner Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin and the Chief of Defence Staff Major General Stewart Saunders.

Lewin has since gone public to indicate that he received word of the extradition request and informed National Security Minister Dwight Nelson and Golding.

Leys' memorandum was sent to officials of the US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips in what, he said, was an attempt to send it to local attorney Harold Brady.

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Leggo!!!!

It took a strongly worded letter from The Gleaner's legal counsel to get the Attorney General's Chambers to release its griplike hold on controversial emails exchanged between the solicitor general and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.

After locating the requested emails, the Attorney General's Chambers attempted to delay the handover of the documents by 30 days.

Under the Access to Infor-mation (ATI) Act, the government entity is given a maximum of 30 days within which to satisfy the request, provided that the requested documents do not fall in any of the nine categories of exempt documents specified under the act. But the act also allows for the extension of this period by another 30 days, which may only be done where there is reasonable cause to do so.

Despite the clearly defined parameters of the ATI Act, it took more than two months for the ATI request to be granted, and the government entity in question did not establish reasonable cause. The delay spawned the intervention of The Gleaner's legal department, which told the goverment's lawyers that "given the pronouncements of the solicitor general and the prime minister on this matter, a one-hour review of the Access to Information Act and the sketchy literature thereon, should have sufficed to complete the review process.

"It is beyond our understanding why the Attorney General's Department, with all its resources, should require all of 60 days to review a few emails and take a decision. We, therefore, ask that you comply with the terms of said act, which is so often heralded by your government, and supply us with the documents requested as soon as possible."

The ATI request was granted two days later.

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Saturday, 21st August 2010

Shops controlled by cruise lines and Indians

Jerk Pork and jerk chiken controlled by Mexicans

..Residents get the pickings......................................................................................................................................................................................................

JLP, PNP old guard resisting retirement

BY ERICA VIRTUE

A desire for the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the Opposition People's National Party (PNP) to nudge some of their ageing representatives into the political departure lounge and eventually into retirement is being resisted by some of the old guard in both movements.

According to a PNP insider, when the idea — framed as 'political term limits' — was raised at a recent meeting, one parliamentarian, who is now older than 69, defiantly declared that he had "two more terms to go".

A similar report emerged from within the JLP where, according to our source, a senior parliamentarian made clear to his fellow Labourites that he brought political capital to the party and had won his seat in the last general election by "more than 3,000 f...... votes".

"Just the mere mention of the subject was violently rebuffed by some of the individuals, many of whom are throwing their political record on the table as evidence of their continued relevance," a senior political source told the Sunday Observer.

But while the defiant, and sometimes angry, opposition to the idea of injecting new blood into the parties would result in the departure of some of the country's most prominent politicians, the thought has resulted in the youth arms of the JLP and PNP finding common ground on the issue.

"It is high time that many of our older politicians seriously consider throwing in the towel," said Delano Seiveright, president of Generation 2000 (G2K), the young professionals arm of the JLP.

"A number of them have made very positive contributions to Jamaica. However, in a general sense their generation has been, by and large, a bit of a failure for our people," Seiveright told the Sunday Observer.

Damion Crawford, president of the PNP Youth Organisation (PNPYO), believes the change would be a positive for governance.

"After a while you become redundant," he said. "As a part of good governance it is absolutely necessary. Doing the same thing over and over again is not good governance and it is certainly not renewal."

However, he argued that people were disillusioned with the actions and not necessarily the people, as two young candidates would not necessarily engender a greater voter turnout at elections.

Asked to comment on the disenchantment of which the PNPYO president spoke, University of the West Indies (UWI) lecturer in the Department of Government, Richard 'Dickie' Crawford said: "The disillusionment is general, and it has been fostered by the older people in politics, but I don't think it would necessarily go away with them."

Although the idea of injecting new blood into the parties appears not to have gained much traction as yet, psychology professor and former senior civil servant Dr Christopher Charles believes it is a process that should have started a long time ago.

In his view, the retention of this old guard is stagnating and strangling the country's development.

"They should go," Charles said readily. "They have facilitated Jamaica's under-development since independence, but they think they have done very well for the country. They cannot see that they are millstones around the necks of the Jamaican people. This break with reality makes them extremely dangerous to the survival of Jamaica."

In the September 2007 general elections, the JLP and PNP both fielded candidates who were well past the retirement age of 65 years for men and 60 for women.

Political analysts have argued that were they in the public sector, retirement or pre-retirement parties would have been held for them, and wishes for good health poured on their impending departure.

However, with no term limit structure in Jamaica, except in the public sector and in the Jamaica Constabulary and Defence forces, politicians have occupied parliamentary positions for extremely long periods.

Their reluctance, and sometimes defiance to the idea of leaving is what Dr Charles finds offensive, and according to him, the process is crying out for "new blood, new thinking and new approaches".

'Dickie' Crawford agrees.

"Perhaps one of the greatest impediments in the last 40 years to constitutional and political reform and improvement is that the old, entrenched political leaders do not wish to have any of their powers diluted," Crawford said in an interview.

According to the lecturer, their retention is a continued headlong dive into political darkness and will further erode public confidence in political parties which already rank at the bottom, based on a 2006 leadership and governance survey done for the UWI.

Old institutions, such as the police and political parties, occupy the bottom two positions in public trust, he said.

"With the best will in the world, it is the hardest thing to get the old guard to understand the dynamics of the new politics in international relations, technology, investment and in the development of human resources, because the old politics does not require that," Crawford said.

Current JLP leader and prime minister Bruce Golding was a strong advocate of term limits -- similar to the US presidential limit of two terms -- during his sojourn in the National Democratic Movement.

Although the JLP, in its manifesto for the 2007 general election, stated its intention to impose a two-term limit on anyone holding the office of prime minister, the party has been quiet on the subject since taking office.

Betty Ann Blaine, convenor of the recently launched political party, New Nation Coalition, has made clear her support for term limits.

While the PNP has not discussed the matter as a policy issue, PNP vice-president Dr Fenton Ferguson said it is a policy whose time has come.

"It is not just about age. It is about good governance," he said. "For me, it is not about any individual, and my time will come very soon. But we talk about renewal, but when it comes to doing it and its impact on individuals, it becomes a non-starter."

While not supporting a wholesale tossing out of older individuals who serve, he believes the political process should allow for them to become elder statesmen and mentors.

Pointing to the "young presidents" of the United States who must demit office after two terms unless they are voted out before, Dr Ferguson said it contributes to good governance and renewal.

Opposition Senator Basil Waite said he articulated term limits for parliamentarians during his time as president of the PNPYO. However, the party is no nearer to accepting it.

When former Prime Minister P J Patterson stepped down in 2006, he was already involved in the political process for more than 40 years. His replacement, Portia Simpson Miller, is now the longest serving, continuing representative, winning the South West St Andrew seat since 1976.

Central Clarendon MP Mike Henry has won that seat since 1980.

Before them, former Prime Minister Edward Seaga represented West Kingston for more than 40 years. The three constituencies are among the 12 regarded as entrenched political garrisons with a devaluing social, economic and political stock.

Last week, a senior PNP source, who asked not to be named, expressed sympathy for some of those in his party who would be affected by term limits, suggesting that they have nowhere else to go.

"What would they do. What would they do every morning?" he asked. "The phones would stop ringing and they would find that they are no longer relevant, most of them don't have a profession to return to."

Pointing to some who recently left, he singled out K D Knight, former national security and justice minister who also served as minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade; and former tourism minister John Junor, who are attorneys-at-law who have returned to successful law practices.

Last week, former education minister Maxine Henry-Wilson, who is now part of the University of the West Indies lecturing and graduate supervisory programmes, sealed her departure officially as she spoke at her South East St Andrew constituency conference. She is being replaced by one of the party's young, bright stars, deputy general secretary Julian Robinson.

East Portland PNP MP Dr Ronald Rhodd is also to return to his ophthalmology practice, while North West Manchester MP Dean Peart has already stepped away and has been replaced by Mikael Phillips.

'Dickie' Crawford said the evaluation of the PNP's performance in the 2007 general election showed a disaffected 40-41 per cent of the electorate, who are under 35 years and who have indicated that they may not vote in any upcoming elections.

"What we understand from the longevity of these people staying in office is the retention of the old political values and systems, and the entrenchment of the garrison phenomenon and all the negatives that are inherent in 40 years of politics in Jamaica," he argued.

Last week, one PNP insider said that some comrades were obviously upset at news that the party would be supporting former Portmore mayor George Lee to run against incumbent Keith Hinds in the next local government election.

"Frankly, if the PNP cannot find somebody else to run against Keith Hinds, then we are in deep s...," the insider said.

Other PNP insiders say some of the old guard are willing to walk away. However, they fear that the vacancies that would be created by their departure would trigger a fresh round of infighting.

Citing the recent case in North East St Elizabeth where open political brawls embarrassed the party, PNP insiders say the leadership is desperate to maintain what is really a fragile unity.

For the JLP's Seiveright, the strategy is simple -- young people must begin to step forward.

"There are more than enough talented, skilled and reform-minded young persons within and outside the political parties that can take Jamaica to very high heights," he argued. "The younger amongst us must more aggressively work themselves into key leadership positions and take the reins of political leadership and... speedily move our country forward."

He is not ruling out the possibility that constitutional changes could be used to get rid of the old guard.

"We shouldn't be quick to rule out constitutional measures that would see to continually changing political leadership," Seiveright said.

Whether a move like that would satisfy people like Dr Charles is left to be seen, as he is not very optimistic about the country's political outlook.

"I am not hopeful for the future. The old political dinosaurs are the mentors and role models of the so-called young blood," he said. "The upcoming politicians will destroy Jamaica for another generation."

But the people in the parties who support term limits said they would be stepping up their pressure to weed out some of the old guard.

"They need to retire themselves, or be retired," one source said.

 

Again, it's all about the pickings

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Friday, 20th August 2010

Here we go again......Where????

The sudden resignation from the Jamaica Railway Corporation (JRC) board of Mr Harold Brady, the attorney-at-law who inspired such intrigue during 'Dudusgate' has piqued our interest.

Mr Brady, in his resignation letter to Transport and Works Minister Mike Henry, said that he had indicated at the time of his appointment that he would not be available for reappointment when the life of the board comes to an end on October 31 this year.

He also said that very recent developments in his firm's international professional relationships may result in a conflict of interest between his position on the board and his firm.

While that is a very noble position to place in the public sphere, we cannot help but wonder whether Mr Brady was forced to resign.

If so, why, and more poignantly, why at this particular time?

We raise these questions in the absence of the much-needed closure that the Government has refused to bring to the issue of its unholy defence of Mr Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, who was eventually extradited to the United States to answer charges of drug and gun-running.

For we hold that there is much that Prime Minister Bruce Golding has failed to tell us about the real reason why he has so -- contemptuously in our view -- dismissed the concerns of many who want the skinny on how Mr Brady rose to the forefront of negotiations with the US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips on behalf of the Jamaican Government to shield Mr Coke from extradition.

So far, we have been encouraged to believe that Mr Brady did so on his own steam.

But we submit that if we were to be given a less fantastic explanation, there would probably be no need for the doubts that arise every time Mr Brady hits the headlines.

It may be that no significance is attached to Mr Brady's resignation. However, we do not feel that we can easily make that assumption, given the history of subterfuge that has characterised the past 10 months.

As things stand now, we have maintained our endorsement of the position of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, the MSME Alliance, the Jamaica Exporters' Association, the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association, and the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica not to engage the Government in the critical Partnership for Transformation talks until it comes clean.

For it is most distracting to have to keep jumping out of the water every time the sharks of 'Dudusgate' come calling.

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Golding, Part Time Prime Minister???

PM Golding is not the author of our economic woes and we sincerely hope he is part of the solution. He should be given full support in his lawful duties. But he is also the butt of our just cynicism and anger. He should read internet wisdom: "He is not necessarily your enemy who puts you in the mess nor is he your friend who pulls you out!" The rough farmer put the frozen bird in the warm manure pile and it lived. The kind girl took it out and the fox promptly ate it. We "pripsed" Golding but he ignored the hint. It was a mistake to accept the Caricom job. Had he said, "Caricom, I love you, but I love my people more and they need 100 per cent of me at this time. Check me in 2012", we would have appreciated his selfless act. He did not.

Before proceeding I salute some disgruntled and polite readers. I love when you cuss me. You are Jamaica's finest. The day one man's opinion rules we are lost! You say I am hard on our PM but easy on "light bulb" Spencer. Tell me this! Is a 40-year-veteran PM taught by Gamaliel Seaga not more accountable to us than a rookie MP? Look at this Caricom job. It's not personal, he could defer it. We endured his song and dance with Dudus, the killings, etc. Had he put his nation first, said no to Caricom, he would have confounded all his critics and won our respect. He blew it! A new job in the midst of our crisis? Caricom is not central to our growth nor our crime fight, yet he chose that job over us. No wise CEO would take a job abroad with his company in crisis. We take no pride in his elevation. We, once too wealthy to federate with

"small islands", are in debt and "red eye" too, as a gracious T&T gives its people some of their own oil. No Cabinet ever gave us an aluminium kettle out of our bauxite wealth. After 48 years of conscious rulers, not even "one degeh-degeh pot we nuh get". More power to Kamla!

Minister Shaw also sends the wrong signals. He just borrowed US$200m and tells us, "Jamaican economy right on track." Nonsense! Do we have lower civil service costs, good trade balance, big growth in jobs and per capita GDP? No! He must tell people to wake up, work hard, start ventures and produce. Low inflation, FX, etc, are preconditions, not growth. We have been there many times. All punters know you have to get in the starting gate in order to be "on track". We are now under starter's orders. Sir, what's your next move? Vital signs are not growth. From near dead, we got an IMF jolt of US$1.3b to restart our economic heart. This loan means FX is available, J$ appreciates, confidence rises and we are all optimistic - other people's money, no effort on our part. Minister, what's the new figure for debt? Give us the narrative to join up new loans, investment, repayment, jobs and growth. A job is dignity. Japan's correlation between joblessness and suicide is like ours between unemployment and murder - we kill others, not ourselves Do you know we have three generations - son, father, grandfather - who never held a job? Many feckless, work-shy youths? How many suckled on free food and housing are now independent? Progress is to grow out of poverty each year more than the poor who come in. How many "have-nots" we graduated to "haves" in 48 years? This is the litmus test of 48 years of grass-roots political leaders! Miserable failures!

Bruce has nothing to lose. What's the worst that can happen? That we remain a pre-developed nation? We are 48 and still pre-pubescent; not in the top 10 of Caricom; nor an example of ethics, leader in thought or good governance - our only way is up! He might yet rewrite history. No one remembers the villainy of the victor! If he gets us there, history will say he was deceived by Dudus, the changeling whom he vanquished, cast into the pit of extradition and led his nation to greatness! Will Cabinet pressure the PM to issue a national call to action, so together we make the next two years count? Let's see! (Asking di blind to lead the blind???)

The most striking thing about Cabinet is the absence of a "big idea". The reason we bitch and moan is that Bruce has given us nothing but grief. Our PM, chair of Caricom, MP, radio host, etc. How many public service jobs does it take to stroke one ego? His Caricom job is most insensitive. He takes it so soon after a near treason and the largest mass killing in our history. Bruce is an experienced politician, no one "set him up". Maybe he is accident-prone as he consistently shows his worse profile. We just take pictures. Selah!

Now let's shake up some "folly ground". Farm work money sent some politicians to jail so Minister Charles must give way to recruitment firms. It's too much temptation. Foreign firms control the EU farm and factory work and some are 14 hours by air, not English, and no minister to pimp for them. To rinse farm work money is "old-time" politics! We now have money transfer and recruitment firms. The PSOJ must list all areas where the state competes with business and add them to the divestment list - if even as an ESOP. Minister Chang can get billions invested and lead a revolution in housing if Cabinet gives investors in rental housing equality in law to tenants. Young people and those without big deposits have a right to good housing too. Our laws are biased against investors. Minister Holness should create school districts, decentralise management, funding and draw on local talent. If the local school district or parish is accountable for local children, it will be better. He must shift the focus of the ministry to funding, development, assessment and quality. Several ministers are under the radar. In future we will examine what they do. Stay conscious!

Note

The Commonwealth is a great body. Australian PM Julia Gillard, a lawyer who lives with her hairdresser boyfriend, was born in Wales. She plans to scrap the monarchy in sync with the queen's handover. What's our plan? Opposition leader Tony Abbott, a Rhodes Scholar, was born in England. We can also go there and run for office just as in the UK and Canada. Would we welcome Commonwealth citizens in politics? Julia has been in the Labour party for 12 years and Tony the Liberal Party for 14 - both at the top. Our politicians hog the seats for 30 years and more. Come on fellows, get a life!

franklinjohnston@hotmail.com

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DNA.. Solution... When????

.Former Deputy Commissioner of Police Mark Shields has admonished the Government for dragging its feet on proposed DNA legislation to take the fight to criminals.

The outspoken British ex-policeman was also caustic in his criticism of what he characterised as the Government's "quick-fix" policies to address the crime problem.

Shields, who ended his stint in the Jamaica Constabulary Force last year, suggested that the solution to arrest crime lies in the enactment of DNA legislation and the establishment of police posts in vulnerable areas across the island.

Addressing a Rotary Club of Kingston luncheon at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston yesterday, he asserted that a structured DNA system and additional police posts would strengthen the investigation of criminal offences.

Long process

"I am told that the (DNA) legislation is in the pipeline but I cannot see why it is taking so long," Shields declared.

"We spent between $15 and $20 million on the forensic laboratory. Everything is there except the legislation. We have particularly rushed through the crime bills. Why can't we rush through the DNA legislation?" he queried.

Shields said the Government's current crime-fighting strategies would not yield significant reductions.

He argued that the state of emergency and the six crime bills are only plaster over the cracks of the acute social problems the country faces.

"One could argue that the 60 days, no bail is a quick fix. What would they actually achieve, that's an open question," he said.

"Some people were trying to get the state of emergency extended. Well, I could say that many young men, some of whom were innocent, were being locked up for extended periods."

Shields said many persons have had their photographs and fingerprints taken only to be kicked back out on to the streets.

He charged that the country needed to find macro solutions to address the problem.

"We have to focus on the areas where the people are most poor, where there are literally thousands of young men, particularly who got no prospective jobs, they have no education, they can't read and write and their own solution sometimes is the guns, the corner or the gangs," Shields declared.

"That has to be changed, and until we get to those problems, we will not solve the monster of crime," said the retired policeman, who was in 2005 seconded to the Jamaica Constabulary Force from Scotland Yard .

Shields lashed out against the call for persons who are involved in the brutal killings to be killed, saying that it was not the solution to the problem.

"I am very concerned that every time that another poor and unfortunate, normally innocent person, is murdered by the criminals, there is an immediate cry that we should go out there and we should take revenge," he said.

"We tried that before and it didn't work and there is absolutely no way it is going to work in the future," he added.

Better solution

He said that though the justice system might be slow and sometimes does not work, it should not be abandoned in dealing with criminals, as it is a better solution than murder.

Despite his criticisms, Shields stressed that he was was not bashing the policies by the Government and that he believed it was trying but failed to implement the fundamental measures that could stem crime in the country.

Yesterday afternoon, Superinten-dent James Forbes, of the Community Safety Division of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, said Shields was a private citizen who had a right to express his opinion.

Forbes argued, however, that the Government's strategies were tools requested by the police force to carry out its fight against crime.

He said the measures were far-reaching and would reap long-lasting benefits.

nadisha.hunter@gleanerjm.com

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Thursday, August 19th 2010

Let’s make room for our gifted children..Take a leaf from Cuba's Book....

Thursday, August 19, 2010

WE anticipate the publication of many success stories following this week’s release of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) and other examination results.

And of course we tender our unreserved congratulations to all who have done well.

However, on reading about the achievement by Mr Garfield Davidson, the 12-year-old whose academic success story we have been following for the past two years, we can’t help but wonder if we are cheating some of our young people out of the opportunity to maximise their full potential. According to today’s edition of our sister title, the Observer West, Mr Davidson — who now has eight subjects at the CXC level — is preparing to tackle five more during the upcoming academic year.

If the trend of success continues, he’ll have 13 subjects at the age of 13. Another two years of studies at the advanced secondary level and he’ll be ready, at age 15, to take on tertiary/professional studies.

Within the context of our public education system, this is exceptional.

But does it really have to be?

Do we not owe it to ourselves as a society to ask some questions about what really separates a young man like Mr Davidson from the rest of the pack?

Is it his ability to learn, or his tutors’ ability to teach?

Of course, he is gifted and fortunate — we might add — to be the beneficiary of the asynchronous educational philosophy that the principal of his school, Ms Vivienne DeOkoro, has to offer. Simply put, asynchrony facilitates the development of children according to their mental as opposed to chronological ages. Consequently, a child who is mentally ready for graduate or even post-graduate studies won’t be held back by his or her age.

One school of thought posits that this is the way to go. According to that view, it is not in a child’s best interest to stymie upward academic mobility for social reasons as this may lead to boredom, frustration and ultimately, juvenile delinquency.

The opposing argument is that children who are allowed to develop academically within the context of their mental age end up being unbalanced and unable to socialise effectively.

Without taking sides, we submit that while there may be merits to both views, the issue is not a black and white one.

Rather, there may be exceptions to both arguments, depending on the particular characteristics of each individual.

That is why we are heartened to read that Ms DeOkoro’s gifted programme is being expanded for the benefit of children who live in Kingston.

For the matter of our children’s education is much too important to leave to traditional myths or chance.

BY ALESIA EDWARDS Observer staff reporter

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New political parties a mere sideshow

RAULSTON NEMBHARD

Yet a new political party calling itself the New Nation Coalition has been formed. My initial reaction to this was, "Here we go again." It seems that whenever there is a group of people that become concerned about serious issues in society it is not long before they become infected with the bug of power and conclude that the best way to address these issues is to form a political party. They believe that by attaining political power they will now have the distinct advantage to redress whatever they are aggrieved about. It is within this context of grievance that the NNC has been formed with the strong conviction that they will be able to convince a majority of Jamaicans to support them in their beliefs and thus elect them to power.

While I wish the NNC, and any group for that matter, well in their efforts to address the intractable problems we have in this country, I wonder at the tremendous amount of time, energy and money that is to be expended in the search for political power. Attaining political power in Jamaica, as the NDM has discovered, does not come cheaply. What has bedevilled third parties is the lack of capital which is often a consequence of the people's lack of interest in supporting them as serious political forces to be reckoned with. This is why all third parties that have been formed in Jamaica have faltered and failed over the years. The Jamaican political soil is just not fertile for their survival. The NNC may believe that it has a decided advantage in the Christian foundation and principles in which the party is grounded, but it will be sadly and rudely awakened to the reality that this will not give it any traction in the political milieu that we have in Jamaica. The people instinctively know that Jamaican politics is serious business. The diehards of the two major political tribes will not give third parties the time of day. The undecided, who seem to at least think through the issues, will be very guarded in their support. The latter will not rush to support a political party merely on the understanding that that party espouses Christian principles. It takes more than a strong appeal to religious fervour to win elections. While I am not saying that this is what the NNC believes, I certainly would not be inclined to support any political party that seems to be defined by theocratic values.

Another consideration that those who wish to create third parties in Jamaica may wish to embrace is that the Jamaican political system neither has the capacity nor the energy to accommodate seriously a third political force. The closest we have come to this kind of reality is the NDM and we have seen what has become of that. The party is now a mere pressure group exerting more pressure on its ability to survive than anything else. Although the party had noble ideals at its founding it cannot now be called a political party; it is a mere "whistle in the dark" and those who seek to nurture and promote it must wake up to the reality of the need to redefine their goals and objectives. Part of their goal and objective which should also be that of groups such as the NNC, is to become strong advocacy groups which challenge the existing political structures to become more humanising and more conversant with the needs of Jamaica. It has been shown in recent times what civil society is capable of achieving in Jamaica. Private sector and human rights groups have demonstrated for all to see that through strong advocacy political parties can be forced to become cognisant of their role in building a better Jamaica. The idea is to keep the pressure on.

Groups like the NDM and NNC can contribute more to Jamaica as pressure or advocacy groups than they are likely to do by becoming political parties. If the leaders of these groups are truly committed to political representation of the needs of their constituents they may find that they would achieve more by working through the existing political structures that we have. I say this with a great deal of reservation knowing too well the dismal tribal nature of the political culture that has informed the two major political parties. Their exclusion of good talent is well known as is their resistance to change. Even within their own ranks, their discouragement of independent ideas is a humbug despite their pretensions to democratic thinking and behaving. If you do not toe the line any hope of upward mobility is stifled.

There is no doubt that both the JLP and the PNP need a breath of fresh air. Jamaicans must have a vested interest in ensuring that they become viable entities capable of judicious administration of the people's business when they ascend to power. Contrary to the thinking of many in these parties, they are not private clubs that have a private agenda. New talent going in could shake up the structures of these parties and make them more relevant to the needs of Jamaica at this time. As my colleague Mark Wignall has acknowledged, what we need at this time are new people, not new political parties. Frankly, given the mortality rate of new political parties in Jamaica since Independence, any new political party formed today is at best a distraction and at worst a sideshow.

stead6655@aol.com

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Wednesday, 18th August 2010

 

Tuesday, 17th August 2010

 

Poor Marcus ..no Justice no Peace

Friday, August 15th 2010

Fairy Tales Can Come True

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Thursday, August 14th 2010

Today's Cartoon

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Friday, 13th August 2010

LNG, FDI, corruption, energy strategy

FRANKLIN JOHNSTON

Friday, August 13, 2010

The Caribbean LNG bid is unusual. A firm in which the main shareholder is a politically appointed ex-top honcho of the body which has to approve and monitor the deal raises eyebrows in any country. FDI and LNG are good but deals must be vetted as corruption via foreign investment is real. CLNG will invest some US$600m and has reputable partners, but as the file to topple the contractor general is being built we must confront its faceless LNG lobby. Yes, FDI is not taxpayers' money but things that cost us nothing can harm us! Free Cuban light bulbs choke us; 500 mislaid truckloads of sand ruin beaches, and foreign hotels that flout building laws harm us. We are poor; must we be corrupt too? What must the Office of the Contractor General do when told of a likely corrupt act? Ignore it as it's not our money? We know BP's oil deal in Libya, its lobby to free the Lockerbie terrorist who murdered 270 people, and Trafigura gave toxic waste to the Ivory Coast. Corruption and FDI are friends. The LNG lobby say, "Hands off!", but let's support the OCG. Energy is a strategic input and we will not be bullied! The ink is not dry and they are emboldened to belittle our OCG! We must proceed with eyes wide open. The LNG lobby protests too much!

Natural Gas (gas) is mainly methane - odourless, colourless, tasteless; we add an odorant so we can smell a leak. If we cap Riverton dump we have a massive supply. Gas was here since forever; gas in nature, ignited by lightning burns for centuries. The Jews' "burning bush", the Greeks' Olympus flame, Chinese bamboo pipelines from 700 BCE tapped earth's gas leaks. The UK uses gas from the 1700s and fans know tanks near Oval cricket field store gas from Victorian times. US energy comes from oil, coal, gas - in that order - and gas produced in 34 states account for 25 per cent of energy use. The cost to transport gas is horrendous; but now we can turn gas to a liquid (LNG). The same vessel holds 60 times the amount and we turn it back to vapour before use. Gas is cheap, has a good record and US technology is cutting edge. CLNG - a new firm with no track record, ships, technology, power plants or gas fields - is unusual. It is set up just to make money from us and its gas price will be higher than integrated US firms or mature gas providers.

Minister James Robertson has marine heritage, business experience and a future. Hylton's LNG mantle fits well. Nations make progress building on good ideas of the past - "Paul plants, Appolus waters" power to him! Once gas is embedded in our light and water bills it's an ATM for CLNG. When some people say, "don't worry", be very afraid! CLNG is an offshore firm registered in a tax haven - it is not transparent. It does not trust us with its brand, nor is it in our reach for tax, money laundering or OCG checks. As a new firm doing its first venture in a murder capital, it has cojones, or powerful mentors! Time will tell! I found no D&B reports on its principals. They can control our energy but we must not be "nosy"! This may be the only chance the OCG has to do checks as it has no jurisdiction in the British Virgin Islands. What if all our investors set up in a tax haven?

Minister Robertson hypes cheap gas. This is unwise as the benefit of LNG is choice, not price. There are some 30 LNG import terminals under way in our area. Teeside Gasport in the UK was a first. In 2007 a US firm modified an LNG carrier (total cost US$300m); docked it at Teeside, did re-gasification on board and discharged gas into the grid. The firm now has a fleet of these EBRV ships to serve gasports as far as Europe. Teeside was built in months and used T&T gas. UK electricity firms as Eon, British Gas also sell piped gas to homes and businesses. Why did we choose CLNG and not the cheap, flexible, integrated, proved gas firms of our friend and major trading partner who rescues us in a crisis?

LNG economics is basic. The US uses gas since the1800s. Texas drills wells; the oil goes to refinery, gas to power plants, homes and industry as the state is piped for gas. In 2008 oil prices shot up, gas followed so petrol and electricity costs soared! The result? All industry and the Texas economy collapsed so demand for gas fell. Gas producers could not cover costs so they capped their wells and went fishing. Demand and supply rule! As demand for gas rises so will price; when demand for oil falls oil will be cheap. Robertson is wrong. LNG is not our "preferred energy source". LNG is good because it gives us choice and more gas firms will give us more choice and better prices!

Cabinet and the nation must consider some other issues:

(1) A gas cartel as in oil will soon exist. Producers will not cap their wells when prices fall and CLNG will not fold. Like OPEC they will fix volume, price and screw us royally!

(2) Open our strategic sectors to multinationals or local firms only; ban new firms formed in tax havens. They make money here but are not subject to all our taxes and scrutiny.

(3) Raw gas is cheap CLNG's replacement, maintenance, royalty and other costs are not. With this and US$600m capital in our electricity formulae our energy will not be cheap.

(4) Has Cabinet done risk studies, plans, budgets? National security, safety, environment? Coast Guard, marine fire service, law, regulation, no-fly, no-boat zones? The lobby is wrong. CLNG will cost taxpayers millions and we may get none of their taxes!

(5) T&T will give its nation a bigger "bly" to cancel Jamaican export gains from LNG. For JMA it's a zero sum game! T&T has the sources; it's their game; they will always win!

(6) Ban politicians, family and political appointees from going into business or jobs in their area of service during and for five years after leaving office. Let's block this corrupt path!

(7) For US$150m local investors can develop "Mobay Gasport" - as Teeside - and use the US firm's EBRV fleet. The west would be energy sufficient, can backstop the JPS and accept Trinidad's gas offer! We have many oil marketing firms as Shell, Esso; let's have many for gas too! By 2016 local gas and oil prices will converge. A MoBay gasport will ensure convergence at a lower price than a monopolist CLNG would wish. Let's protect ourselves! You read it here first in 2010! Stay conscious, my friend!

The Minister of Health's plan for a book to track health status of children is good. But in 2010 a chip embedded in an all-weather ID card, read, coded at clinics, is the shot!

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

franklinjohnston@hotmail.com

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Tuesday, 10th August 2010

Blaine will need much more than God

Sunday, August 08, 2010

IF you should peep into the head of the man closest to you, it doesn't take an abundance of analysis to determine that all he really wants out of life is a chance to be considered important to at least one other person. He wants to be relevant.

If a man is lucky, life will wait on him at least once in his lifetime. In general though, the world is a highly impersonal, unfeeling place and so it must be as it continues on its cosmic trip. It has no place for losers, whiners and those who believe that life is unfair to them.

Many only dream of attaining greatness and most are afraid of the responsibility which attends greatness, so the quest for relevance often suffices, especially if the basics of food, clothing and shelter are barely realised.

It is in this quest for relevance that man often finds himself seeking a reason for his existence and that final adult fantasy -- eternal salvation. The more relevance eludes him, the more eager he is to bring relevance to salvation and the more adept he becomes at defining and embellishing its author -- God. To find God, to personalise the experience and to claim eternal salvation constitute the surest shortcut to relevance.

Talk show host, Observer columnist and children's advocate Betty-Ann Blaine recently launched a new political party, New Nation Coalition (NNC), one she claims will be grounded in Christianity and Christian principles. Another of the members of the new party is Celta Kirkland, who also writes for the Observer.

To an atheist like me, Kirkland's pieces come across like daily pills of comfort for the Christianised afflicted. I view them as little more than fundamentalist pap, ideally suited for those who prefer others to do their most basic thinking for them.

As much as I consider them little more than Bible verses with commentary, they satisfy a need. But, I am forced to ask, how can Blaine, Kirkland and the others leave their Bible pulpits and deal with the pressing realities which face Jamaica?

Well, we are told that the party will be grounded in Christianity and Christian principles, so by that admission we should look for them to be taking the Bible pulpit with them. I know Betty-Ann and have co-hosted her talk show twice. Her heart is in the right place and I believe she wants to make a difference. That said, I am forced to question her party's stated approach -- using religion, Christianity as the vehicle in her efforts to get the ear, the eyes and the ultimate vote of the Jamaican electorate.

Praying over politics

Both leaders of the JLP and the PNP are Christianised. To be in politics in Jamaica and not give kudos to God at the drop of a hat is suicide.

Golding is Seventh-Day Adventist, and Simpson-Miller is, well, religious to the point of being involved in numerology. One wonders how did Betty-Ann Blaine arrive at the ultimate plunge. Did she hear God talking to her one night? Did she pray over it? Did God answer her prayer? What did God say? Did He say, 'Go and be fishers of men...'?

I am not trying to kill her efforts before they begin but I must ask, should she become prime minister, would she offer prayers at Budget time and ask God to fill the deficit? Blaine has told us that she begins with no money, will not be seeking funding from large corporate groups and will instead look to the little man for donations.

This is indeed a bold step away from the usual, especially in a country where the little man is always looking to the political parties for handouts. I didn't get the sense that she would refuse corporate funding, only that it would have to come with no attachments, no unwritten conditions.

For now I wish her well and would be pleasantly surprised if the NNC does well. As one who believes that religion is the first resort of the dull and backward, I cannot see the NNC empowering our people anymore that the JLP/PNP have.

But it is still early days and maybe Betty-Ann, Celta Kirkland and the others know more about God than someone like me who is trying very hard not to burst out laughing. It is enough for a grown adult to indulge himself/herself in a personal, imaginary friend known as God. To me it is ludicrous to place it on a national stage.

I suspect that as much as our people are not unduly worried about their mis-education, many of them are able to place God in some personal, private side of their lives while acknowledging that Mammon has a role in the political affairs of man.

Betty-Ann and the NNC aim to bring about a great merger where we will pray to reduce crime, ask God to reopen the bauxite companies, seek Jesus' help in getting seven million tourists to visit Jamaica and ask the Almighty to make us a civil people.

As a first step, maybe she could ask God for a robust budget. Now that would be a great start! Amen......................................

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Monday, August 9th 2020

Another Golden Joke.....

IN JANUARY of 2007, Bruce Golding, then leader of the Opposition, declared that if his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) won the general election the Constitution would have been amended to create a fixed election date. He said a JLP government would do so within its first 100 days in office.

"It is not good for the country to be sitting on tenterhooks absorbing so much time on speculation ... there are a host of reasons why it is not good for the country to be iffing and butting," Golding said then.

It has been 1,027 days since Golding's party won the general election and to this day no such legislation has reached Parliament.

But it is not just the issue of the fixed election date that has not reached the Parliament.

Though the Order Paper appears clean as it relates to Government business, a close examination of the work done in Gordon House during the past year reveals that not much has been accomplished.

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'Animals' have rights too

Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington cut straight to the chase and ordered the immediate arrest of three of the policemen involved in the (amateur camera phone) videotaped and televised beating and fatal shooting of a suspected murderer on Thursday, July 29, in Buckfield, St Ann. The surreptitiously taped incident also revealed 'law-abiding' citizens egging on the policemen. The official release on the event contained the customarily formatted statement saying, inter alia, that the suspect attacked the police after fatally stabbing his common-law wife and they shot him (in self-defence).

Errant behaviour

Now, more than ever, because of the events at Buckfield, when residents dispute the police version of a killing, we have to wonder. Although (hopefully) isolated, that incident severely erodes the trust in the police that is needed if we are to effectively tackle crime as a nation. This is why I am extremely pleased that the commissioner is taking a no-nonsense approach to errant behaviour within the force. The actions of a few (who chose to break from their training) must not be allowed to taint that entire organisation.

Indeed, the Buckfield shooting should come as no surprise. What can we expect from our society when a parliamentarian can stand up in Gordon House and announce that human rights are for humans? He was obviously swiping at human-rights advocates by inventing his own distinction between law-abiding citizens (humans, deserving of human rights) and the suspected/accused/ convicted criminals ('animals' that he thinks deserve no human rights). The inciting remark drew no disapproving howls from the other side, so we must conclude that all were in agreement.

Interestingly however, laws for the rights of (lower) animals existed long before laws for the rights of children. Therefore, whether you are an animal or an 'animal', you are deserving of the rights that safeguard you against cruelty.

The real 'animals'

Furthermore, who was it that spawned the so-called 'animals' of which they now complain? Who benefited from the political divisions, violence and the dependency syndrome so rampant in underprivileged communities? Who started handing out guns for the 'animals' to kill each other with? Who groomed these 'animals' into the habit and business of murder? Who is culpable for unleashing these 'animals' upon society? Who are the real 'animals'?

If we treat an entire group of society like animals, they will become 'animals'. Is that what we really want?

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Sunday, 8th August 2010

JLP, PNP destroying education!

Published: Sunday | August 8, 2010 0 Comments and 0 Reactions

Principals accuse politicians of trifling with the future of the nation's children

Tyrone Reid, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

Secondary-school principals have charged that for years, elected officials have been playing politics with education, putting thousands of Jamaican children at a disadvantage.

The principals are now calling for the insulation of critical education policies from political interference.

"We must stop playing politics with education, and there is just too much politicking about it. That's one of the problems we're having as a country," said Esther Tyson, vice-president of the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools (JAPSS) and principal of Ardenne High School during a recent Gleaner Editors' Forum hosted for the principals.

Tyson said she was unhappy with the handling of education by both major political parties.

"Because we are not saying it is JLP (Jamaica Labour Party) or PNP (People's National Party); we have problems with both," she said.

The principals argued that too often, a change of government has eroded the gains made under policy programmes implemented by the outgoing administration.

Sharon Reid, president of the JAPSS, said the multibillion-dollar transformation programme, the brainchild of the PNP adminis-tration, has been derailed under the JLP government, which took office in September 2007.

Things derailed

"Take the Transformation Programme, something as important as that, there should have been such an agreement about it that it should have been seamless from one party to the next," Reid argued.

She continued: "You change government and all of a sudden you hear that things are derailed - a programme that was geared at lifting standards, (and) we haven't really gotten any explanation. We, have just been told that things have been returned to the ministry, and whatever."

The Reverend Gordon Cowans, principal of Knox College, advanced that sometimes the education ministry's action "really is too much influenced by what is the political reality, and this is part of what must change".

Principals left standing

Albert Corcho, principal of Tarrant High and president of the Association of Principals and Vice-Principals, argued that when the politicians switch lanes, it is the principals who are left standing in the middle of the road.

"When you have the shifting of policies, when you have a different political party coming in with a totally different approach, we at the school level, we on the ground are the ones who are left hanging," Corcho lamented.

Reid conceded that the for-mulating of education policies cannot be taken out of the hands of elected officials, but stressed that elected officials need to understand that education should not be trifled with.

"The politicians must agree and understand that education is bigger than all of us, so there must be agreement on certain things, even when governments change," Reid said

- tyrone.reid@gleanerjm.com

Does any of them want an educated population?????

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The Perfect Case for Constitutional Reform

Many MPs ignoring nation’s business

Absenteeism, poor attendance hit Parliament

BY CASSANDRA BRENTON

CRUCIAL aspects of the nation's business are being ignored because many members of parliament (MPs) either skip important committee meetings or barely attend.

In fact, a few MPs appointed to sit on some of these committees do not even bother to show up for the sittings, according to attendance records for up to June 2010 which were obtained by the Sunday Observer from Parliament.

ERGFUSON… some members have been absent so many times it is hard to remember when they were present

Parliamentary committees are appointed to conduct inquiries into specific matters and submit reports and recommendations for the House to debate, as a precursor to critical legislation.

"Some members have been absent so many times it is hard to remember when they were present," snapped a frustrated Dr Fenton Ferguson, the MP for Eastern St Thomas who chairs the Human Resources and Social Development Committee. He had just waited for an hour to get a quorum to start the meeting looking at inner-city renewal.

The worst committees affected include the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC), and the Ethics Committee, among others. The attendance records show whether MPs had sent apologies or were away on government business.

Robert Montague, the MP for Western St Mary, for example, has not attended any of the six sittings of the PAC between May 4 and June 29, nor any of the five meetings of the PAAC between April 21 and June 16.

According to the records, the outspoken MP did not send apologies for missing any of the combined 11 meetings of those committees.

Additionally, Montague was absent from the single sitting of the Ethics Committee on June 16; absent from the sole meeting of the Infrastructure and Physical Development Committee on June 10 (sent an apology); and absent from the two meetings of the Standing Orders Committee (House) held on June 8 and June 17. He sent an apology only for the first meeting.

When asked why he had missed "quite a few" meetings, Montague responded unapologetically, "A few? I miss a whole heap of meetings... I spend the time in my constituency. Is two constituency office mi have," he told the Sunday Observer, declining to comment further.

Montague is in good company. Member of Parliament for North East St Catherine, Desmond Gregory Mair did not attend any of the six meetings of the PAC. He sent an apology for missing only the first meeting on May 4. Three meetings were held in May and three in June. Mair was also absent from all five sittings of the PAAC.

Ian Hayles of Western Hanover attended one PAC committee meeting for that period, and did not send an apology for his absence. He also failed to attend any sitting of the PAAC.

Earnest Smith of South West St Ann did not attend any PAAC, while D K Duncan of East Hanover and Tarn Peralto of South East St Mary attended only one such meeting (no apologies). Phillip Paulwell of East Kingston and Port Royal attended two PAAC meetings, apologising for his absence from one.

Additionally, five of the nine members on the Ethics Committee -- Delroy Chuck (committee chairman), Joseph Hibbert, Fitz Jackson, Sharon Hay-Webster and Dr Morais Guy -- carried on with the nation's business on June 16 in the absence of the other four members: Derrick Smith, Robert Montague, Earnest Smith and Peter Phillips. No apologies were sent.

The attendance records for a number of other committees were just as telling, with MPs missing meetings, or sittings being cancelled in the absence of a quorum.

For example, a Joint Select Committee to consider and report to Parliament on a number of reports affecting high-profile entities, such as the Contractor General's Department, the Public Defender, the Political Ombudsman, the Corruption (prevention) Commission, the Integrity Commission and the Director of Public Prosecutions, was cancelled on June 24. Additionally, only four of the 15 people on the Joint Select Committee on the Bill Shortly Entitled "The Protected Disclosure Act 2010" attended the meeting on June 24. They were Dorothy Lightbourne (chairman), Senator Kamina Johnson, Michael Stern and Senator Warren Newby.

Again, only four MPs -- Marisa Dalrymple Philibert (chairman), Franklyn Witter, Fitz Jackson and Ronald Thwaites -- put in an appearance on April 14 for the single meeting of the Regulations Committee (House). The other seven were no-shows.

Commenting on the level of absenteeism and lateness plaguing his committee, Dr Ferguson declared: "Both the Opposition and the Government must make a decision to change members just based on lack of attendance... Some have only made a few appearances since they were named by the parties, and it is something that I will have to address with the relevant individuals from the parties."

It is also not unusual for committee meetings to be cancelled because not enough MPs turn up, inconveniencing members of the public and private sectors invited to make presentations before them.

Member of Parliament Dr Morais Guy argued that this should not be allowed to continue, pointing out that not only was this embarrassing, but that the man-hours lost was not good for the productive sector.

Guy, who sits on the PAAC, the PAC, the Ethics Committee of the House and the Joint Select Committee on The Bill Shortly Entitled The Protected Disclosure Act 2010, better known as the Whistleblower legislation, was speaking generally.

"I find it disconcerting that members don't turn up for meetings," he said. "I abhor lateness and I get very antsy when people are late because one, it delays your ability to address the nation's problems.

"Secondly, you have public servants sitting outside waiting to take part in the meetings, and then we as parliamentarians stroll in any time we find convenient to us; plus, there is so much man-hours lost," he argued, suggesting that it was time to "dismiss this Jamaican time notion".

"It is critical that we respect the time that the meetings are set for," insisted Guy who, like Ferguson, has a good attendance record at these meetings.

For PAAC chairman Dr Wykeham McNeil, the country's business must go on, even if it's like Guy indicated, operating on "Jamaican time".

"We have some members that do not attend, but for the most part we have a fairly good attendance," McNeil said, adding: "We have a set of persons who come almost religiously."

"We are set to begin at 10:00, and we always have a quorum (of three) by 10:30; so we are on time with our thing and so from that point of view we have not been doing too badly," said Dr McNeil who has a perfect attendance record.

For his part, MP Fitz Jackson of South St Catherine, who also has a good attendance record at these meetings, urged his colleagues to "re-assess" their willingness to serve on committees.

"I maintain that first and foremost, as MPs elected to this House, we have to do the work that is required in the House because that is how we impact on the country's life and our constituents' lives -- through the decisions which are made by the Parliament and the committees," he said. "The committees are really where the work is done."

Guy agreed, noting that if a member is nominated to sit on a committee, then he or she has a responsibility to the Parliament and that committee.

"As parliamentarians, we have a responsibility, and once you are interested in that role you are obliged to attend meetings," said Guy.

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Who wanted McGill dead? Mystery surrounds ex-MP's murder

... One suspect being questioned

Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer

POLICE INVESTIGATORS in Mandeville, Manchester, yesterday waded through conflicting information surrounding the murder of former Member of Parliament (MP) Dr Neil McGill.

The detectives appeared to be hot on the trail of three men who attacked the former Western St Mary MP and a female friend on Friday night in the placid community of Bottom Albion in the parish.

Late yesterday, the police apprehended one of the three suspects, so far identified only as 'Washie'.

He was being questioned last night in connection with the 2009 killing of a policeman and the killing of the former parlimentarian.

McGill, 60, was killed by a single bullet from one of the attackers' firearms, while his 21-year-old companion sustained minor knife bruises in a scuffle with the hoodlums.

It was not clear whether McGill was in his car or standing outside when he was shot.

The troubled-looking young woman, who is a student of the Northern Caribbean University, (NCU), was still being questioned at the Mandeville Police Station up to late afternoon yesterday when The Sunday Gleaner team left the facility.

The Sunday Gleaner team also witnessed an early after-noon police operation in the neighbouring May Day commu-nity, where attempts were made to nab Washie, believed to be have been involved in the attack.

He just managed to slip through the grasp of the cops.

Six persons were apprehended in a follow-up operation, including Washie's mother.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Barrington Simpson, who led the operations, told The Sunday Gleaner that the men would be processed, while the elderly woman would be questioned.

He declined to say whether the five men were suspected to have any connection to the McGill death.

Early breakthrough expected

"We have a lead that we are following up on and we expect to make an early breakthrough," Simpson divulged.

Detective Inspector Michael Pommels, who is spearheading the probe into McGill's murder, echoed Simpson's sentiments.

"We are looking at some persons who we believe can assist us in our investigations," he told The Sunday Gleaner. "As we speak, we are carrying out an operation,"

Pommels said he could not release the names of the persons of interest at this time.

He told The Sunday Gleaner that the former politician had driven to the residence of the student when the men launched their attack.

It is understood that the house in which the student resides, located deep into a heavily vegetated section of Bottom Albion, is home to many NCU students.

The university is located less than a mile from the scene of the crime.

McGill sat in his car waiting at the darkened gateway for between 10 and 15 minutes before his attackers emerged.

Pommels said the woman told the police that on her way to the motor car, three men emerged - one with a firearm and one with a knife.

She said a scuffle developed between her and two of the men who were trying to grab her handbag.

"She was stabbed in the arm as she challenged the men for her bag," said Pommels.

The young woman reported that she saw the man who was armed with the gun struggling with McGill, after which she heard an explosion.

She said she later discovered that McGill had been shot in the right side of his chest.

"All three men reportedly ran from the premises with her handbag containing a camera, two cellphones and three ATM cards," Pommels told The Sunday Gleaner.

Bottom Albion, a community with a heavy Sabbath-wor-shipping flavour, is not accus-tomed to shooting deaths, much more high-profile killings.

"We are so traumatised by this," a resident admitted. "People walk here anytime, but you never hear anything like this," the resident added.

Other men, who huddled in an area of the community, echoed the sentiments of the resident.

"Dem tings nuh happen here."

Many were retreating to church yesterday, even as they attempted to come to terms with the incident.

A resident told The Sunday Gleaner that a solitary bullet disturbed the quiet of the night just after 8:30.

She said there was no sound of a motor vehicle.

The resident said silence replaced the sound of the shot until a neighbour scrambled into her yard to announce that a man had been killed.

She or her neighbours could not have suspected that it was McGill, a parliamentarian between 2002 and 2007.

A man said the blinding yellow two-door sports Benz motor car that was driven by McGill bore testimony to the tragedy that rocked their quiet community.

- gary.spaulding@gleanerjm.com

Tributes from Political peers 

• "As a political rival, I had great respect for Dr McGill, who was unquestionably a gentleman and one of the most likeable persons you could find."   - Mike Henry MP, Central Clarendon.

• "Dr McGill was well respected and liked by colleagues in and outside Parliament and was seen as a bright and affable gentleman. He is known for his passion for representational politics and his deep care and love for ordinary Jamaicans."  - JLP General Secretary Karl Samuda.

• "I am deeply saddened at the news of Neil's murder. I condemn this murder which has come as a shock to all of us in the PNP family. I wish to express my condolences to his wife, children and other members of his family." - PNP President Portia Simpson Miller.
• ...
• We have always maintained that money is not the root of all evil........
• elmystic@hotmail.com..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

 

 

Friday, 6th August 2010

JLP irresponsibility, Tivoli turkey shoot, the police

GOLDING... plays politics with our lives.

In a State of Emergency the police can act without the usual shackle of law - they don't need the normal paperwork, etc. Right? The magic of a State of Emergency is "shock and awe", that's all! It frightens bad men and reassures good people. This State of Emergency was poorly used. The goal to kill or capture murderers, detain suspects, do searches and solve dozens of major crimes was not met. It failed miserably! A State of Emergency has no value in solving crimes except in three scenarios:

(1) Where the police know the hideouts; the "rout" gets criminals to retreat, to be corralled, and taken dead or alive. The cops do not know the hideouts so this chance was wasted.

(2) Where the police know the suspects, have little evidence and need a State of Emergency to detain and buy time to build a case. They had no real suspects, the trawl pulled in 4,000. But in mass detentions, the album with pictures of the 500 men detectives want to find is the key. Not here! They had to "net fish" as they don't know what a Kingfish looks like!

(3) Where the State of Emergency is a ploy to calm public fears and scatter the criminals. The State of Emergency was as per the PM, a "rout" to make granny feel good, scare the "small fry" and scatter hard-back killers. The unintended consequence? The virus is now everywhere! Thanks, Bruce!

His claim to be winning the "battle", that "criminal networks have been disrupted" and of "game changing" is fanciful. Just tell us: "Be resolute, band together and defend your granny!" Now, check the police scorecard: How many of the 9,000 murders since 2004 were by the Tivoli 73? Which detainees are charged for murders committed before 2010? Bruce speaks of "the courts and DPP...fast-tracking the trial of cases involving serious crimes and high-profile offenders". Which are these cases? Will the DPP please tell us?

The JCF suffers delusions of adequacy! One hundred per cent of our crime is committed by 1 per cent of us. What's the problem? They got a State of Emergency to catch one man - Dudus. They went into the confined Tivoli turkey coop, used brute force against puny opposition and bagged 73 - no Dudus! Great police work? Big deal! They didn't need a State of Emergency to do this. They can do a turkey shoot any day they put pressure on Bruce - as the US did - to sign papers; cordon, detain, etc. But a State of Emergency is not and cannot replace detective work! Now, back to the scorecard:

*Have they caught the most wanted men whose photos they put out weeks ago? If they can't catch those they know, how can they catch those they don't?

*What does the Tivoli spent-shell analysis say - types of gun, rounds fired at police etc?

*Did they detain even one suspect for each of the 9,000 murders? No! What do detectives do? They detain a dozen tame dons! Great work! Give them medals and OJs!

*What has 20 years of detective work produced? Curry goat and beer belly? We need an external case audit of detectives! They now build cases against 50 people, only 50? Not even one per detective on the JCF payroll! Divide into 9,000. Is " nuff serial killer dat"! Did each detective have files on even 30 suspects, just waiting for a State of Emergency to haul them in, beat the crap out of them and get confessions (a metaphor)? The brave rank-and-file officers are let down by detectives. Bro Dwight, trust your instinct and make changes!

*The police have the materiel they need. For 35 years they ask for men, cars, guns and got them. Where is the dazzling detective work and results we expect in return? Check the spent shells. The criminals do not outgun the police, they out-think the police!

*They are masters of hype, thrive on each State of Emergency, kill citizens to satisfy our bloodlust, and sadly we applaud them. Why aid and abet this regular cycle of ritual police killings? Why not demand good detective work? The nation is in thrall to the JCF. We need my proposed elite second force to be truly secure. Bruce needs an option to end this tyranny of the inept. Let us call a spade a shovel! Detectives' performance sucks! Do something!

Tips for the JCF

(1) The police should wear tropical balaclavas in extreme close action. A person may "mark" an officer's face and cause bad blood and reprisals. Police need cool daytime face masking and two-inch ID numbers on their uniforms.

(2) Heavy window tint on cars is a security risk. Police need tint meters (measures clarity or opacity), the size of a cellphone. Press it on the window, activate and read. In London, if it shows less than 70 per cent light penetration the fine is £2,000. Minister Shaw, pledge the revenue to buy police cars and illegal tint will disappear! Even from police buses!

(3) Forensic archaeology. Historians know our detritus says a lot about us. The job of waste auditor and profiler stinks, but is well paid. Household garbage tells everything about us: a "gold mine" of consumer profiles for marketing firms, and like buried human remains are indespensable to solving crime. The JCF needs help, just not the kind they ask for.

(4) The UK is increasing special constables by 400 per cent to help the police. Security-cleared people, as firearms holders are ready-made for this. Why does the JCF resist this here?

(5) We need a private "national security think tank". The state has local experience but not broad policy, strategic and tactical vision. Over to the PSOJ! Mr PM, you play politics with our lives. The JLP has 32 votes in the House and can vote in a State of Emergency any day you want for as long as you want up to election 2012! Why not? Stay conscious, my friend

franklinjohnston@hotmail.com

After 49 years ... reverse or forward....

elmystic@hotmail.com

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Thursday, 5th August 2010

New Jamaican political party launched.....

Blaine...will concentrate of legislative reform and public corruption. (Photo: Brian Cummings)

JAMAICA'S newest political party, the New Nation Coalition (NNC) headed by children’s advocate Betty Ann Blaine was launched earlier today.

The Coalition consisting of 10 founding members, is promising tax reformation, urban housing, rural land reform and a foundation built on strong Christian principles among some of its objectives.

Additionally, the fourth political party has also thrown its weight behind the Contractor General Greg Christie calling for the expansion of his powers as well as supporting the work of the centre for Leadership and Governance at the University of the West Indies.

“We intend to examine and promote those key areas of constitutional and legislative reform that will strengthen transparency and accountability and put an end to corruption in political and public life for good,” Blaine said

Speaking at the launch at the Wyndham Hotel in New Kingston, she said that after 48 years of independence Jamaica is moving backwards.

Blaine is an Observer columnist and former talk show host.

 

We wish her and them well...

elmystic@hotmail.com

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Living in a Dream World

Dear Editor,

Now that Tivoli Gardens, the "mother of all garrisons", has been pacified, what is to be the fate of her offspring? Are they to be allowed to flourish and mature into even more dangerous replicas of their mother, in much the same way as the leadership of Tivoli Gardens passed from one generation of Cokes to the next?

The movement that began with the dismantling of Tivoli Gardens cannot be suffocated by political opportunism. Therefore, while we laud the statesman-like posturing of the prime minister in not wanting to circumvent Parliament, it cannot be allowed to circumvent the will of the people. Parliament should be the ultimate expression of the people's will. In any case, the constitution provides for just such an occasion, when the collective will, as expressed in Parliament, is in opposition to the express will of the people. The governor general, on the advice of the majority leader of the house, can declare a new State of Emergency or a new vote on the issue in Parliament.

Jamaica waits with bated breath, for we are still at a crossroads, and the issue of garrisons is not going to be swept under the carpet out of political expediency or gimmickry. If a second limited State of Emergency is not feasible, we should have a road map for the dismantling of every garrison, complete with permanent police posts, where necessary. I call on the same voices that demanded that Western Kingston be pacified and "returned to a state where normal policing is possible" to join me in this call for the dismantling of all garrisons in Jamaica. Let's take back Jamaica for good.

Pacifying Tivoli Gardens is not the "end-all" as the Opposition has said; stopping now will surely prove the futility of this statement when the guns begin to bark again and the murder rate soars. The administration and the security forces must outline to the nation a definitive plan for the dismantling of all garrisons, complete with a road map and a timetable. Anything else will only add further credence to the words of Don Robotham in his recent Gleaner article, "Party of the lumpen": "The party of Norman Manley is no more. The People's National Party (PNP) is now officially the party of the lumpen. They did not even have the guts to vote against the State of Emergency to which they were clearly opposed. How did the party which imposed the 1976 State of Emergency and the Gun Court legislation without the slightest qualms come to experience their human-rights Damascus? The answer is obvious: Tivoli delenda est. Tivoli must be destroyed... And the PNP garrisons remain gloriously intact, ready to rumble. The State of Emergency has served its purpose. It has outlived its usefulness. In any coming election which the PNP thinks it might win, the PNP is getting ready to teach the JLP a lesson it will never forget. God is great. Mission accomplished".

Phillip A Chambers

phillipdcchambers@yahoo.com

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Wednesday, 4th August 2010

Caught with Pants Down?

Faced with a deluge of criticisms over the erroneous report it released on last week's fatal shooting by the police of a man in Buckfield, St Ann, the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) is urging Jamaicans not to crucify the messenger.

The CCN has also instituted new rules to reduce the possibility of it releasing similar incorrect reports on other incidents involving members of the security forces.

"We are acutely aware that what happened should not have happened but the CCN followed all the rules consistent with any other media entity," communications director in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), Karl Angell, told The Gleaner yesterday.

"It is unfortunate that CCN received a report that was incorrect," Angell added, as he responded to increasing calls for the entity to be disbanded.

According to Angell, Police Commissioner Owen Ellington has ordered the inspectorate of the force to conduct an investigation to determine how the incorrect report was filed in the station diary.

Checked with station

Angell said that, as usual, the CCN received the report from Police Control and checked with the station to confirm issues such as time and place.

This was confirmed through the entry in the station diary, which is regarded as the 'bible' for police operations.

After that was done, the report was subject to the normal editing procedure before being released.

"This is consistent with the practices of any media entity," argued Angell.

He said based on the incident in Buckfield, the Executive Management Board of the JCF yesterday decided that reports of shootings involving the police will no longer be immediately released.

"The CCN will confirm that there was a shooting, who was shot and where. If there was any seizure, that will also be included but the circumstances will not be released until there is an investigation by the Bureau of Special Investigations or some other body," said Angell.

"What I can promise is that the details will be released but those will be based on the findings of the inves-tigations and not the reports of the police personnel involved."

He said reports of other incidents, not involving the members of the security forces, will be released in full as usual.

arthur.hall@gleanerjm.com

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Political Hyprocrites"????

Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer

Clearly stunned by the loss of three crime fighters in eight days, Minister of National Security Dwight Nelson and Police Commissioner Owen Ellington have rushed to place security personnel on "extreme" alert.

Nelson echoed the call of the Ellington-led Police High Command's vigorous warning yester-day, that policemen and women must not allow themselves to be dazed by the murders of three policemen and the injuring of another in separate incidents between Monday of last week and Sunday of this week.

At the same time, Opposition Spokesman on National Security Peter Bunting appealed to police personnel to remain vigilant even when off duty.

Special Constable James Lemmie, of the St Catherine North Division, was killed Monday night, well within 24 hours after Special Corporal Jermaine Cummings was gunned down on Langston Road in St Andrew.

"The Police High Command has raised the threat level to extreme," a statement out of that office declared hours after news surfaced that Lemmie had become the ninth policeman cut down by criminals since the start of the year.

The high command explained that the raising of the threat level to extreme means that the risk of attack by criminals on police personnel and facilities is imminent.

Nelson's characterisation of the situation was just as urgent and ominous.

He said the concerted nature of the assaults had left no doubt in his mind that criminals had been emboldened to strike out at members of the security forces who are doing a superb job in containing crime.

Nelson urged police and soldiers to be on heightened alert to preserve their lives and to try to be strong in the face of the attacks

Investigators are probing a report that Lemmie was threatened earlier this year.

Cummings, 32, was attacked by armed men who ambushed him as he entered his home on Sunday morning.

The pronouncements of Nelson and Ellington were further triggered by the fact that, between the killings of Lemmie and Cummings, another policeman was shot and injured in May Pen, Clarendon.

On Monday of last week, Corporal Omar Duncan was fatally shot in Ramble, Hanover, as he moved to foil a robbery attempt.

"Our intelligence and the actions of criminals over the last week indicate calculated assaults on police personnel as we continue to disrupt and displace criminal gangs across the island," declared Ellington in the aftermath of a meeting yesterday with his executive management board.

"It is therefore imperative that all police personnel be on high alert at all times by taking extra security precautions to protect themselves and their colleagues," he said.

Stay alert

Ellington instructed Police Control Centre to broadcast security reminders to all police personnel on a regular basis in order to keep members alert.

Nelson charged that criminal elements were attempting to undermine the security of the nation by their continued and unabated assault on police personnel over the past week.

He characterised the killings as a deliberate and vicious assault on the agents of the state who are duty bound to risk their lives to protect the people of Jamaica.

"Do what you must to protect yourselves," Nelson urged policemen and women.

He called for members of the public to tell all they know in relation to the policemen's killings.

The Opposition said it was "troubled" by the third fatal assault on policemen in just over a week.

Bunting said he was horrified by reports that a 17 year-old youth was implicated in the policeman's murder.

gary.spaulding@gleanerjm.com

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Tuesday, 3rd August 2010

Long Overdue....too much abuse....

Freeze on waivers

Government moves to reduce budget deficit

“Last Monday, Cabinet took a decision that as of August 1 there will be a freeze on all new waivers and incentives, pending the outcome of the study,” Golding said.

That study, according to the prime minister, has been commissioned already to determine which incentives will be retained and those which will not.

“It will tell us where to grant waivers and where not to grant waivers,” Golding said, adding that the study should be completed by year-end.

“The review of all waivers and incentives will be conducted right through the economy. We have some people enjoying incentives from Bob Lightbourne times,” Golding said, referring to the former Jamaica Labour Party minister of trade and industry of the 1960s.

“If the issuing of waivers is not achieving the desired effects, then it is time to revisit it. The country is wrestling with a fiscal deficit of seven to eight per cent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for this year. It will take us four years to get it down to zero.

“The waivers and incentives that we are granting amount to 14 per cent of GDP. That cannot continue. That 14 per cent of GDP must come down. We cannot continue to give away waivers and incentives, when we want to fix farm roads. Whatever waivers and incentives that have already been approved will continue.

“Distributors and others are constantly seeking waivers. We are under pressure to grant licences to import products on the one hand, because some business people will say to you, we can’t get enough tomatoes for example. The JAS, on the other hand, will say to you, don’t ‘leggo’ no licences or waivers, and (agriculture) Minister Chris Tufton has not been unwilling to say to some of the most powerful, no, you not getting any waiver,” Golding said.

“Agriculture is the new frontier. We want the private sector to look at investing more in agriculture, while looking at agriculture in a broad framework. Interest rates have been coming down from 18 per cent and are now at 8.7 per cent and we not finished yet. If you think big, we can make agriculture grow and if agriculture grows, Jamaica grows as well,” Golding said.

Golding hailed farmers and show organisers, the Jamaica Agricultural Society, for making the event “one of the best Denbigh shows that I have been to”, emphasising satisfaction and surprise at times with the quality of the displays.

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Dependent or Independent???

 

F there is one thing both the Jamaica Labour Party and the People's National Party and those of us who continue to blindly vote for them are guilty of, it is the creation of a culture of dependency since the attainment of political independence on August 6, 1962. Yes, the politics of patronage has continued unabated, although it is now wrapped up in a new gift package called “social intervention”.

One of the founding fathers of the nation, National Hero Norman Manley, issued a challenge during his exit from public life in 1969 to the effect that while his generation had taken the country into the sphere of political independence, it was up to the next generation to pursue the path of economic independence. Today, even as we celebrate Emancipation and Independence, the stark reality is that Jamaica is still a poor, Third-World country rife with corruption, injustice, crime and violence, indiscipline and economic stagnation. A gloomy picture to paint even amidst all the euphoria and sentimentality associated with this time of the year. But true!

Perhaps we are the only country in the world where our minister of finance and planning gloats when he has successfully negotiated a loan, especially on the international market. Yes! Pop the champagne and let's party as we get deeper in debt and chalk up another period of zero growth! Now that Jamaica has acquired a reputation for being an international mendicant, the tribal politics practised here has helped to reinforce the dependency syndrome symbolised by the advent of garrison constituencies which were set up to provide the template to sustain effectively the politics of scarce benefits and spoils.

Ironically, because our politicians have failed to improve the economy sufficiently so as to enable Jamaicans to be economically empowered, the scarce benefits and spoils have been drying up, so enter the don or area leader who comes with vast financial assets and various spheres of influence and has effectively replaced the political directorate and the MP. Interestingly, part of the economic sustainability for these community chiefs (sometimes called President or Big Man) is the obtaining of fat government contracts as well as private sector largesse in that these dons ensure their political party of choice the winning votes or the provision of protection respectively.

The Tivoli assault and the subsequent extradition of that mother of all garrisons’ former strongman Christopher “Dudus” Coke have brought into sharp focus on the eve of our 48th year of so-called Independence the social, economic and political quagmire which engulfs this beautiful country with so much good potential. Indeed, it has been said that amidst all the adversity that now buffets us there is the opportunity for meaningful and lasting change. And now that we have done the reality check, are we ready to make that quantum leap? Or are we destined to remain the victims, whether willingly or unwillingly, of petty partisan rivalry?

The recent debacle of a debate on the State of Emergency in Gordon House has revealed to the Jamaican people the pathetic state of representational politics in this troubled nation that is desperately seeking caring, conscious and constructive leadership. Both the Bill Johnson- and Boxhill-led polls have clearly shown that most Jamaicans are fed up with the current state of affairs and are crying out for honest and truthful leaders. In the country of Anancy, tricksters abound and many of the best ones are to be found in the House of Parliament. No wonder it is no longer politics that runs things, but “politricks”.

So where do we go from here? What are the real options? To begin with, this nation needs an action time table. It is outrageous that Jamaica still has an “umbilical link” with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and her heirs and successors. It is time that both major political parties, the JLP and the PNP, establish a timeline for this country to move towards becoming a republic with a revised or new constitution that is people-friendly and designed to ensure accountability, transparency and redress. Enough of this bizarre business of swearing allegiance to Missis Queen!

In 2012, Jamaica will be observing 50 years of political independence. If we are to be truly so, then we need to be truly sovereign. In this context, civil society must continue to make the right demands on the political directorate; we must insist that certain pivotal and pressing issues such as education and crime and violence be tackled on the basis of having arrived at a national consensus. Jamaica is still caught up in a political time warp; the Cold War is over, the days of “backra massa” are over, the people want economic prosperity, peace and justice.

In this context, let us begin to substitute social intervention with economic intervention; teaching people to fish rather than subjecting them to be recipients of “fish heads”; no more handouts. Many of our elected representatives are likely to have a serious bout of withdrawal symptoms after so many decades of being patrons (let-off artistes). It is no secret that so many of them are scared stiff of losing what they perceive to be real power by virtue of keeping the Jamaican voter (particularly the lumpen) in a state of persistent poverty (dependency) and mental slavery.

Interestingly, various books, articles and even a movie are depicting 2012 as the year when the world as we know it will end. Against the backdrop of this foreseen cataclysmic event, it is to be noted that constitutionally the next general election is also due at that time. It is time to put our house in order lest, like the foolish virgins, we are found wanting.

gov_mobay@yahoo.co.uk.................................................................................................................................................

 

 

Sunday, 1st August 2010

Emancipate or Extradite?

In the run-up to the extradition of "Dudus" and in the years before when 'big men' in politics or in business would pay him homage, it was said that the rule of 'the president' guaranteed the residents of Tivoli Gardens peace in their sleep and security by day.

If a woman and her child can leave their home for work and school, respectively, and they do so with the certain knowledge that their house and possessions will be intact when they return, the first part of their emancipation will have been satisfied. After all, they were not freed from chattel slavery only to face the wrath of modern-day gunmen and their marauding followers. The fact is that large populations of the poorest among us were the first that the gunmen would prey upon because that is what the poor, the ignorant and the armed do: prey upon their own first.

"Dudus" was able to redirect this predation away from Tivoli and satisfy the most basic need after food, shelter and clothing -- security. However, with him providing lunch money for schoolchildren, shoes for the elderly, a regular pot on weekdays and cash money on Fridays for able-bodied young men who should be in trade-training centres instead of on 'armed standby', he led them right back into the arms of a new 'bucky massa' -- himself.

Why were places like Tivoli Gardens given free rein to build its own governmental structure? In answering that question, the first thing that would come to mind is that any state apparatus which had the painful opportunity to look at these inner-city pockets would have seen 70 per cent unemployment, high teen pregnancy rates, infrastructure in shambles, young men with limited skills and no work ethic.

The state would have known, painfully again, that it was its own abuse (suck out di vote) and neglect which created the conditions. In pondering the huge outlays of funds to restructure and retrain at the expense of the rest of the society, the state would have been stopped in its tracks and forced to make political promises at those times close to elections. Of course, none of those promises could ever be met, and why should they if the vote was always guaranteed?

But there was a saviour. In the 1990s three underworld figures were the triumvirate which controlled the bulk of cocaine being transshipped through Jamaica, from South America on to the Bahamas, then on to the ultimate destination: the great USA. One of those underworld denizens is in jail in America, one is imprisoned in Jamaica and the other who was an illiterate was shot years ago in the company of a few of his friends who were also killed. The killing of that man (and his cronies) was arranged by another underworld figure who is now living in the USA and has recently been having many conversations with US law enforcement authorities.

The common thread which stitched these men's lives together was their closeness to inner-city garrisons and their penchant for fancy houses on the hills.

But back to what the state saw as its saving grace. These men, two of whom had more than notional attachments to the PNP while the other was a JLP don, even though they owned and lived in their castles in the skies, all needed to maintain their garrison attachments because it was from there that their armies were recruited. As example, the one now living in the USA, still a free man but at the mercy of the US authorities, once invited me to lunch at his command centre.

As we turned a corner there were about eight young men, all with scarves of a certain colour tied around their heads. All had plates piled high with 'rich food'. He introduced them to me. "These are my soldiers."

A few of them grunted as I said, 'How are you, gentlemen?' None was older than, say, 25, but all had the look of death in their eyes.

The state looked on and knew the arrangements between these 'dons' which were really the cream of inner-city criminality. A mixture of fear and patronage ruled, and the state was able to convince itself that too many guns in the hands of too many young men guided by criminal lust, guided by a criminal don and supported by a community of shackled poor people with no prospects of employment were just too much for its plate.

As a result the state gave up these communities to the continuation of the rot and by their actions became a causal factor in the propagation of organised crime. In time as the power of the criminal don increased through extortion, drug running and mercenaries for hire, not only did the state continue to turn a blind eye, but parts of it teamed up with the criminals, as power always seeks out other pockets of power.

Places like Tivoli Gardens became criminal enclaves with the full collusion and knowledge of the state. From Eddie Seaga to PJ Patterson, to Portia Simpson Miller to Bruce Golding, none of them acted positively to end the infernal arrangements until the Americans stepped in, and the US was simply trying to clean up a mess that had been left in its backyard.

If Tivoli's first shot at emancipation was through extradition, what happens next? At some stage the security forces will have to leave and the young men and their guns will return. And the old arrangements will be fresh in their memories.

Some churchmen should never preach emancipation

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Saturday, 30th July 2010

www.ndm4jamaica.org
30July 2010
PRESS RELEASE
NDM Comments Commissioner Ellington
The NDM supports and commends the recent quick and decisive action of Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington in ordering the arrest of  ALL THE POLICE PERSONNEL involved in the beating, then killing of a defenseless man laying on the ground. TVJ carried the news on their 7 PM evening news today 30/7/10. The event was recorded by an eyewitness on the spot. We also comment that eyewitness for their courage and insight to do the recording....Bravo GOOD CITIZEN....YOU DESERVE “THE NDM GOOD CITIZEN REWARD”.
Unfortunately, In the Jamaica Constabulary, there are many police personnel who do not regard themselves as being within the LAW. These are the ones who need to be retrained and convinced that RESPECT is a two way street. Also, the government need to implement new regulations regarding police themselves paying part of the award when they are found guilty of citizens’ abuse. At present it’s the Tax Payers that pay all the costs leaving some police free to continue their ‘rogue like' behaviour.
Many people believe that police abuse is a daily occurrence. Terrorising, torturing and beatings seem to the modus operandi of too many police personnel. It is evident that Commissioner Ellington knows this and is willing to do his best to bring such practices to an end.
Contact:
Michael Williams
General Secretary
995 5912

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Three cops arrested over video killing.....

Footage broadcast to shocked nation last night.......

THREE policemen who were caught on video killing an unarmed man are now behind bars.

The cops were ordered arrested yesterday by Commissioner of Police, Owen Ellington following last night's broadcast by TVJ of footage showing a shooting incident in Buckfield, St Ann.

The amateur video shows policemen beating and shooting to death Ian 'Ching Sing' Lloyd as he lay on the ground unarmed and subdued. Lloyd had been accused of earlier attacking and killing Loveta 'Cherry' Wilson, at her home in Buckfield.

An officer was overheard telling the writhing man to 'Go inna the jeep' while raining down blows from a baton. In trying to ward off the blows Lloyd grasped for stones and tossed them in the direction of the uniformed officer who was beating him.

Another plainclothes cop then walked up to the spot where Lloyd lay and waited until he took up a stone and attempted to hurl before firing a single shot in his upper body.

Investigators from the Bureau of Special Investigations have interviewed one of the arrested policemen. The other arrested policemen will be interviewed during the course of this weekend, police report.

Prior to the broadcast the Constabulary Communications Network had reported that lloyd was killed after he attacked officers with bottles and stones, but seconds after the airing, Ellington ordered the arrest of the cops involved and placed a stop order on them at all ports of exit.

Related stories:

Ching Sing stabs Cherry to death

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Friday, 30th July 2010

More to Come

Some in both parties believe early general elections s

hould be front and centre of their party's political agenda. But for the ruling Jamaica Labour Party, those pushing that agenda are getting more strident, their mantra being: Go for it, while the going is good. They think this is as good as it will get, as there are still too many unknowns surrounding the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips/Dudus issue.

There's talk of more sealed indictments for some in high places, including at least one elected official.

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Use The Law or repeal it!!!!

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9.4 possible Says athletic superstar...

DENVER, USA (AP) — Usain Bolt thinks about winning the gold medal more than setting another world record.

He worries about entertaining the fans as much as establishing a legacy.

BOLT... I hope I can be the one to get there because I work very hard and I want nothing but the best

BOLT... is scheduled to face Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell in the 100 for the first time this year at a meet next week in Stockholm

Track's fun-loving Jamaican star told The Associated Press he still believes 100 metres can be run in the 9.4-second range, but that his biggest goal at the London Olympics in two years will be simply to win the gold medal again.

"I'm always just happy with a gold medal," he said. "If we go there and nobody breaks a record, I'll always have the record and there's no worries for me."

At Beijing in 2008, he smashed the world record in both the 100 and 200 and celebrated in style -- shooting that fake bow and arrow into the sky before the race, dancing after the finish line and turning the Bird's Nest into his own private playground. He improved on his 100-metre record last year at the World Championships. It currently stands at 9.58 seconds and he thinks he can go lower.

"I always say that probably 9.4 is possible," Bolt said. "I hope I can be the one to get there because I work very hard and I want nothing but to be the best."

To be a "legend," though, he doesn't believe he'll have to set another record in London. He'll merely have to win.

"I don't think I'm a legend now," he said. "A lot of people have done it one time. If I can double, few people in the world can say they're double Olympic gold medallists. I want to be one of those few people."

Carl Lewis is the only male runner to repeat in the 100 at the Olympics.

Bolt is also looking beyond 2012, when he would consider competing in the long jump for a change of pace. Earlier this year, he said he might have to do something else "because people are probably tired of seeing me."

People getting tired of Usain Bolt? Hardly seems possible.

"I think definitely they can if you win all the time," he said. "The reason people enjoy seeing me is because I'm different from other athletes. It's fun to watch me. If I keep that up, they probably won't get bored. If I just win, win, win like a normal athlete and don't make it fun, they probably will."

One way Bolt is keeping things fresh is by changing his racewear for each of this year's Diamond League meets in Europe. An artist in each city is designing a new singlet for him to wear.

"People really enjoy it and it's something to look forward to," he said. "It's something new. I think people like it. I'm the one who does things like this that no one else will do."

Bolt is scheduled to face Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell in the 100 for the first time this year at a meet next week in Stockholm.

Meanwhile, Bolt and Gay will race when Jamaica and the United States field teams in the 4x100 metre relay at the Diamond League meet in Zurich.

Organisers of the August 19 Weltklasse meet said yesterday that Olympic and world champion Bolt will anchor a Jamaica team including Mario Forsythe, Yohan Blake, and Marvin Anderson.

Gay, the second-fastest man in history behind Bolt's record of 9.58 seconds, heads a US lineup featuring Walter Dix, Wallace Spearmon and Trell Kimmons.

Bolt and Gay are skipping the individual 200 at Zurich, which splits the Diamond League finals with Brussels the following week.

Bolt, Gay and former world record-holder Asafa Powell of Jamaica will race the 100 at Stockholm's Diamond League meet next week.

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Thursday 29th, July 2010

Hang on Sloopy , Hang on...

On the very night when the latest State of Emergency ended, four people were shot dead by gunmen in Pleasant Hill in Bog Walk. Three days later, at the PNP's NEC confab held at the UWI Mona campus, Opposition leader Portia Simpson Miller, an ardent student of 1970s-style politics was in her element, rehashing the blame-game approach, in the hope, one sensed, that it would paint the JLP administration as desperately dangerous in seeking to blame the PNP in derailing the extension of the State of Emergency.

In a July 26 Observer article written by Erica Virtue , "'Flip-Flopper in chief' - PNP chides Bruce Golding", the following was stated; "Meanwhile, Simpson Miller told comrades that the PNP was being set up to be blamed for any upsurge in violence since the discontinuance of the State of Emergency. She claimed that a 'sinister plot' to cause mayhem in communities was being hatched, and she warned them to be vigilant. 'I have already heard it said that the people murdered in Linstead was part of that plot,' she said."

Many of us have resigned ourselves to the fact that responsible political leadership is highly unlikely to come from Portia Simpson Miller, and in recent times we have seen and heard enough to know that Prime Minister Golding was anything but responsible in his dealings with the Dudus extradition request.

If she has information that it was a person or persons close to the JLP who arranged these killings, it is her duty as Opposition leader to report the matter to the police, even to say to them, "Officer a jus hear it on di road."

Portia Simpson Miller, Eddie Seaga, Bruce Golding and a few others on both sides of the political fence all know how the game was played in the 1970s. And of course, many of us know who was the master; indeed, the choreographer.

Hardly any of the arguments raised by the PNP in support of ending the state of emergency make sense nor have they gained any traction among the public. Additionally, if the PNP felt so strongly against the extension, all it had to do was vote against it - not abstain - and defend it with sound argument and discussions.

Portia Simpson Miller would have seen the worst of our politics - the Rema evictions, the Orange Lane Fire, the Eventide Home Fire and the excesses carried out in the 1976 National State of Emergency and among the Home Guard of the late 1970s.

She would have known when her mentor, then South St Andrew MP Tony Spaulding, supervised the brutal eviction of JLP supporters from the Remahigh-rises, throwing out appliances from high-rise windows and smashing them on the hard concrete below. She would have known, probably more than many of us, of babies being snatched from mothers by gunmen and thrown back into the fire as the then JLP community of Orange Lane burned. She would have had time to lament the literal roasting to death of 166 old men and women in the Eventide Home fire. And of course, she would have been there when the political blame game was at its evil best.

One hopes that she would have learnt something from those times to make her a better public servant in 2010. But in vain we hope as our leaders lag and fail to recognise that they are all out on a bobbing buoy and at any minute it will go under. Sadly, the younger set of politicians, that is, budding public servants in both political parties, have long given up any attempts at the words "political reform", simply because there is no life unless they ape the elders and become clones of those who have proved that they are at their best when the politics of national disunity and destruction is practised.

The best that politicians like Simpson Miller do is march in place. Most times, they are comfortable taking two steps backwards, into the divisive, destructive times of the 1970s. Maybe it's time for a real third party.

observemark@gmail.com

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And we pay and continue to swap black dawg fi......

$5 Billion in the Ghettos.....

TAXPAYERS may have to fork out US$57 million or approximately J$4.8 billion as exit fees from a currency-swop arrangement.

Parliament yesterday approved a loan guarantee to refinance a €204.4-million loan from Bandes - the development bank of Venezuela - which goes towards the financing of Highway 2000.

Peter Bunting, the member of parliament for Central Manchester, told Parliament yesterday it was his understanding that "the cost of unwinding the cross-currency swop, were it done yesterday, would have been US$57 million or J$5 billion in losses".

Prime Minister Bruce Golding did not contest the figure, but said that even in that ballpark, the taxpayer might still not be hard hit.

Discounted buy

Golding told the House of Representatives that Government intends to repurchase the Bandes bonds at a discounted price.

"Given the nature of the market and the nature of the bonds, we would be able to purchase them at a significant discount," Golding said.

"Even in that (Bunting's speculated) ballpark, we expect to be able to pay out that cost and still end up with US$30 to US$35 million to finance NROCC's (National Road Operating and Constructing Company) obligation for the extension of Highway 2000."

The refinancing of the loan guarantee became necessary after the Development Bank of Jamaica, in 2008, entered into a debt-swop arrangement to protect itself against a devaluing euro in which the debt was denominated.

But the deal went belly-up during the recession when the euro regained its position, leading to losses for the Government on the interest due on the debt as well as the interest. At the time of the debt swop, it cost US$1.54 to purchase the euro. The rate has since gone down to US$1.10.

Bunting, an investment banker, argued that the country needs to be given an accounting of the cost of the transaction to the country. He argued that while the losses may be close to US$60 million at this point, the interest losses to the country have not yet been taken into account.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com

What is the economic rate of return on this investment????

How many young lives could be saved and job created for $5B????

Big House, Big Car, and no money to buy food.... poor we blak peeple!!!

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Wednesday, 28th July 2010

Flip Flop in His Ackee!!!

We should all resist State of Emergency ...Golding

published: Thursday | October 9, 2003
 
THE EDITOR, Sir:
 
MR. KINGSLEY Thomas has now joined Professor Don Robotham in the call for a state of emergency to deal with the current crime level.
Neither of them is likely to be detained without charge for being "a threat to national security". Nor any of their children, for that matter. And if, by some misadventure, it were to happen, a simple phone call would take care of that.
The poor who live in our inner cities, most of whom are no less law-abiding than Mr. Thomas or Professor Robotham, have no such assurance and no such privilege. Every so often the police detain scores of people who are first locked up then "processed" and later released. Why?
Because the police have no evidence on which to charge them. Under the Thomas-Robotham plan, the police would simply detain and lock up. No need for any "processing"! No need for any evidence! No need for any trial!
The gates are flung wide open for corrupt policemen to "deal with" individuals with whom they have a dispute and for a corrupt government to "deal with" its political opponents with whom it always has a dispute.
The PNP has never acknowledged the abuses that it perpetrated against hundreds of persons, including JLP supporters, in the 1976 state of emergency. It has never even been able to justify (or even attempted to) the detention of Pearnel Charles, Babsy Grange, Pat Stephens, Ferdie Yap, Ray Miles, Karram Josephs, Edwin Singh, George Lazarus, Keith Steele or the hundreds of other persons who were simply rounded up and thrown into detention camp.
Prime Minister Patterson was a member of the Cabinet at that time! Several others in the present government were actively involved with the PNP at that time. The then Minister of National Security signed blank detention orders so that others could "fill in the names". Who, other than the likes of Kingsley Thomas and Don Robotham, can trust these same people to administer a state of emergency impartially even if it were deemed necessary?
The atrocities that were perpetrated by the government in the state of emergency of 1976 must never be allowed to happen again! They will never be allowed to happen again!
I am, etc.,
BRUCE GOLDING
Kingston

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US official confirms 'series' of new extradition requests

BY ERICA VIRTUE

A high-ranking United States official says there is a series of extradition requests for suspected Jamaican criminals to be processed by the Government, even as he made a push for greater effectiveness of the Proceeds of Crime Act to defeat organised crime here.

United States Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela, in a question-and-answer session with local journalists at the US Embassy in Kingston yesterday, said the US was looking forward to Jamaica's response to the requests.

There is a series of extraditions that the United States has requested, and we look forward to those being processed," he disclosed.

Valenzuela's disclosure came amidst reports that the United States had prepared two unsealed indictments relating to the case against Christopher "Dudus" Coke, who is currently in US custody following his extradition there last month.

"Now that this high-profile extradition is over, we will continue to work together with the law enforcement community and as extraditions arise on either side, from either country, we will process them," Parnell added.

However, Parnell would not say how many more were in the queue or whether they include private, public or elected officials.

He also made it clear that it was not the practice of the embassy to comment on any specific requests, and that there was no outstanding backlog of requests to be processed.

"We value very strongly the relationship with Jamaica we may have had a bump in the road with regards to some issues having to do with the extradition, but, we are happy with the way in which we cooperate with Jamaica and look forward to strengthening that relation as we move forward," he added. He also continued his push for greater use of the Proceeds of Crime Act, saying that the weight of the law must be felt.

"This Act allows the Government to seize the assets of those involved in organised crime, and is one of the clearest ways to demonstrate to all Jamaicans that crime does not pay," Valenzuela said.

Valenzuela had earlier met with Prime Minister Bruce Golding and foreign minister Dr Kenneth Baugh.

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Al Miller's phone was tapped, court told

Reverend Gentlemen Don't Lie......

BY PAUL HENRY

THE capture in June of accused drug lord Christopher 'Dudus' Coke appears to have been facilitated by the police intercepting the telephone conversations of the Rev Al Miller, the pastor with whom Coke was travelling when he was held.

The revelation about the interception of Miller's conversations was made yesterday when the clergyman appeared a second time in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court on charges of harbouring a fugitive and perverting the course of justice.

Miller, who heads the Fellowship Tabernacle in St Andrew, was not detained then, but was later asked by the police to turn himself in. He was charged following questioning. Miller said he was taking Coke to the US Embassy in Kingston.

The police said they had been trailing Miller's vehicle from St Ann.

"I simply got a call to deal with an issue...," Miller told congregants at a Sunday morning service. "It was an opportunity that is a response to prayer. I went, picked him up and was taking him to the authorities. Nothing more, nothing less."

Miller had also been instrumental in Coke's brother, Levity, turning himself over to the police. Livity has since been charged by the police.

We shall see and hear......

elmystic.

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Tuesday 27th, July 2010

From Red to Orange to Green?

Munroe the Chameleon.........

Three years after failing in his bid to be elected to Parliament on a People's National Party (PNP) ticket, Professor Trevor Munroe has broken ties with the party and has declared he has no further interest in representational politics.

"I am not a paid-up member and I withdrew from the executive (committee of the party) for personal reasons. I support the positive things the PNP does and I am critical, publicly and privately, about the things that I don't agree with," Munroe told The Gleaner yesterday afternoon.

The university professor, who dabbled in communism during the 1970s and was unsuccessful in his attempts to get elected to Parliament, suffered a 599-vote defeat to Dr St Aubyn Bartlett in September 2007.

Stopped paying dues

He remained a member of the PNP executive committee but gave up duties in early 2008.

Munroe also admitted that he has not being paying membership dues.

Under the constitution of the PNP, members are considered 'non-financial' if they have not paid their annual membership fees.

"If they are not paid up, they are not a member. You are only a member if you are in good financial standing. You may be a supporter, but not a member," General Secretary Peter Bunting told The Gleaner.

Bunting, however, said it was the party's policy not to comment on the membership status of individuals.

Meanwhile, Munroe, when asked whether he intended to renew his membership, said his main focus is to work with people in the political parties, as well as the private and the public sectors, in order to combat corruption.

"I am engaged in public service to combat corruption more effectively in Jamaica and that, to me, is a priority in helping representational politics to be more meaningful. I don't have any plans to return to representational politics," Munroe told The Gleaner yesterday.

On Sunday, PNP Chairman Robert Pickersgill took a swipe at Munroe when he quipped that the political location of the communists in the old Workers' Party of Jamaica was unknown.

"That one, I don't know where that one is," Robert Pickersgill said.

No blind attitude

But Munroe would not admit to having left the PNP. Instead, he said his attitude towards the PNP would not be a blind one.

"I support the positive things the PNP have done, for example, the establishment of its Integrity Commission. I have expressed my disagreements with things I feel are not in the public interest. One of them is the failure to support the extension of the state of emergency," he told The Gleaner.

Some PNP members have said he was responsible for writing Prime Minister Bruce Golding's apology for his bungling of the extradition request matter involving Christopher Coke.

But Munroe said he has always believed and advocated that public officials who betray the public's trust must be impeached. (looking to join the NDM?)

He also said that the records will show that he has been "very condemnatory and critical of his (Golding's) manoeuvring between September 2009 and May 2010", which represents the period during which the Golding administration refused to grant authority for extradition proceedings against Coke to proceed.

Munroe's achievements

• Rhodes Scholar.
• Founded the University and Allied Workers' Union.
• Founded the Workers' Liberation League, a pro-Soviet, Marxist-Leninist organisation in 1974. It was rebranded the Workers' Party of Jamaica in 1978 and Munroe served as its general secretary.
• Tempus fugits......

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Confessons of a Professor

Don Robotham, Contributor

The party of Norman Manley is no more. The People's National Party (PNP) is now officially the party of the lumpen. They did not even have the guts to come out and vote against a state of emergency to which they were clearly opposed. Instead they 'abstained.'

How did the party which imposed the 1976 state of emergency and the Gun Court legislation without the slightest qualms come to experience their human-rights Damascus? The answer is obvious: Tivoli delenda est. Tivoli must be destroyed! The PNP tried with Rema in 1977 and failed. They tried again in 2001 - and failed again. At last, in 2010, this has been finally achieved, by a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) government, no less. And the PNP garrisons remain gloriously intact, ready to rumble. The state of emergency has served its purpose. It has outlived its usefulness. God is great! Mission accomplished!

In the dirty gutter politics of Jamaica, the PNP now has the decisive advantage over the JLP where it counts: on the streets where the guns bark. In any coming election, which the PNP thinks it will win, the PNP lumpen are getting ready to teach the JLP a lesson it will never forget.

The JLP command and control centre is in disarray, although not destroyed. Golding is deeply unpopular among the JLP lumpen and among members of the old guard in his own Cabinet. At the same time, persons conducting research among recently incarcerated gunmen report that the word on the street among JLP criminals is the following: "Mi a bawn labourite, but a PNP mi seh."

The strategy of the PNP is an ambitious one: all the lumpen, including the JLP ones, are to be united behind the PNP banner, in much the way that Matthews Lane and other PNP garrisons came to the aid of their Tivoli brethren in 2001 and again in 2010. The JLP are to be driven out of west Kingston, Backbush, Black Ants Lane, Grants Pen, Tawes Pen, May Pen, Montego Bay and on, and on, and on. To accomplish this feat, the PNP has to fly the anti-state of emergency flag to rally the lumpen. The trumpet is sounding!

Nothing reveals the lumpen mentality of the PNP more than its proposal that detainees be released on Emancipation Day. In this warped lumpen mindset, murder and extortion suspects are the new national heroes, to be celebrated alongside Sam Sharpe, Bogle, Gordon and Garvey!

The lumpen strategy is what bore fruit in the collapse of the state of emergency last week Tuesday. PNP motives were clear. On the other hand, sections of the JLP also had their hidden agenda. The degrading of Tivoli meant clear gains for the PNP among the JLP lumpen preserve and left the party's leadership deeply worried. Hence the half-hearted and unconvincing JLP approach to the renewal of the state of emergency in Parliament. There are quite a few JLP members who are secretly thanking the PNP for bringing the emergency to an end. Once again, the lumpen on both sides have united at the expense of us all.

Who are the lumpen?

Who are these lumpen and what has given them this strength?

• The lumpen are so influential because the other stable social classes have by and large withdrawn from politics. Second, the lumpen, male and female, although substantial, are very much a minority - about 300,000, certainly no more than 15 per cent of the population.
• The lumpen are not simply the unemployed, even the long-term unemployed. The lumpen are that section of the unemployed who have never, ever, worked - not even in the informal sector. How then do they live? Go figure!
• The lumpen are an old social force in Jamaica. You can find records of them in the 19th century, especially in the social studies done by the Baptists before 1865.

One of the results of our long years of economic stagnation has been the creation not only of downtown lumpen, but of uptown lumpen as well. These are millionaires living in the hills without any visible source of income. The economy did not grow, yet their wealth has mushroomed. Many of these are in politics, especially on the JLP side, and have close links with criminal elements at home and abroad.

The lumpen are not to be confused with "the poor", for there are many lumpen among our idle rich. It's not a colour thing. This is Jamaica, so we have black lumpen and 'browning' lumpen, too! Small farmers are the poorest group in Jamaica and are the opposite of lumpen. They are hard-working people with a distinguished history of chopping up lumpen who stray into their provision grounds. Factory and agricultural workers hate the lumpen. Teachers, civil servants, nurses, policemen, soldiers are certainly not lumpen, although quite a few lumpen have taken refuge in the police force. Very few professionals are lumpen, although one may be forgiven for harbouring doubts about some among our learned defence counsel!

The achievements of the State of Emergency

Because of the state of emergency, the lumpen have been on the run, frantically hiding their guns and trying to regroup in the countryside. The battle has only just begun and will be long and arduous, but important victories have already been won. Eighty-seven fewer persons were killed in June 2010, as compared to May, a whopping 49 per cent reduction, as a result of the state of emergency. As a result of the state of emergency, 78 fewer persons were shot in June 2010, as compared to the 170 in May 2010, a reduction of 46 per cent. As a result of the state of emergency, reported rapes decreased by eight, from 48 in May 2010 to 39 in June 2010, a decrease of 23 per cent.

If we continued this trend for the additional 30 days requested by the security forces, we would have saved a total of 132 lives in just two months. One hundred and twenty fewer persons would have been shot and 18 fewer persons raped. If we kept this up for the rest of 2010, we would be down to only two murders per month in December, saving more than a thousand lives!

SHAMEFUL NONSENSE

When you hear the PNP and the human-rights brigade talking shameful nonsense about the state of emergency being a waste because only 20 persons have been charged, ask them about these lives saved which may be saved no more.

When you hear them shedding crocodile tears over the 4,000 persons detained, ask them about the more than 400,000 who have been 'detained' in garrisons and behind burglar bars all over Jamaica because of the stranglehold of the criminal lumpen.

When they say that there is no crisis justifying a state of emergency in Jamaica, point out to them that in Afghanistan where a major war is under way, the casualties are about 1,000 per year. In Jamaica, we have been at over 1,700 murders per year for years.

The political naivety in local human-rights circles and among opportunist middle-class elements in the PNP is boundless. Soon, emboldened by their victory, they will attempt to reopen the debate on the anti-crime bills, mounting constitutional challenges right up to the Privy Council level. Then, they will launch the fight against anti-racketeering legislation. Attacks on the curfews, which only yesterday they were championing as the better substitute for the state of emergency, have already begun.

The lumpen have united behind the PNP and are manipulating the daylights out of the human-rights crew and the middle-class fig leaves in the party. Civil society must also unite and act firmly in defence of the anti-crime bills and the proposed anti-racketeering legislation. Not one cent of support for human-rights groups until they come to their senses.

Dismiss the shameful posturing of the PNP! No jestering!

Left, Right.....Rite

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Pot vs Kettle ???

Peter Bunting, general secretary of the People's National Party (PNP), has labelled Professor Don Robotham a fascist.

Bunting made the comment on Sunday after Robotham launched another broadside at the PNP in a Sunday Gleaner column.

Robotham said the PNP is the party of the lumpenproletariat.

"They did not even have the guts to come out and vote against a state of emergency, to which they were clearly opposed. Instead, they abstained," Robotham wrote, as he lashed the PNP for not supporting a resolution in Parliament for an extension to the state of emergency.

Bunting not amused

But Bunting was not amused by some of the claims the anthropologist made in his article.

"Originally, I was under the impression that Don was a communist. After reading his article today, he is now a fascist. Clearly, his commitment was to totalitarianism, rather than the interest of the workers," Bunting said of Robotham.

Fascists are intensely anti-democratic persons who believe in a one-party state that has one supreme leader. They also subscribe to the view that a tightly controlled economy is in the best interest of nations.

Robotham was a founding member of the Workers' Liberation League in the early 1970s - the forerunner of the communist-doctrine Workers' Party of Jamaica - which made three electoral attempts at entering Parliament but was rejected.

Portia Moving to the Ghetto????

Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller is urging wealthy Jamaicans to consider living in some of Jamaica's inner-city communities as part of the move to de-garrisonise constituencies.

Simpson Miller made the pitch while addressing members of the People's National Party's (PNP) National Executive Council at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, on Sunday.

"I don't know if dismantling is a right word, because I don't know if you are going to move them. It would be good if we move the people from the inner cities and those who live up town move into the inner cities," she said.

"Those of us who are privileged would realise that we would not be able to live there for one day. None of us who do not live in the inner city would be able to survive the inner-city life for one day," she added.

Simpson Miller, who is also PNP president, called for the uniting of all hands across Jamaica, including the media, private sector and civic groups, for the empowerment of persons living in inner cities and poor communities across the country.

The Opposition Leader argued that the best way to transform Jamaica's inner-city was to embark on major projects geared at education and training and resocialisation, "to build good moral values and attitudes, not to say to the people we are coming to dismantle you or dismember you".

 

 

Monday, 26th July 2010

A precursor to military dictatorship

The Editor Sir:

I am aghast, yet not surprised by the leaders of the various private-sector bodies giving their overwhelming support to the continuation of the state of emergency. They have placed their emotions ahead of creative and rational thinking.

How do they rationalise the support of a prolonged state of emergency yet, in the same breath, have the audacity to mention 'democracy'? A state of emergency is a temporary military solution to an immediate military problem. In this case, the military is used in warfare as seen in west Kingston on May 23. A prolonged state of emergency is a precursor to a military dictatorship, as could be seen in Latin and South America in the 1970s and '80s and across continental Africa today.

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Flip-Flopper In Chief

PRIME MINISTER Bruce Golding's words have been thrown back at him by the People's National Party (PNP), which has yet again declared he cannot be trusted.

PNP President Portia Simpson Miller yesterday labelled Golding the "flip-flopper-in-chief", and blasted him for the position he has adopted on the need for a state of emergency.

Using a letter to the editor, written by Golding and published in The Gleaner on October 9, 2003, as the springboard for her attack, Simpson Miller said the prime minister has conveniently changed his stance.

Said Golding in his 2003 letter: "The poor who live in our inner cities, most of whom are no less law-abiding than Mr Thomas or Professor Robotham, have no such assurance and no such privilege. Every so often, the police detain scores of people who are first locked up then 'processed' and later released. Why?"

Kingsley Thomas (who, in 2003, was the chairman of the National Housing Trust) and Don Robotham were, at the time, calling for the imposition of a state of emergency in the wake of rising violent crime.

'No need for trial'

"... The police have no evidence on which to charge them. Under the Thomas-Robotham plan, the police would simply detain and lock up. No need for any 'pro-cessing'! No need for any evidence! No need for any trial!

"The gates are flung wide open for corrupt policemen to 'deal with' individuals with whom they have a dispute, and for a corrupt govern-ment to 'deal with' its political opponents with whom it always has a dispute," Golding's letter said.

Yesterday, Simpson Miller told members of her party's National Executive Council that Golding's habit of changing his stance makes it difficult for him to be trusted.

"Should we expect to hear 'It wasn't me?' We have become accustomed to the flip-flopper-in-chief saying one thing yesterday, and another thing today," Simpson Miller said.

"We firmly believe that it is more likely that the country will achieve success in the fight against crime if there is consensus between Government and the Opposition on the strategy to be pursued. That consensus requires consultation, respect and trust," she added.

Last night, representatives of the Jamaica Labour Party were not able to give an immediate response.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com

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Yohan Blake ready to shock the world

Monday, July 26, 2010

KINGSTON, Jamaica (CMC) — Jamaican Yohan Blake is beaming with confidence after his stunning 19.78 run at Thursday's 10th IAAF Diamond League meeting in Monaco's Stade Louis II.

The 20-year-old carved out the time as he sped to second place behind winner American Tyson Gay who clocked 19.72 seconds, and believes the performance has set him up to shock the world.

BLAKE ... there is no word to explain how I feel

"I know my potential because my coach (Glen Mills) believes in me and I am not surprised with [the] run," said Blake.

"I said to persons before the race that I was going to shock the world, and that is what I am going to do," said Blake, who narrowly lost to American Gay in a close finish.

Blake improved on his personal best of 20.60 to pass Donald Quarrie (19.82) as the second fastest Jamaican behind Usain Bolt, who has the world record of 19.19.

He is also third on the Caribbean list, only behind Bolt and Trinidad & Tobago's Ato Boldon (19.77).

Known more for his 100 metres exploits, Blake said he received a call "out of the blue" from Mills telling him to attempt the half lap.

"He said he knows how good I am and told me I should just go out there to run," Blake explained.

Now the 12th fastest man of all-time, Blake said "there is no word to explain how I feel ..."

He is scheduled to run one more 200m, two 100m and a sprint relay during the remainder of the season.

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Sunday, 25th July 2010

New Dudus Twist...

Prosecutors gave no indication of what is contained in the document filed on June 20 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York where Dudus is to be tried on gun and drug-running charges.

"Possibly an indictment of those individuals who assisted Coke during the 10 months that the Government delayed his extradition from Jamaica," a US-based lawyer told The Sunday Gleaner.

"It could also be a product of the Department of Justice investigation into the Manatt FARA filings," the attorney said.

However, the attorney was quick to dismiss speculation that the sealed document could be a statement from the man the US authorities claim led the notorious Shower Posse.

"This is not going away, no matter what the spin doctors in Jamaica try," the US-based attorney said.

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NCB cuts rates as loan portfolio declines

Come August, National Commercial Bank of Jamaica (NCB) will cut its base lending rate by three percentage points, moving it to 17.75 per cent from 20.75 per cent. NCB now joins Scotiabank and FirstCaribbean in reducing interest rates, but bank capital is still in high double digits ...

The good old high profit days are numbered????

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Saturday, 24th 2010

www.ndm4jamaica.org
23 July 2010

The Editor
The Jamaica Observer
40 Beechwood Avenue
Kingston 5
                             Effective Crime Prevention Needed

The people of Jamaica continue to be disrespected by both a secretive, egotistic and inept government and llustrates, unpatriotic and self-serving opposition. The recent activity of both the JLP & the PNP have highlighted and reemphasized those stark realities.
The activity of both government and opposition in the parliament recently demonstrates that the 60 parliamentarians have no interest for Jamaican people first but to themselves and their parties. Not once did any member refer to the human rights abuses of fellow Jamaicans as a reason not to support the ‘state of emergency’. The police contend such actions are necessary to fight crime but the truth is they are being asked to do a yeoman task of trying to prevent and solve crime, despite being give a ‘basket to carry water’, with lack of resources and personnel.
The police and army have chosen to do the job of crime prevention and solving by using the easier but less effective and usually illegal method of ‘herding and branding’ method instead of the proven and effective method of investigating and forensic techniques.
The government knows that a corrupt police cannot investigate corruption and they also know that both the JLP and the PNP are in bed with the One Order and Clansman gangs. The government also knows that many police are army personnel are involved in gang and tribal activity and so have unleashed those forces mainly against the people below Cross Roads. There will be little outcry because people below Cross Roads have little voice except that of Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ) and Families against State Terrorism (FAST). As did the past PNP government, the present JLP government is busy conducting a media campaign to label both JFJ and FAST as organisations who support only criminals, knowing fully well that if it was not for both JFJ and FAST people below Cross Roads would be totally defenseless.
What is needed to effectively prevent crime, violence and disorder is a re organized police service and army; refocused and given more personnel, training, equipment and untied hands to go after wrong doers anywhere they maybe, even inside of parliament if the trails leads there. Until that is gone nothing else will suffice.
Yours truly,
Michael Williams
General Secretary
NDM
ndmjamaica@yahoo.com

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The 'Warlord' Speaks

 

CLASSIFYING 'SHOTTAS' as "waste sperm", the man tagged 'Five Star General', Rodney 'Bounty Killer' Pryce, said it was time for the Government to replace dons, commence the fight against poverty, and leave the police to carry out the job of crime fighting.

A seemingly new and mature Pryce, in a militant and philosophical performance, surprised the thousands who turned out for Dancehall Night at Reggae Sumfest on Thursday when he openly supported the security forces and called on the Government to act now, with the state of emergency out of the way.

State of urgency

"We now need a 'state of urgency'," he asserted, adding that it should be geared towards correcting the ills that had been meted out to the people of Jamaica by successive governments.

"Poor people fed up," he stated, making reference to his 1999 hit song of the same name, while using his 45-minute stint to call on the other artistes at the Catherine Hall, Montego Bay, complex to collaborate in restoring peace to the country.

The DJ, dubbed 'Warlord', is known for belting out unbridled gun lyrics.

But as he preached and taught from his pulpit - the stage - Pryce, who says he is now being managed by his mother, encouraged the people in the audience to show love by holding the hand of the person next to them. His words of encouragement were met with loud cheers.

Pryce was later honoured by Summerfest Productions, organisers of the event, for his outstanding contribution to reggae music and in particular, Reggae Sumfest.

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com

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Boycott 2012 elections or go for a third party

Friday, July 23, 2010

It is time that both JLP and PNP politicians wake up and realise that Jamaicans have had enough of their placing party politics and personal advancement above the national interest. Prime Minister Bruce Golding got a rude awakening to that fact when ordinary Jamaicans refused to let him get away with deception over the Manatt, Phelps and Phillips deal although the PNP was instrumental in publicising the issue. The PNP also got a lesson in how much Jamaicans abhor "politricks" when, after many scandals, they were voted out of power in 2007, although by a narrow margin.

Two recent reports in the Jamaica Observer suggest that these two parties are either taking Jamaicans for granted or playing stubborn in their refusal to put the people's interests first. Both parties reportedly struck a deal to bypass the Jamaican constitution and "bury the dual citizenship hatchet" (Observer, July 20), instead of having any further court proceedings and "costly" by-elections over the dual-citizenship affair. That, after three PNP challenges were upheld by the courts and the JLP retained those seats; and after the JLP challenged the legitimacy of PNP MP Ian Hayles in West Hanover while the PNP was challenging the seat held by JLP MP Shahine Robinson of Northeast St Ann. This matter of dual citizenship is not for political parties to wheel and deal about. Parliament and the courts must resolve it properly out of respect for the nation's constitution. The parties' agreement to halt political fights can only be acceptable if the illegitimacy of the seats involved is resolved legally.

Second, the PNP apparently succeeded in killing government efforts to extend the state of emergency which was by all appearances helping to lessen the murders and violent crimes plaguing the island. Despite meaningless mumblings from party leader Portia Simpson Miller that the PNP did not want Independence Day to be celebrated under a State of Emergency, it seems clear that the PNP was playing politics when they claimed that the government wanted a 30-day extension or nothing. The 2012 elections are not that far away and it is not too late for Jamaicans to either boycott that affair or shift their loyalty to a third party.

Ken Hartman

We Concur

Elmystic@hotmail.com

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Friday, 23rd July 2010

1,600 voices speaking from the grave to the PNP

Friday, July 23, 201

The action of the People's National Party (PNP) and its unconscionable parliamentarians, who have chosen to ignore the fear and tension wrought by criminals in this country: If the 1,600 Jamaicans who were murdered last year could speak from the grave, what would they say of the PNP's decision to kill off the State of Emergency?

Moreover, what would the legions of fatherless children, the mothers who have lost innocent offspring, the wives who have lost husbands and breadwinners and the many others who have lost loved ones -- including police officers whose lives are on the line everyday -- to those heinous criminals. What would they say of your party's action?

We don't believe it's too difficult to imagine what they would say. If they could speak, they would condemn in one strong and unequivocal chorus the betrayal of our country by a party that has lost its way.

The PNP supported the calling and subsequent extension of the State of Emergency. One of its members, the usually honest Mrs Sharon Hay-Webster, even called for its extension to St Catherine, where she is under the gun.

Suddenly, the party figures that crime as a social issue is so important that were the Government to bring it to within tolerable levels, it might just win the next election, a view which, by the way, we think is rather silly.

The political parties have never really trusted the Jamaican electorate. The PNP is not now about to believe that when it comes to an election, the voters will weigh Prime Minister Bruce Golding's action, which led us to this sorry path, against the opportunity presented to deal crime a blow and make a wise decision.

Rather than trust the people, the PNP chose to put party before country. It doesn't matter that the country and our economy had been held back in its development as the murder rate climbed wantonly to record levels every year. It doesn't matter that since the State of Emergency our people had begun to feel safer and more secure in ways they had not since the late 1960s.

We pressure and pillory the security forces for not doing their job, but choose to ignore them when they tell us what they need to do that job.

Those who met their untimely death at the hands of gunmen would say, without a shadow of a doubt, that this is indeed a sad day.

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PNP — mere shadow (Duppy) of a once great party

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Mr Norman Washington Manley, credited as the founder of the People's National Party (PNP), father of the national movement for self-determination, and later to be named National Hero of Jamaica, lost a general election he had called purely on moral grounds.

After losing the Referendum on Jamaica's membership in the West Indies Federation, he called early elections for 1961, believing that the people should have the right to decide which party would lead us into political independence. Again he lost, and ceded that great historical moment to the rival Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) led by Sir Alexander Bustamante. But the PNP was cemented in the minds and hearts of Jamaicans.

The PNP of today is but a shadow of that great party. It is entirely bereft of any moral bearings.

For the first time at last — to quote Mr Norman Manley's son, Michael — Jamaica finally has a chance to right many of the things that are wrong with us, beginning with the opportunity to break the stranglehold that crime has had on our country for decades.

No one denies that crime has robbed us of many of the possibilities to be greater. As we cowered behind burglar bars that transformed our homes into virtual prisons, its stain on our international image brought us close to pariah status. Even tiny islands, such as Cayman and the Turks and Caicos, which we once administered, have now erected barriers to keep us away from their borders.

With murders climbing to 1,600 last year, Jamaican nationals staying away for fear of their own country, investors and tourists a mere trickle against the potential numbers, poverty flourished, as economic growth and development eluded us. That in turn fed the criminal network in a vicious circle.

Hard-working, law-abiding Jamaicans, most of whom can't migrate, longed for the day of respite. When it finally came on May 23, with the State of Emergency, many of us also saw hope for a brighter tomorrow. A breathing space had been created by the sacrifice of our security forces empowered by the State of Emergency.

We have never in these editorials suggested anything but that Prime Minister Bruce Golding erred monumentally in his handling of the Christopher 'Dudus' Coke extradition/Manatt affair, which led to the implosion in Tivoli Gardens. But out of adversity came a glorious opportunity to remove the crime cancer.

The process has begun. Surely, nobody believes that the dramatic drop in the murder rate is unrelated to the State of Emergency and the detentions.

Let us not fool ourselves. The majority of murders in this country have gone without conviction because eyewitnesses were afraid to testify against the killers.

The police often know the wrongdoers but cannot put them out of business without evidence that can stand up in a court of law, and no civilised society tolerates extra-judicial killings. The detentions allow the security forces to destabilise the criminals and throw them off balance, creating vital space.

What must happen now is implementation of a credible plan to permanently cripple the criminals and their network, which is obviously a medium-to long-term plan that needs all of us behind it.

We have that opportunity to begin. And it is that opportunity that the PNP is robbing us of, by putting party before country.

....No better herring no better barrel...

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EDITORIAL - Politicians playing with matches

Published: Friday | July 23, 2010 0 Comments and 0 Reactions

There is that adage about children playing with matches: if allowed, they might just burn the house down, or cause serious damage to themselves and others.

That's the vision left by Jamaica's political leaders with their antics this week over the state of emergency - of a bunch of self-willed juveniles, ready to tear down the edifice, so long as it deprived their rivals of advantage and/or glory. The shame of this latest let-down is that it happened just when we dared to hope, based on evidence from the recent past, that the country's political process was escaping its arrested development and just might be heading to maturity.

Thursday, 22nd July 2010

Lee strikes gold again....

Defends 100m title at WJC

Paul Reid

Thursday, July 22, 2010

JAMAICA'S Dexter Lee created track and field history at the Stadium du Moncton last night as he sped to the island's first gold at the 13th IAAF World Junior Championships, to defend the title he won two years ago in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

Lee, who ran out of lane seven after posting the seventh fastest time in the semi-finals, stopped the clock at 10.21 seconds, well below his personal and season best 10.16, beating American Charles Silmon, who ran a personal best 10.23, while France's Jimmy Vicaut, the joint world leader, was third in 10.28.

The former Herbert Morrison and Anthony Carpenter-coached athlete became the first male to repeat -- this was his third global gold after he also won at the World Youth in 2007 in Ostrava, Czech Republic.

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And the Circus continues

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Exactly our views Lloyd B....

Dear Editor,

If there is any veracity to Tuesday's news story that both the ruling Jamaica Labour Party and the Opposition People's National Party have come to an agreement not to pursue the dual citizenship issue any further in the courts, then God help Jamaica!

Any such deal must be seen as an insult to the Jamaican people and a concerted assault against the Jamaican Constitution which clearly states that no one holding dual citizenship should be eligible to sit in the nation's Parliament. Is it that the law is not a shackle? This indeed would be a raw deal that should be condemned by all well-thinking Jamaicans.

This alleged conspiracy between the JLP and the PNP again illustrates the slippery slope down which this nation is descending, all in the name of partisan expediency. It remains to be seen if Speaker of the House Delroy Chuck will act with probity and sanguinity with respect to this issue. Will those who still sit in Gordon House who have dual citizenship pay the fines that are automatically imposed? And what if someone or an organisation from civil society should dare to challenge this alleged JLP/PNP deal?

It is well known that the dual citizenship issue is not only an expensive exercise for us taxpayers because of the various by-elections, but has also dug deep into the pockets of both plaintiffs and defendants. Indeed, millions of dollars are now owed to legal firms! Is it that the JLP and PNP are seeking a cheaper way out at the expense of making a mockery of the constitution?

It is my fervent hope that good sense will prevail and that both parties will resile from such a despicable position. A more amenable, legal and respectable exit strategy must be found.

Lloyd B Smith

Montego Bay, St James

lloydbsmith@hotmail.com

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Wednesday, 21st July 2010

Emergency Lifted

With six government members not on the island, the Labourites needed support from the Opposition People's National Party (PNP) to secure the extension.

Under the Constitution, at least 31 of the 60 members of parliament (MP) must give the thumbs up for a state of public emergency to be extended. There are 32 government members in the House of Representatives.

Despite political gymnastics, a stone-faced Golding and a more than 20-minute consultation between senior members of both parties, no consensus could be reached. All 25 government ministers present voted for the extension while the 18 opposition members in chamber abstained. Seventeen members were absent. (Common sense is not common)

"It will have to be discussed. The Chamber is upset. A lot of our members are downtown (Kingston) and I don't know how many of the persons of interest are from in and around downtown Kingston, and how many of them have been processed, and how many of them will have to be let go," he said. "The crime rate will start going back up again," he added.

But executive director of the rights group Jamaicans for Justice, Dr Carolyn Gomes said last night that the organisation, which had opposed another extension, was relieved that it is to be lifted.

"We really have not seen any empirical evidence that the increased power the police are using under the Act and which they claim are causing the fall in the murder rate could not be exercised outside of the draconian provisions of the state of emergency," Dr Gomes told the Observer.

"They have provided neither evidential nor anecdotal support for their contention, and by the way, they can detain persons outside of the state of emergency once they have reasonable suspicion," she argued. "I'm very concerned...that our executive and our Government were prepared to, almost without question propose a State of Emergency extension. I do not understand their unwillingness to compromise with the Opposition though I do not agree with their suggestion," Dr Gomes said further.

The Opposition yesterday had initially said it was only prepared to support an extension to the end of the July, but changed its stance during the hasty consultations yesterday and proposed that the Government consider a compromise of extending the measure for only an additional 15 days; at which time the situation would be reviewed and then another 15 days allowed for the security forces to wind down operations.

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More questions....LNG

Based on the weight of information, including a recently published energy book, sent no doubt in response to my LNG article, I feel constrained to pose a few more inconvenient questions.

Where is the energy plan?

If, as the esteemed Dr Raymond Wright explains in his book, "natural gas is regarded as a transition fuel as we move away from oil towards a new energy agenda that will include renewables", why in this LNG thrust are we not concurrently hearing about the timetable, timelines, approaches and budgets for the inclusion of renewables in our plans? Surely, LNG is not the solution to all our energy woes, as important a part of the mix as it might be! We need to plan long-term.

Jamaica deserves a comprehensive energy plan (separate from the policy) that is properly thought through and to which we can hold our leaders. For too long politicians have had a piecemeal approach to policies and plans for Jamaica, with decisions and directions frequently based on what will make a politician look like "star boy" while he stands under the stage light of minister. Anyone with the temerity to appear to block some of the light, even if only by asking questions, will be quickly shoved away, vilified, ridiculed and branded as not caring about the Jamaican economy. This includes Contractor General Greg Christie whose foray into LNG now seems to be causing howls for his removal.

FSRU and hurricanes

In our hurricane-prone Jamaica where half of every year is "hurricane season" and with plans for a single Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU), what happens when the island is placed on alert for a Category 5 hurricane? Will the FSRU have to seek safe harbour? If so, how early would it need to leave and how far out at sea would it need to go? What happens to Jamaica's energy supply during that time? In other words, what's our back-up hurricane plan? Additionally, will the FSRU just keep going like the Energiser Bunny or will the entire unit need to be taken out of service sometimes for routine maintenance? If so, for how long and again, what's the back-up plan? I have no doubt that Exmar and other experts have answers and explanations and I'm sure many of us would be happy to hear them.

In closing, it is my constitutional right to demand answers from public servants, politicians included. I dance to my own music of conviction that honest people must ask honest questions. Too many important decisions that concern my country are made in the valley of shadows of ignorance, if not of corruption. I support LNG but not in an uncritical manner, and where necessary will question the process and the progress. If we all understood everything about the LNG deal there'd probably be no need for questions! Now, let's see how Mr Christie's efforts at honest answers pan out. Will he be fired before he gets them?

Marcia Forbes is a media specialist.

www.marciaforbes.com

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Invest in agri research

The Editor, Sir:

There is great potential, employment and otherwise, around and within the agro-industry. Surely, there are capable local minds to research and implement techniques towards improving the production and distributive aspects of this industry, from fish-farming (investigating alternative feeds with potential for local production), to animal rearing and ground provisions.

Studies are needed to develop means of organically reducing waste - a profit-'stunting' concern, particularly in the agro-industry.

With the help of a 'well-invested' Bureau of Standards, the homogenised processing of agri-products, prior to spoilage, could provide jobs and savings. Scientifically utilising local research facilities, a lot could be achieved through liquefying certain agri-products for future consumption.

Jamaica needs further investment in research and development. It's obvious that there are capable minds, locally, with which to pursue these ventures.

St Ann nutritionist's story

There was an article in one of the local newspapers, a year or two ago, about a local nutritionist in St Ann, who had developed a thriving nutrition business of healthful, sustaining meals, which were prepared without cooking. It was said that he had numerous customers worldwide. There has to be something there!

The financially capable need to invest in this area. In addition to economic savings, potential for extensive employment, at all levels, research, development, production and distribution, appears encouraging.

Jamaica may not be able to profitably produce and process all products within the local agri-industry but, with careful study, these potentials could be identified and optomised. These are not new ideas but the time seems to have arrived that they receive renewed consideration.

I am, etc.,

Evan Archer

evanarchere1@netzero.net

New York
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Tuesday, 20th July 2010

The flip side of crime fighting

Lloyd B Smith

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

In true Machiavellian style, the Bruce Golding administration has opted to rule by fear rather than by love. This must be good news to the many members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force who see community policing as "soft" and would rather pursue the sledgehammer approach. In other words, even if it means burning down the house to get the rat, do it; even if it means smashing that expensive, one-of-a-kind vase in order to get rid of that damn, annoying fly, do it.

On the surface, crime fighting appears to be all about statistics and homicides so if there are fewer murders it becomes the norm to perceive that crime is down. Notwithstanding the fact that so many killings are never solved or resolved, be they committed by civilians or agents of the state, namely the police or military.

Human rights groups such as Jamaicans for Justice led by Dr Carolyn Gomes (left) and Families Against State Terrorism led by Yvonne McCalla-Sobers are being vilified and ridiculed as defenders of criminals.

Not withstanding the fact that other crimes such as robbery and rape may well be on the rise and the equally potent fact that many such crimes against the person are not reported and so do not form part of the official statistics which are often used to bring about some kind of balm in Gilead.

Currently, a new precedent has been set whereby it is now being posited that the best way to fight crime is by instituting a State of Emergency. Supporters of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party cry down anyone who dares to question this draconian approach to crime fighting, maintaining that it is working. But for how long, one may ask?

Let me hasten to assert that I do believe that a State of Emergency did become necessary at the outset given the irrefutable fact that persons allegedly loyal to Tivoli Gardens strongman Christopher "Dudus" Coke had launched an attack against the state, including the burning down of police stations and the killing of law enforcement officers. But if a State of Emergency is to remain legitimate, then it ought not to be prolonged indefinitely.

Also, it must not be seen as a means of fighting crime regularly. Yes, we all know that the country was literally under siege by criminal elements and that the murder rate was getting out of control, especially in troubled areas such as Kingston and St Andrew, St Catherine, Clarendon, Manchester and St James. Something had to be done. Something drastic and far-reaching was necessary and the people were demanding it, many declaring that they were prepared to cede some of their human and constitutional rights in the process.

Well, the Dudus extradition affair presented the Golding regime with the raison d'etre to pursue that path, and the rest is history. "Crime is down," has now become the new mantra for the relieved as well as narrow partisan hacks of the JLP who are over-anxious to boost the image of their baggage-ridden leader Bruce Golding.

The obverse of all this, of course, is that there have been numerous reports of human rights violations and acts of police brutality. And to add further salt to the wound, a number of the highly touted crime bills are said to have infringed on the constitutional rights of citizens. This is a tightrope walk for the Golding administration as crime has been the foremost problem on the minds of most Jamaicans. Against this background, any individual or organisation seen as "anti what" and being pursued by way of the State of Emergency and crime bills is deemed an enemy of the State.

In this context, human rights groups such as Jamaicans For Justice led by Dr Carolyn Gomes and Families Against State Terrorism led by Yvonne McCalla-Sobers are being vilified and ridiculed as defenders of criminals. Sections of the media, especially some talk-show hosts who are simply carrying out their duties as the people's watchdog have been pilloried primarily by over-zealous Labourites who see the present crime-fighting scenario as increasing the favourability of their party.

The Opposition People's National Party has also come in for its share of harsh criticisms for having dared to question or rap certain aspects of the crime bills and the prolonged use of the State of Emergency, as if this is not part of its role and function as Her Majesty's loyal opposition, so sworn to do.

This high level of intolerance instigated by those who want everyone to fall in line and thus become robotic is not good or healthy for our democratic way of life. There must always be checks and balances in which case dissent has its place in the scheme of things if we are not to head, wittingly or unwittingly, in the direction of becoming a police state.

Interestingly, even as detractors attack JFJ and FAST because of their stance (and I say more power to them), one notices with concern that Contractor General Mr Greg Christie has also been placed in the spotlight and is being lined up against the wall to face the verbal firing squad of those who are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with his no-holds-barred style in carrying out his duties.

It must be noted that even while the security forces continue their onslaught against crime and violence, not one politician of note has become a person of interest. It is no secret, too, that blue-collar and white-collar crime is rampant in the Jamaican society, yet very few perpetrators are being apprehended and imprisoned.

In real terms, it is just one class of Jamaicans that are being seen as criminals, miscreants and deviants. This is a most discombobulating situation because it goes to the heart of what the JLP itself has mouthed and sung for years - equal rights and justice. What a bitter irony!

The flip side of crime fighting is that while the cancer is being surgically removed there is much collateral damage that may well kill the patient. And even when it is felt that most of the cancer cells have been destroyed there will be enough remaining to cause recidivism.

So while we commend the police and soldiers for a job well done so far, let us not forget that crime fighting goes beyond guns and bullets, cordons and searches, curfews and indefinite detention. It behoves any government that is self-respecting to bring a little love into the picture by way of social and economic interventions. Perhaps what we need, therefore, is not a police state but a benevolent dictator?

lloydbsmith@hotmail.com

In the Meantime, The Circus Continues

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Greg Christie progressive, prophetic

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Dear Editor,

My impression of Greg Christie is not that he is "forthtelling" or foretelling certain truths, but like the 8th century Old Testament prophets, he is serious about social justice, righteousness and ethical concerns in sensitive areas. I resonate with the progressive style of the contractor general whose prophetic awareness is needed urgently in our Jamaican cultural mores and folk ways.

The NDM says Leave Christie alone......

Greg Christie has a healthy new system of meaning, where he is able to expose and appreciate the hidden consciousness of who we are as a people. Fortunately, he inculcates a new self-perception and self-definition, where he is not perceiving the Jamaican as an object, but in the language of the Rev Ashley Smith, the contractor general is telling Jamaican civil servants that they need to see themselves as subject, sharing fully in the creation of history.

I appreciate the concerns of Minister Vaz and Patrick Rousseau, with regard to the perception of some of the talented civil servants, but we have to realise that Greg Christie is a person who is bringing a management morality to the civil service, not only because he inculcates a healthy view of himself, but he is telling all of us to liberate ourselves from misgivings, corruption and prejudices, and have a vision to fashion a new Jamaican community, because it is impossible to create a new community where Jamaicans have doubts with regard to the authentic social order.

Therefore we must rise to the occasion, where we are able to achieve dignity, moral rectitude and a life that is truly human.

Revd Canon Ernle P Gordon

gordfm@yahoo.co

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SWEET DEALS????

I have to admit that I am not sure, and like many Jamaicans we have good reason to be doubtful. Of the major deals cut over the past two decades by successive administrations - Highway 2000, JPS, IMF, Falmouth Cruise Ship Pier, Air Jamaica, China sugar asset sale, and others - none of us is quite sure whether the country is better or worse off as a result. In fact, some of them warrant independent commissions of inquiry.

The pervasive cynicism is also due to the fact that most of the deals have been negotiated "undercover", and shared only with the Jamaican people after the main elements have been guaranteed. The recent Air Jamaica and China sugar deals are only the latest examples of the disdain and disregard our political leaders have for the people of Jamaica by keeping us in the dark regarding those negotiation processes.

To tell the Jamaican people that we are not privy to the details of the sale of key national assets is not only "hogwash", it is also arrogant and self-serving, not to mention that that kind of condescending and paternalistic argument is an insult to our collective intelligence.

I don't think that there is any country on Planet Earth, save for rogue states, where the people's patrimony - our national assets and treasures - are sold off piece by piece to foreign entities without the broadest and fullest discussions and debates. It is absolutely incredible that in a country like Jamaica with the brightest minds available, numerous colleges and universities and the proliferation and sophistication of media houses, that successive governments have been able to do as they please with the country's resources without the least bit of resistance from the intelligentsia.

The way in which Air Jamaica was "bartered" and butchered to the government of Trinidad can only be described as deplorable. The negotiations that were carried out largely in camera, not only left us with no cash after the sale, but have made us the laughing stock of the Caribbean community. It is no wonder that the new Trinidadian prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, felt comfortable and entitled in reminding us that Trinidad is not an ATM machine. That's what happens when a country prostitutes itself.

The sale of our sugar lands to the Chinese is the latest nail to be driven into the coffin of Jamaican assets , and if at no other time before, it seems to me that it is now high time for Jamaicans to wake up and smell who is brewing the coffee. (Incidentally, a Chinese company has also been granted exclusive rights to Blue Mountain Coffee in China.) Questions that should be asked and answered up front are now being debated at the back end, when the deal has been signed, sealed and delivered to the Chinese.

One wonders how sweet any deal could be that involves the sale of large portions of our land and other national assets to foreigners. And at the rate at which the country is being cut and carved up, will there be anything left for our children and grandchildren? And what about national pride? Have we been divested of that as well?

It's incredible what the politicians of Jamaica have been able to get away with because of the disunity, the political tribalism and the ignorance of the citizens. With weak civil society, a non-confrontational church, and high levels of intellectual dishonesty Jamaica, without little or no protest, has been placed on the global auction block, open to the highest bidder regardless of face, name, or origin. The gavel comes down and the shout is heard, "It's sold"! Take it or leave it, Jamaica!

It goes without saying that bad governments make bad decisions, and the serious and unresolved issues and questions surrounding the Golding administration and the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and the Dudus affair must cause us to ask questions about the ability and integrity of the current government to do business on behalf of the people of Jamaica. I'm not sure how anyone could talk about sweet deals in the midst of the sordid secrets that abound.

With love,

bab2609@yahoo.com

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Monday, 19th July 2010

Promises Unkept......

"The real hoax is how little France, as well as the U.S. and Canada, have offered Haiti in earthquake relief, relative to what Haitians are owed in reparations," she added.

The group today issued the following statement to the media:

The French government has stated that it is considering legal recourse against us.

This is very fitting, as it is our concern with crimes that led us to make this false announcement. We are the Committee for the Reimbursement of the Indemnity Money Extorted from Haiti (in French, le Comité pour le Remboursement Immédiat des Montants Envolés » d'Haïti, and in both languages spelling CRIME).

But is a spoof website such a grave crime, compared to is what the French have done in Haiti:

- The forcible capture, commerce, brutalization, torture, murder and enslavement of millions of Africans over more than two centuries

- Expropriating 90 million gold francs from Haiti as an indemnity for lost French slave-trade profits following Haiti's independence, and saddling Haitians with an illegitimate debt that Haiti paid France for 122 years

- Actively helping to overthrow Haiti's democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, on February 29, 2004 in large measure because he had the temerity to demand that France reimburse Haiti the "independence debt" with interest amounting to about $21 billion. This was the first time a former slave colony officially requested reparations from a former colonial and slave-owning nation.

- Promising to Haiti through pledged contributions to UN agencies, NGOS and the Red Cross some $180 million, but six months later, not one centime has been delivered to Haiti, according to the UN's humanitarian aid tracking site Relief Web. Meanwhile the French secretary of state for overseas development traveled via private jet to a conference on aid for Haiti at a cost of $143,000.

We leave it to the court of world public opinion to judge: Who are the real criminals?

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God is moving Jamaica forward — Golding - Where is di Driva????

Pat Roxborough-Wright

In a five-minute address which which foreshadowed the message that was to follow from the Reverend Clement Clarke, Golding expressed confidence that all was going to be well, notwithstanding the public backlash that his administration has been taking over their handling of the US extradition request for Mr Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.

"There are many of us who have taken it upon ourselves to sit in judgment. Our God is an awesome God who moves in mysterious ways that none of us can understand. I believe that we are at a turning point and the direction in which God is turning this country is the right direction. It is he who leads and captains the ship, all of us are only sailors, no matter how the storm may rage and the winds buffet, I smile because I have a faith that all will be well," he said.

Coke is in US custody awaiting trial on drugs and gun-running charges, having waived his right to an extradition hearing here.

Noting that the Almighty could turn around the most dismal of situations, Reverend Clarke encouraged the congregation to shrug off the devil and take comfort in the fact that blessings were in store for everyone who stayed the course.

"I'm not talking politics. God is not finished with us yet. It is to that end that we continue to pray," he said directly to Golding.

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Is The PNP Ready???

We are selecting candidates and organising the party,” Pickersgill said. University lecturer and convener of Jamaicans for Sustainable Development, Dickie Crawford says that the current political, economic and social realities dictate that the people of Jamaica would be calling on the opposition People’s National Party to take back the reins of Government shortly.

Speaking in an interview with the Sunday Herald, Crawford said that the PNP must therefore prepare itself to rescue the country from the ruling Jamaica Labour Party, which is seen by growing numbers of Jamaicans as being more corrupt than the PNP, according to the latest Gleaner Bill Johnson polls.

He said the PNP was driven from office under a cloud of corruption but the ruling JLP has been dogged by scandal after scandal during its almost three years in office. The party has lost a lot of support from traditional Labourites and the wider population because of its corrupt handling of the Christopher Coke extradition issue, particularly the employment of lobby group Manatt, Phelps & Philips to prevent the extradition of Coke, Crawford argued.

But like many Jamaicans, Crawford said the PNP must convince supporters and non-supporters that it is a viable alternative to the current administration.

Crawford pointed out that convincing voters that it was a credible alternative was even more necessary because the majority of Jamaicans believe that the PNP and its finance minister Omar Davies handled the economy better than the JLP and its current finance minister, Audley Shaw.

Crawford’s observations come against the background of an economy, which is well on its way to its 13 consecutive quarter of decline, unemployment and poverty levels are increasing, government arrears are at record levels, exports are down and aggregate demand is weak, while the currency is appreciating. Crime has been brought temporarily under control following the extradition of alleged gangster Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke and the imposition of a state of emergency.

More experienced

Lambert Brown, president of the University and Allied Workers Union (UAWU) said the PNP is definitely ready for power because its current leader Portia Simpson Miller was prime minister before.

He said that she has more integrity and trustworthiness than the current prime minister Bruce Golding.

Brown also argued that the PNP team is more experienced than the current JLP team, after being in government for 18 years. He also pointed out that contrary to what the JLP and some of their apologists are saying, a lot was achieved during the PNP tenure to the point where the JLP has “stole some of those plans and projects and dubbed them a ‘New Beginning’.”

“Leadership is more than just pretty talk, it is about integrity, vision, honesty, credibility, transparency and trustworthiness. The current PNP leader Portia Simpson Miller has all these qualities and is ready to lead the country again,” Brown emphasized. Jennifer Edwards, head of the PNP Women’s Movement also concurs that the party is ready to take back the reins of government and in order to support this argument she said the party’s post International Monetary Fund (IMF) policy options have been discussed and agreed on by the various bodies within the party. Edwards also pointed out that most constituency caretakers are in place, and they included a blend of youth and experience.

Edwards also argued that the PNP is in sync with the urgent push by the Jamaican people for greater levels of transparency, integrity, honesty and trustworthiness to be brought to bear on governance and as a result, the party recently established an integrity commission to vet all its candidates. She also pointed out that the party’s current leader Portia Simpson Miller met all the conditions and is therefore ready to rescue the country again with her team of youth and experience.

Not ready

But several analysts don’t share Edwards’ position on the PNP’s readiness to take over government. The current slate of candidates they argued, were not the best and questioned why so many “tired men who are clearly not up the task” were lining up to face the electorate again.

Critics zeroed in on chairman Pickersgill who has been sitting in the chair for 20 years among those who should re-examine their positions. Over in St. James Derrick Kellier who was saved by the skin of his teeth last election, slipping from a majority of over 3,000 to under 300 in the 2007 General Election was identified as one of those who should hang up his political gloves.

Critics say the process used to select candidates was inefficient. Dr Donald Rhodd, the sitting Member of Parliament for east Portland has signaled his intention to step down, but the party has not selected a successor.

A power struggle is simmering in east rural St Andrew over who should be the candidate. A similar story is being played out in northeast St Elizabeth and the story goes on Responding to the question, Sunday Observer columnist Claude Robinson said it depends on when the elections are called. However Robinson pointed out that he has not seen any new policies from the party since it lost power in 2007.

“We were promised a progressive agenda, which is still to be fleshed out. The party opposed the new crime bills but we are yet to see what is the party’s strategy on crime,” Robinson noted.

On the economic front, Robinson noted that there is movement away from high interest rates to borrowing from the multilateral agencies. However, he was not aware of the PNP’s position on these issues.

Author and newspaper columnist Dennis Chung said he thought the party was in a good position. They have experience, Chung said, but the party needs to unveil what is inside its progressive agenda if they want to be credible.

Lord Help Jamaica!!!

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Sunday, 17th June 21010

The Great Protector/Pretender

The prime minister has skilfully (and so far, it appears, successfully) segued from being faithful protector of a don to becoming a passionate persecutor of dons. This would be laughable were the consequences of this flip not so tragic. Mr Golding has managed to convince much of the country that by unleashing a wave of violence on its citizens he is launching a sincere and meaningful effort to rid the country of dons and gangs. Never mind that we have been there and done that many times before under different administrations, albeit never with so much death and destruction, only to return to the same don-controlled environment fostered by government's failure to create and sustain an adequate social, economic and legal infrastructure. But the country is so desperate for peace and security that it keeps getting caught by the same old trick.

Having spent nine months making Christopher Coke the poster child of constitutional rights and the most protected man in the land, the prime minister within a matter of hours, motivated by his own political self-preservation, abruptly switched Coke's status from that of 'most protected citizen' to 'most wanted man': So wanted that it required a state of emergency in the Corporate Area to ensure his arrest. One month after its declaration, Coke is arrested; but outside the area affected by the state of emergency, before it was extended to St Catherine.

Clearly, there was nothing to prevent the Jamaican Government from assenting to the extradition request and apprehending Mr Coke during the nine long months following the extradition request. But for nine months Bruce Golding's Government dithered and dodged, engaging in an unseemly dance of deception, designed solely to protect the prime minister's political base, no matter the cost.

Fear of local authorities

Mr Coke had long made it known that while he did not want to be extradited, his greater fear was falling into the custody of the local authorities as part of that process. Had our government acted responsibly, intelligently and honourably it could have organised speedy passage of Mr Coke through our courts. He could have been in the United States for trial within days of the extradition request and we might have been spared the chaos and bloodletting we have endured since then.

The extradition of 'Dudus' Coke might have been a relatively simple and uneventful exercise. Instead, we saw the playing out of contorted political manoeuvres which, to borrow a word from our erstwhile, colourful senior superintendent of police, have cost our country "dyearly, dyearly".

When the extradition request was received in August last year it would have been politically unthinkable for the prime minister to give up his party's principal political street enforcer. It was far more important to the JLP's political success to leave Dudus 'large and in charge' of his inner-city enclave, than to have the party's street strength left in doubt. So the Government opted for a process of obfuscation and deception which not only corrupted the purpose of government, it dragged the country's international reputation through the mud, hobbled our domestic and international commerce and elevated the profile and status of the don and garrisons to levels never seen under any other government of either party in our country's history.

So vacuous and absurd were the prime minister's arguments about protecting Mr Coke's rights and the nation's sovereignty that the scam was easily exposed. The public overwhelmingly demanded the prime minister's resignation. He retreated to the bunker of his party's Central Executive which, through the charade of rejecting an offer to resign and accepting an apology, gave him a political lifeline. And how politically adroitly, if callously, he has used it!

Conditions which frightened the public into welcoming a state of emergency were created (we are not sure by whom; no one has yet been arrested). This most heavy-handed of all law-enforcement measures, a state of emergency, was imposed on the entire population of the Corporate Area; their human rights suspended and they became exposed to the full force of the military, to be abused as if they were hostile aliens.

The state of emergency of the 1970s, so heavily criticised by the party of the present government, used the detention of citizens as its principal tool. But today's state of emergency seems to have begun with the killing of citizens as its main feature. Within two days it left over 70 people dead in Tivoli Gardens and surrounding areas. It adopted a strategy of break-ins and slaughter.

As everyone now knows, my brother, Keith Clarke, became a victim of this wave of slaughter in the most bizarre of circumstances. In an event that could not be more symptomatic of life in a police state or of the absence of the rule of law, his home, in which he has lived for 32 years, was attacked and shot up by several platoons of the military and he was brutally shot from behind in the sanctuary of his bedroom by masked men in military dress, in front of his wife and teenage daughter.

No sensible explanation has yet been advanced for this manifestly unwarranted and tragic act. But caught in the midst of the law and order hysteria whipped up by the Government to divert attention from its disastrous mishandling of the Coke extradition/Manatt, Phelps matter, cover has been provided for official silence.

The Government has retreated behind the usual, well-rehearsed statements by the security forces: some so preposterous that they would have us believe that this 64-year-old senior citizen woke from his sleep at 2:30 in the morning and from his bedroom, using his simple licensed hand-gun, launched an attack on well over 50 heavily armed soldiers supported by helicopter, floodlight and flares.

The Opposition, too, has been silent: succumbing, I would imagine, to the political calculation that to express concern in the case of one 'uptown' killing, when they supported the actions of the security forces which led to the deaths of over 70 poor people from the ghetto, would be bad politics.

However, many politicians, on both sides of the political fence, have privately expressed sympathy and support to Keith's family; for which the family is grateful. But only one was prepared to break the apparent pact of public silence. Keith's Member of Parliament Andrew Gallimore, to his everlasting credit, seemed to have shunned political cravenness and publicly expressed his outrage at the vicious assault carried out by the State on one of his constituents; a constituent he knew did not support him or his party.

People in Jamaica will gladly accept the violence of the State if they can believe it will be directed at someone else. They believe that geographic or social remoteness will protect them. But they should quickly get a dose of reality. Keith Clarke, the managing partner of an audit firm, unconnected to Coke, had reason to believe that too; but social distance did not protect him, and it can protect none of us from a government that remains unaccountable to its citizens for its illegal actions.

The slaughter stopped

Yet, the shock and horror of the killing of Keith Clarke, this quiet, peaceful, law-abiding family man, may well have saved countless other lives. Remarkably, after the horror and injustice of his killing was exposed to the public, the slaughter stopped. Suddenly the security forces seemed to have been embarrassed into adopting a more civil and professional approach to their task. The use of irrational force was replaced by a greater use of intelligence: cordoning and searching instead of shooting up; apprehending and detaining rather than killing and maiming. There has been no similar brutal attack, uptown or downtown, since the savagery of Keith's slaughter was exposed.

And what has been the result of this new approach? No further extrajudicial killings: Dudus has been captured using intelligence, not killed.

The advocates of brutality and abuse will, of course, learn nothing from this and will continue to urge the escalation of violence and the continued descent of our country into a killing field. But no society can advance on a platform of internecine violence and conflict. Violence cannot eliminate violence. Justice should be our goal; respect for our citizen's rights our method. With this will come the peace and security we seek and the prosperity for which we yearn.

Continuing the approach of state-sponsored brutality and disregard for the rights of 'We the People', who appoint governments to protect those rights, will only worsen the mounting bloodshed in our country, which has seen murders increase from 200 when the state of emergency was called in the 1970s to 1,700 today.

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

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The Higher Monkey Climb.....

Every time Bruce Golding opens his mouth on the Christopher Coke/Manatt, Phelps & Phillips scandal, he pushes his foot in deeper - to his personal discomfort, we suspect, and the embarrassment of the country, we are certain.

So, it is hard to absorb the prime minister's painful disingenuity last week on the US$15,000 payment in mid-March by Harold Brady's law firm to Manatt, the American law firm whose engagement Mr Golding approved to lobby the Obama administration to go soft on the Coke extradition.

That contract, entered into last year by Mr Brady, was ended in February after person or persons in Jamaica had already paid Manatt nearly US$50,000 for their efforts. This latest payment, Mr Golding suggested to journalists, was the negotiated cost to pull out of the deal.

He said: "Our understanding is that a payment was made by Mr Harold Brady as part of the termination of the contract ... . Mr Brady made it. It had nothing to do with the party."

This, of course, rings hollow, especially, Mr Golding's suggestion of ignorance.

It is useful to recall that Coke was a reputed gun and drug smuggler and don of Tivoli Gardens in Mr Golding's west Kingston constituency. For nine months, the Jamaican Government resisted his extradition to the United States, until civil society organisations demanded the prime minister's resignation, having discovered that he had lied about the extent of his knowledge of, and involvement in, Manatt's lobbying.

Denied any involvement

Finally, Mr Golding admitted to having sanctioned the engagement of Manatt, but as leader of the JLP, not as prime minister.

In between, it was disclosed that the attorney general had exchanged emails with Manatt, which could have suggested the Government's imprimatur.

Not surprisingly, the Government has again distanced itself from this latest payment with claims that it was made by Harold Brady & Company — "as a final payment for the commercial obligations that existed as a result of the termination of the contract for services and which fell to the account of Harold Brady & Company".

This smacks of the same type of duplicity and semantics that have marked this scandal from the get-go. Where did the money to pay Manatt come from? On whose behalf was it paid?

Moreover, why is the nation still being invited to suppose that Mr Brady was acting on his own accord and in his personal interest in engaging and paying for these services?

We have asked repeatedly in this space — but in vain, so far — for our Prime Minister Mr Bruce Golding to come clean on this matter once and for all.

The Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) has been waiting — also seemingly in vain — on the prime minister to come clean so that it can resume the critical social transformation talks that it saw fit to suspend in light of the Manatt/extradition developments.

The public in general has been waiting — also in vain — for some sort of indication that it is safe to get back into the water as far as trusting the Government is concerned.

Yet, from what we have seen so far, no such sign is forthcoming. Instead, as we predicted a few months ago, the story is coming out bit by bit from all manner of sources, in a way that has left most of us wondering exactly what to believe.

For in spite of the current flurry of police activity, which has resulted in the incarceration of so many suspected criminals and the one-day treats for the inner-city victims who were traumatised when the Government was forced to stop defending Mr Coke and send the security forces after him, it is not clear whose side these leaders are on.

In the face of the failure of all of them — barring Mr Golding and, to a lesser extent, Mr Karl Samuda — to admit to any form of wrongdoing, is it realistic to believe that they are now champions in the fight against crime?

We would desperately like to believe that they are. But on the present score, to do that we would have to bury our collective head in the sand. It is clear — to us at least — that closure in the matter of 'Dudusgate' is not going to happen unless the Government comes clean.

Mr Golding must know that donning the armour of Patron Saint of Crime-fighting is not enough when you are the elected defender of good governance and the Constitution of a nation that prides itself on being a vibrant democracy.

Meanwhile, as Sparrow sang: "It's bad, and getting more bad..."

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Friday. 15th July 2010

15 July 2010
PRESS RELEASE

Samuda’s Joy Ride

The National Democratic Movement is concerned that once again a JLP government has embarked on another expensive \ ‘joy ride’ at the expense of the tax payers.
The recent announcement that Minister Karl Samuda has gone to China to promote investments would be laughable if it were not so serious. Everyone in Jamaica knows that “Jamaica is not a place favourable to investments, yet MINISTERS continue to waste taxpayers’ money on senseless trips to ask foreigners to invest in Jamaica when Jamaicans are not investing in Jamaica because of the unfavourable conditions that exist here.
As the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Investments, Minister Samuda and his government must create the favourable conditions in Jamaica and investments will rush into the country like ‘water running down hill’. No foreigner (unless there are deals to be ) will make any long term investments in Jamaica when Jamaicans themselves are having so much difficulty investing here....
Contact:
Lloyd Steward
Spokesman on the Economy
844 3308

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Thursday, 14th July 2010

Replacement for Kern????

Do they really exhibit the qualities that are required of parliamentarians that we are relying on to usher the country into a new age of prosperity and decency? Are they any more honest, efficient and competent than their fellow contenders? What about their connections, business and otherwise?

Can they stand scrutiny?

It is the answers to these questions that we hope would inform the delegates' choice come Sunday.

For we are living in rocky times where barefacedness threatens to make a mockery of all that is decent.

And the last thing we need is a parliament that has too many dubious characters who are not ashamed of appearing to be championing the cause of evil, another parliamentarian who cannot say and do the right things.

The last thing we need is another parliamentarian who thinks that it is okay to vascillate between private and public roles when it is politically expedient to do so.

The last thing we need is another parliamentarian who cannot or will not provide the answers to questions concerning issues which relate to the integrity of the democracy which our forefathers fought so hard for.

Whether we want to admit it or not, our democracy is in danger of being overrun in the name of technicalities and semantics by those who have no qualms about engaging the most inappropriate means available to further their own selfish ends.

Until and unless those with access to the certain types of information begin to act in the best interest of the country, our Parliament will never be able to acquit itself, or us. We hope the delegates are listening.

Of course, they can ask who are we to be advising them. But they must not forget that ultimately, they will be coming to the electorate to seek our support.

At that point, it is us who will be asking who are they to be seeking our votes.

 

The last thing we can afford is another set of reprobates!!!!

elmystic@hotmail.com

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Judge: "...Minister Nelson, may I remind you that the 'Dread' in my name does not bear any reference to hair. If you romp with this court we will remove you from the Senate, indefinitely suspend your ministerial privileges and consign you to a lowly position in the BITU parking lot. Are we fully agreed?"

Nelson: (sheepishly) "Well, I suppose so, your honour, but you have to understand that since September 2007 any pomposity on my part is natural. People call me 'Minister' and nuff security detail follow back a mi. It rough yuh know, your honour. I am not used to being spoken to this way..."

Judge: "Adm Lewin, please wipe that broad, mocking smile off your face.

Lewin: "Your honour, may I speak frankly and plainly? Dem Americans is no fools. Dem always talking one-away to local journalists and dem have dossiers on every person of importance in Jamaica. Dem know how the ting go. Di yankee dem did know seh Dudus and a whole heap a JLP bigwig is friend. To circumvent the possibility of one a dem forewarning Dudus and mek him go hide out a Blue Mountain dem check me because dem trust mi an I know seh Tivoli was the mother of all garrisons and Dudus was Tivoli Dads..

" As commissioner of police operating in a hostile environment it fell to me to surround myself with less than a handful of trusted officers who could be relied on in such matters. Yu don't tink seh mi have BlackBerry? I was contacted. That is all I am prepared to say, in addition to saying that I will not make my senior officers any 'Constable Red Herrings' suh dat man can lick off dem head.

Judge: "Mr. Nelson, a giving yuh one more chance to come good either way. Can you CATEGORICALLY state that you did NOT turn white?"

Nelson: "I can categorically state that I neva did turn white, your honour

Judge: (asking the question very slowly)"Minister Nelson, did you have a hand mirror with you that day?"

Minister Nelson drops his jaw, becomes speechless and turns white as the journalists rush out of the courtroom to email their stories. The members of the public storm out too as there is heated, animated talk among them. As Minister Nelson heads out of the courtroom sobbing, he is heard muttering to himself, "Cho, me know seh if mi did have Tom, dis would never happen. Tom a di bes'." The next day the Observer headlines scream, "Minister Nelson's doubtful story caught in a mirror".

As Admiral Lewin strolls out confidently he tells a journalist, "There is more to come. This is a serial. Line up, Hollywood. Pick a number."

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Entrenched Arrogance ...PNP/JLP..

On July 8 by Michael Burke. There are so many facts about our country which we don't know. The problem with this entrenchment of arrogance is that in order to preserve their status, the JLP has continuously undermined efforts to educate the masses, so I don't know how many of us will even be able to read and comprehend Burke's article. The last prime minister to care about education under the JLP was Mr Shearer. God rest his soul.

Around 1985 or thereabouts, I remember that the kids in my school received candy. We were told it was from Prime Minister Seaga. I was so outraged, I mean, candy? For what? I never understood the logic behind that reasoning except it was just another attempt at perpetuating the "saltfish government" reputation of the JLP. They were trying to nab us young.

I could never understand the reasoning behind some of the stuff done by that party. What was even more baffling was how gullible the supporters of that party were and continue to be. My father's uncle was a diehard Labourite, as they call themselves. For his eight ounces of saltfish, he would have died for the JLP. It didn't matter that he was diabetic and homeless, and lived in a home where supporters of the PNP with their socialist ideology, didn't throw him out. I agree the PNP has its share of arrogant members, and they made mistakes, but they had more heart for people. They didn't have such overwhelming megalomania as the Labourites did.

I suppose everyone has a right to choose what to believe, but when those beliefs become so dangerous and costly, are those individual freedoms worth maintaining? The JLP has and continues to favour a rulership dynamic which offers very little education, freedom or advancement to people of a certain socio-economic order. Take Tivoli: how many of the "gifts" offered in that community included a few scholarships to advance secondary and tertiary education? And this was not because area dons couldn't afford it. So why bless someone with flatscreen tvs and brand-name sneakers but not a quality education, if not to hyponotise the recipients? That's how many of us came to be slaves in the western world: we were either dazzled ourselves or sold by someone who was dazzled by the trinkets offered by European highwaymen. Dat sound like somebaddy who want you fi think fi yuhself?

The JLP couldn't maintain their arrogant stance if their supporters were educated. Period. Tyrants don't have friends, they have subjects. You either get to be a house negro or a field negro, depending on how much you please Ole Massa when you dance the "Stepnfetchit". Your value is contingent on how much you please the one whohas power over you. That, my friend, is the epitome of arrogance.

The entrance of your word gives light - Psalm 119:130.

Marie Grant

neeliewun@yahoo.com

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Wednesday, 14th July 2010

www.ndm4jamaica.org

PRESS RELEASE
13 July 2010

“Leave the Contractor General‏ to do his Work”

The National Democratic Movement fully supports the Contractor General and views him as a shining light in a near barren desert of crime, corruption and mismanagement that has plagued Jamaica for nearly all of the sixty six years of JLP and PNP management of Jamaica’s affairs.
The National Democratic Movement is not surprised that elements of the JLP and PNP are making unfavourable comments about the Contractor General.
It simple means he is doing a good job.
After the last general elections in 2007 the NDM maintained that the electorate were only swapping one set of ‘tribalists’ for another and that nothing much would change except the faces in the new JLP government. The recent actions of many civil servants seem to support the view that corruption would continue as many remained to show the ‘way things run’ to the new ministers.
The fact that some public officers seem to be the ones who are most culpable in ignoring proper procedures, guidelines and even the law suggests why the work of the Contractor General is so important and necessary, and should not be hindered by any politician or civil servant.
The NDM cries “Shame” on elements in the hostile tribes who want to see an end to the methods, practices and openness of the Contractor General. He is truly an oasis that must be preserved in the interest of a good Jamaica.

Contact:                                                                          

Michael Williams                                                                   

General Secretary  

 

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Mr Robert 'Sumfest' Russell is very out of order....

FOR all we know, Mr Adidja Palmer, better known to the world as deejay Vybz Kartel, may be an honourable man who is in no way linked to any form of criminality whatsoever.

Indeed, until the contrary is proved in a court of law, it is not our prerogative to speculate about his guilt or innocence.

Indeed, if the festival was a purely private venture, as opposed to one that is endorsed by the government-owned Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) and the Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo) -- which just happens to be chaired by one of Sumfest's directors, Mr Robert Russell -- we'd have very little to say about it.

Yes, we can understand where Mr Russell is coming from as a businessman who is anxious to have what he deems to be the hottest performances on his show. The out-of-orderness is inherent in Mr Russell's expressed expectation that Mr Palmer will be released in time to perform on the festival.

But he must not be allowed to forget that as a director of the TPDCo he is also representing a government which has yet to rinse itself of the stench from the mother of all scandals, 'Dudusgate'

Add to that his plans to honour Mr Rodney Price, aka Bounty Killer, a man before the court for illegal possession of a firearm, among other crimes, and the picture simply gets murkier.

It's not about who is or will be proven guilty of any crime when the time comes. It's about the messages that we send to the already misguided among us, by our endorsement of that which has the appearance of unseemlines

If it is really serious about leading this country, the Government must make all its representatives, from the Senate down, aware that whatever used to obtain in the past as far as cavorting with dubious characters was concerned, is over.

No matter how financially inconvenient it may turn out to be.

What is good for me must be good for TPDCo.

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Court Denies Buju Seperate Trial.... ...

Buju and his two co-accused were arrested late last year and charged with conspiracy with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime.

The three have been in custody since then awaiting trial.

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Simpson Miller's 'bhutto' behaviour

I must express my profound disappointment in Mrs Portia Simpson Miller's behaviour recently while watching the 7 o'clock television news on Monday, in response to Mr Golding's comment on the People's National Party's boycott of the CARICOM summit.

I used to look up to Mrs Simpson Miller as an intelligent, decent woman, who knew how to show respect; now I realise she is nothing but a brawling, disrespectful person, who does not know how to conduct herself.

Probably what the PM said upset her, but that gave her no reason to lash at him in that way.

Beyond words

This type of 'bhutto' behaviour, as we Jamaicans would call it, has been going on for a while and she needs to stop. It's sickening! She is a prominent lady in the country and must strive to set an example for young girls growing up.

I am a young girl and I dropped her as my role model a few years back when I saw her on a television ad, ranting, raving and reeling her head like someone of an insane nature. Her language is also distasteful.

I implore Mrs Simpson Miller to reassess herself and see where she is going wrong, so she can be emulated by the upcoming women of the society.

(Hope springs eternally).

I am etc.,

jonellewillis@yahoo.com

 

Tuesday, 13th July 2010

Mr. Horace Clarke

 

REGGAE icon, Mr Peter 'Tosh' McIntosh popularised the term "politricks" as a euphemism for Jamaican politics. In today's Jamaica and born of long disappointing experience, a politician is largely regarded as a "fallen" person.

Jamaican politicians are often seen as self-serving and dishonest, concerned about their own self-aggrandisement and in politics for what they can get out of it and not what they can contribute. It is widely believed that politics corrupts, and hence even an honest person will soon be compromised shortly after entry into politics.

This has not always been the case, as there was a time when the popular perception was that people entered electoral politics to give service to their community and country. The late Mr Horace Clarke was one such politician.

Mr Clarke was a decent man who loved his country and dedicated most of his life to serving Jamaica in the political arena. He was solid in stature and in confidence and approached life with a "can do" attitude, evident from his youth when he was a bustling football centre forward. He exuded a calm confidence spiced with a jovial ease that belied his intelligence and a capacity to rise to challenges.

A very affable man, Mr Clarke was liked by all, especially in his beloved St Mary where he never lost an election. He never let political partisanship become political animosity, dismissing political opponents with good humour and astute grass-root politics.

An accountant by profession, he was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1972 as part of one of the most popular People's National Party (PNP) administrations led by Mr Michael Manley, He was re-elected in constituencies of North St Mary, West Central St Mary and Central St Mary until his retirement from active electoral politics in 2002. He never lost an election on behalf of the PNP nor within the party serving as a vice-president. His competence and versatility were evident in his tenures as a minister in Public Utilities and Transport, Mining and Energy, and Agriculture.

Since retirement from electoral politics, he has devoted his energies to business and established the Mystic Mountain nature attraction next door to Dunn's River Falls.

Mr Horace Antonio Clarke was a man of the people and for the people. He was a decent and patriotic man who served his country well. He will be missed, but not forgotten, for his name will be called with respect and fondness.

We extend our heartfelt condolences to his widow, Norma, the rest of the Clarke family and his wider PNP family.

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Deepening poverty

HEART TO HEART

With Betty Ann Blaine

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

While poverty has more or less become an accepted feature of Jamaican life, I don't think that I have personally witnessed the kinds of hardships that I see people experiencing day by day - and it's all groupings and classes - the young, the old, the lower class and even the middle class: everybody is complaining about how hard life is in Jamaica.

Supermarket shopping has become my informal measuring stick and vox pop. Every week that I walk the supermarket aisles and talk and listen to people, I recognise that the country is at the point of serious social breakdown, and that people are becoming more and more destitute and hopeless.

Last week, a woman who described herself as an "employed professional" began conversing with me as we waited at the checkout counter. She had been talking to herself quite audibly. ."I was talking to myself about whether or not I have enough money in my purse to pay for the groceries I have in the cart," she explained, "and I am a working professional. Can you imagine how tough it is for people who earn much less than what I earn?"

Look what I buy," one lady pointed out, "I didn't even buy one piece of meat and my bill is over $4,000. How can I feed my children?" she asked. I felt an instant pang of sadness as I pictured the state of deprivation afflicting her children and the countless others in the same position.

The smallest whole chicken costs approximately $700, and the prices go as high as $900 for a larger chicken.

Some supermarkets have adjusted to the deepening impoverishment. I've been paying attention to the fast-moving items that supermarkets carry - more and more chicken foot, chicken back, chicken neck, fish head, and more and more pieces of the cheaper imported fish like snook and sea trout. I see more and more supermarkets offering items like imported smoked turkey neck and wings. Cut callaloo and the cheapest vegetables on the weekly market are among the fast-moving items as well.

My friend shared the most heart-rending experience while supermarket shopping. She related how an elderly woman stood in front of the canned meats section and kept picking up and putting back the cans as she checked the prices. After some time, my friend noticed that the old woman selected a small tin of corned beef and walked away. One could easily be left to deduce that the corned beef would serve for several people, to "stretch", as Jamaicans would say, with cabbage or something else. That's how poor people live and that's how they survive.

I'm heartbroken every time I see shoppers leaving back items, even staples like rice, flour and sugar, because the money is not enough to pay for the goods. I see it happen all the time with children, as I watch them counting the coins in their hands to pay for the small number of items they want. It is an ominous sign when children learn about disadvantage and differentiation at the youngest ages, and it is no wonder that as they get older young Jamaicans become more and more angry and aggressive.

International Monetary Fund

So the country has passed the IMF test, but the reality on the ground tells a different story. In fact, one is led to ask whether the increasing impoverishment is a direct result of us passing the IMF test. Like many others in the society, I am concerned that this is history repeating itself - another cycle of deepening poverty while the government pursues the policies and dictates of the IMF. (What's New?)

The question is, how long must the people of Jamaica suffer?

As long as political system keep the ignorant and uneducated.......

elmystic@hotmail.com

With love bab...

 

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Monday, 12th July 2010

The More Things Change ..Back to the Future....1976

Lawyers for several persons jailed under the state of emergency have charged that blank detention orders are being presented before the Emergency Powers Review Tribunal, a practice they claim prejudices their clients' cases.

"What is alarming is that detention orders are being issued without any particulars - whether factual or evidential - to justify detention," fumed one lawyer who has appeared before the tribunal.

Well-known criminal attorney Bert Samuels agreed, calling it a "totally unacceptable state of affairs for a citizen to be held without reason.

"Where no reason has been put forward, it means there is an absence of justification," Samuels said.

"It is most irregular and against the constitutional rights of the person, who should only be detained on reasonable suspicion of some offence being committed," he added.

National Security Minister Dwight Nelson offered a terse "no comment" when contacted by The Gleaner.

However, acting Deputy Commissioner of Police Glenmore Hinds pointed out that detainees are told why they are being held immediately as they are taken into custody.

Detainees' disadvantage

One lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity, conceded that the Emergency Powers Regulation allows the minister to present the case directly to the tribunal, but argued that this puts the detainees at a major disadvantage.

"This denies the detainee the opportunity to provide documentary evidence to disprove what the Government is saying," said the attorney.

Samuels agreed, pointing out that adequate time to prepare a defence was guaranteed in the Constitution.

"I would expect that the state of emergency should not waive our constitutional rights," Samuels contended.

The Emergency Powers Review Tribunal was established to give detainees a chance to challenge their detention.

In each case, the tribunal hears arguments from lawyers for the Government and the detainees before making its recommendation to the minister of national security.

The minister can then decide to accept or reject the recommendation.

Chairman of the tribunal, Pamela Benka-Coker, told The Gleaner recently that several recommendations have already been sent to Nelson.

The majority of the detainees have been in custody for up to six weeks, having turned themselves in to the police shortly after the military incursion into Tivoli Gardens on May 24.

Among the high-profile detainees are Sandy and Leighton Coke, siblings of extradited strongman Christopher Coke, and deejay Vybz Kartel.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com
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Sunday, 11th July 201

Hello ALL EXECUTIVE MEMBERS,

THIS is the first reminder for the Executive Meeting on THURSDAY 15 July 2010 at 7 PM Liguanea   Club...PLEASE MAKE EVERY EFFORT TO BE THERE.
Regards,
Michael

"JAMAICA'S ONLY HOPE for REAL CHANGE"

National Democratic Movement

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Spain are World Champions....

In boring warfare......(playing the man and not the ball)

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Andres Iniesta scored with four minutes of extra time remaining Sunday to give Spain a deserved 1-0 win over the Netherlands and a first World Cup title.

With the teams facing a penalty shootout in a game of few clear chances, Iniesta collected a sliding pass into the area from substitute Cesc Fabregas and smashed the ball across goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg and in at the far post.

The goal ended an often ill-tempered match and made Spain only the third team to be world and European champion at the same time.

The teams created few clear chances in normal time at Soccer City but the game opened up slightly after a cagey opening hour in which the Netherlands broke up Spain's attempts to get its famous passing game going with physical play that brought the Dutch eight yellow cards.

Defender John Heitinga got a red card in the 19th minute of extra time to become only the fifth man to be sent off in a World Cup final.

With Spain also collecting five yellow cards, the final yellow card count beat the previous record of six in the 1986 final between Argentina and West Germany and made the final the dirtiest of all time.

 

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100 Children Died while in State Care

Tyrone Reid, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

ALMOST 100 children died while in state care between 2005 and 2008 from varying causes including "pneumonia, drowning, head injuries, haemorrhage due to gunshot wounds, leptospirosis and stab wounds to the chest".

Dr Carolyn Gomes, a trained medical doctor and executive director of Jamaicans for Justice, was alarmed by many of the causes of death, which had a string of various strains of pneumonia figuring prominently on the list.

"In this day and age, children should not die of bronchopneumonia and dehydration. Those are treatable conditions.

To compound the problem, several post-mortem and coroner's reports on the deaths of the children between 2005 and 2008 are still pending, and it has not yet been determined if anyone was criminally liable for the loss of life.

Official documents have revealed that of the approximately 89 deaths during the four-year period, at least six post-mortems were listed as pending.

While Clarke said she would leave that determination to trained medical professionals, she appealed for an injection of more trained personnel to attend to the needs of children with multiple disabilities.

"What I'm saying that I know categorically is that you don't have enough specialist staff to take care of children with disabilities," Clarke said.

"During the period January 2006 to the end of December 2007, 51 children died in these facilities. The majority died from natural causes and the others in sudden and/or accidental circumstances. Post-mortem reports are still pending for some of these children," noted Clarke in her 2007-2008 annual report to Parliament.

In a letter to Senator Dorothy Lightbourne, minister of justice and attorney general, dated December 10, 2008, Clarke highlighted the snail's pace at which coroner's inquests into the deaths of children being cared for by the State was moving.

"We wish to point out that of the 50 children who died in the childcare institutions in the past two years, coroner's inquest has only been held for one child thus far," read a section of the letter that opened with praise for the amendment to the Coroner's Act to deal with the backlog of cases in the Coroner's Court.

In an April 2009 meeting with Minister of Health Rudyard Spencer, who has portfolio responsibility for issues affecting children, Clarke informed him of the letter she sent to Lightbourne.

She also told the minister that the OCA had an interest in some of the cases.

"The minister requested a list of all those children and indicated that he was interested in having this done, but also noted that there were not enough coroners in the island.

"He further stated that he will make contact with the CEO of the CDA (Child Development Agency) and the attorney general to have the matter expedited," read a section of the minutes of the meeting held between the health minister and the children's advocate.

More than a year and two months after that meeting, Clarke told The Sunday Gleaner that her office is yet to receive word on the status of the above-stated cases that date back to May 2006.

"Remember the children who died at Glenhope (and) at SOS Children's Village ... we don't hear a thing, not a thing," she lamented.

Betty Ann Blaine, convenor of Hear the Children's Cry, said the tardiness in determining cause of death and criminal liability tells a staggering story of neglect and abandonment on both the part of parents and the State.

She reasoned that in life and death, the children who have been institutionalised are starved of affection they deserve. "We don't care about our children. It must be obvious; not just the statistics on hand but when you put the whole picture together," Blaine said.

tyrone.reid@gleanerjm.com

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Farming = Marketing....Country Walk St. Thomas

According to Emmanuel, the grapes are very popular among private buyers from as far as Hanover.

"People come here from all over," he said as he gently pushed away the leafy vines, revealing the small, green and premature grapes.

"As you cut them back, they start to shoot back up and bear."

Situated on 50 acres of land, Country Walk is the site for numerous fruits and vegetables including but not limited to a variety of citrus crops, melons, legumes, breadfruit and lychee.

The crops, which are popular among Coronation Market vendors, are grown and reaped against a mountain backdrop, with Blue Mahoe Trees off in the distance.

The farm is seeing its third mango crop since the start of 2010. Emmanuel noted the fruit is popular among the exporters.

"They say English people crazy over Julie (mangoes)," he said with a chuckle.

Errol Brown, one of the farmers at Country Walk, purposefully walked through the maze of mango trees, a picking stick in hand and his cellphone, attached to a chain around his neck.

He once planted three acres of land in Albion, St Thomas, leased by the Ministry of Agriculture, where he grew plantain, bananas and sweet peppers, to name a few.

But then, he discovered that there was no market for his produce by the time he needed to reap, so they rotted.

"You just get frustrated and then you just forget about it," he said, one leg propped on a rickety wooden structure next to a fig tree.

Brown gave up on his farm and went to work at Country Walk where he is provided with living quarters, and can continue farming.

"Farming is number one but you have to the money to fund it," he said, offering guidance based on his experience of hiring labour, buying seeds and fertiliser.

"But farming is very interesting. It's a skill and if people can do well at it. It's very valuable" he said with a smile.

laura.redpath@gleanerjm.com

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Gays blocked from Hip Strip

On Friday, July 9, about 8:10 p.m. a group of men and women, some gay, some not, went for a stroll along the Hip Strip in Montego Bay. Their pleasant evening's outing was soon cut short when members of the Courtesy Corps contracted by Marksman to the Ministry of Tourism started hurling homo-phobic slurs at the group.

In the vicinity of Doctor's Cave Beach, corps members blocked the group's further passage, insisting they were gay and hence not allowed on the Hip Strip. This happened in full view of locals and tourists at that busy Friday-evening location populated with numerous eateries and outdoor entertainment. Yet, I understand these 'tourist police', as they are 'affectionately' called, have been sworn in as district constables, mandated to uphold the peace. And this is how they did it, by harassing and verbally abusing Jamaicans out for an evening stroll.

This incident is sadly reminiscent of the mob killing of Victor Jarrett on Dump-Up Beach in Montego Bay six years ago. At that time, the police hurled insults at Victor who was sitting on the beach, accusing him of being gay and watching men on the beach. A mob formed which chased Victor into Canterbury where his bludgeoned body was discovered the next day. Needless to say, no one was arrested for this act of treacherous villainy.

Double standard

Admittedly, such actions by regular members of the police force have declined sharply but clearly the tourist police did not get the memo - they are there to serve and protect all individuals on the Hip Strip.

I wonder if they would have been as quick to harass white effeminate or gay North Americans? The clear double standard must stop. All Jamaicans are entitled to basic human rights, including the right to freedom of movement! I know the matter has been reported to Marksman, the police and Tourism Product Development Company. I expect swift and decisive action to be taken against these perpetrators.

maurice_tomlinson@yahoo.com

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A vview from the Jackass' Mouth

PARLIAMENT BECOMING COUNTERPRODUCTIVE

 

The House of Representatives did not sit last week. The pretext is that the Government felt that the Caricom Heads of Government meeting right here in Montego Bay was so compelling, as to preoccupy the efforts of too many ministers to allow for the regular legislative business of the country to proceed.

The real reason, unspoken, is that the administration is so unsure of itself that if a few members are going to be absent, they feel it is better not to convene because their majority would have evaporated. So again, craven party considerations trumped the national interest. Is this an indication of the ‘gamechanging’ antics about which the Government and their satraps boast?

So the likelihood is that the House will reconvene in the middle of July, sit for a few weeks at most and then recess for the summer.

The Sectoral Debate has barely started. There are about 50 members left to speak if everyone uses the opportunity to strut in this parade.

Then there is the Charter of Rights, the Whistleblower Bill and a host of other Bills and committee reports not to mention more than 20 Private Members Motions, which at the start of this year, Andrew Holness promised to set aside time to debate. That won’t happen any time soon.

Falling short

Parliament is becoming counter- productive. As Douglas Orane and others have been pointing out, the legislature is falling far short of the expectations of the electorate. Sittings start late, despite the efforts of the Speaker, usually because there are insufficient Government members present.

Over a year, the average extent of sittings would not amount to more than four or five hours each week. There are no real sanctions for absence.

The feckless conduct of several shameless members has been well recorded in pictures and words.

This is a political strategy, so frequent, so pervasive and unrepented that it must be crafted, one has to assume, with the support of the leadership of the Government, as an effort to throw the Opposition off course.

The situation has got so bad that significant amounts of time are wasted in bar talk. The Speaker, who surely has the ability, has failed to place the stamp of his own personal dignity and discipline on the Chamber. Many schools, which used to send their students from near and far to observe proceedings in the House, no longer come.

Why come to hear leaders lie, contradict themselves, traduce others and yet call themselves transformational agents?

Why come to be exposed to uncouthness, vitriol and the arrogance of power? Parliamentary service will not be able to attract the brightest and best if it continues like this.

Achievements…?

So what is there to be proud of? Not much. The list of legislative achievements is slim; the record of long-postponed and pending matters is much longer. Recently, the tendency to treat the Constitution carelessly has been fed by the bloodlust of repression. It is commendable that all questions asked have been answered.

But there is no clear set of standards; no obvious positive direction in which the craft of governance is leading the Jamaican people, which has become apparent in parliamentary debate. Expediency has become an excuse for ideology.

This portrays the character of the present Government accurately: fixed in their own revanchism, skewered on their own broken commitments and now burdened by the crushing fact that when many of their leaders speak, a heavy shadow of disbelief covers them. After all, these are the men and women who supported the sequestering of Coke; adopted his ‘Showa” mantra as their own label and said they were defending a supreme legal principle with their political lives.

Then, without demurrer, these same MPs jettisoned whatever they said was principle on the altar of the very public sentiment, which they had scorned. After that and the treachery of forewarning a fugitive and the consequent massacre at Tivoli, they want to be taken seriously as apostles of crime fighting!

The Opposition

The Opposition has indulged itself the lazy luxury of going along with the Government’s scant regard for Parliament. Very often the PNP members allow themselves to be provoked and distracted by the taunts against them.

The weekly timetable is uniformly late preventing proper research and preparation. Stilted speeches are read with speakers becoming confused when they depart from their scripts.

Sometimes it seems that the Opposition is caught off guard and has done insufficient caucusing and choreography of their own alternative positions, which, in any event, are taking far too long to develop and refine.

Committees

There is some hope ahead in the work of the committees: particularly the principled Public Accounts Committee, now no longer used as a bully-pulpit against the Government but instead examining systemic reform and prudence. Then there is the newly empowered Public Administration and Appropriations Committee, still finding its feet, still full of potential as the real watchman for transparency and transformation, but as yet hobbled by inadequate administrative support and facilities.

It is at the committee level that a healthy degree of bi-partisanship is evident.

PAC this week

Members from both parties on the Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday last found common appall at the slackness of some Government departments. It is clear that many ministries find the intrusion of the Auditor General’s Department distressing and fail to respond in a timely fashion to audit queries. There is often little preparation of answers until the PAC meeting is imminent. This wastes the committee’s time, makes us into amateur detectives and must disgust the public who, in increasing numbers, watch on public television. Some civil servants obviously consider the Public Accounts Committee as a humbug.

How else can you explain why the failure to inventorise a few television sets at the Milk River Bath should have to detain a committee of Parliament? Or why the Ministry of Finance should have so embarrassed itself and disappointed us by the looseness of their internal controls.

Next week, I will be tabling a Motion calling for the repeal of the Official Secrets Act and if the Minister of Health delays any longer, I will advance a Bill to prevent tobacco smoking in public spaces. Any bets on when these matters might be debated? Ask yourself: Is Parliament being conducted in a productive or counterproductive manner?

Ronald Thwaites, attorney at law is Member of Parliament for Central King;;;;

And we still keep this corrupt system alive and running....and expect progress?????

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According to Lewin, "Mr Nelson turned white"........

indicating either shock, fear or both. As we all know Minister Nelson is dark-skinned, so for his face to turn white a lot of blood must have drained from it. Pity Mr Lewin didn't have a camera on hand. Clovis would have done wonders with such a picture.

The narrative, according to Mr Lewin, continued. The security minister called the prime minister and told him that an official extradition request would come the following day for a well-known member of his constituency. Minister Nelson suggested the PM have immediate consultation with the commissioner.

Mr Lewin was surprised that the security minister did not accompany him to see the PM. But then came the shocker. According to Mr Lewin, in the 15 minutes it took him to drive to where the prime minister was and brief him, Dudus was informed and immediately retreated to the 'safe' haven of Tivoli Gardens.

True to form, Minister Nelson came out firing and has heavily criticised the former commissioner. Additionally, as the member of the administration pushing Whistle-Blower legislation, the security minister suddenly wants to use the Official Secrets Act to get Lewin to keep his mouth closed. Who should we believe?

According to Hardley Lewin, he has lost respect for the prime minister because truth and honour do not reside where the prime minister lives.

In any war of words between Mr Lewin and Minister Nelson over the Dudus affair, it is easy to disbelieve anything the minister says. In a war of words between Mr Lewin and the prime minister, the latter could not win, because he has proven that he cannot be trusted with the truth in the Dudus affair.

The implications of Mr Lewin's accusations are stunning. According to Lewin, there was a serious breach in the procedures relating to the extradition request for Dudus. If he is to be believed -- we have not been presented with any reasons to disbelieve him -- who was it that tipped off Dudus?

It is highly unlikely that it was Lewin himself, who had in 2005 correctly dubbed Tivoli Gardens the 'mother of all garrisons'. From that time, there would have been no love lost between the no-nonsense Lewin and the JLP.

If it was not Lewin who tipped off Dudus, that leaves two players: Minister Nelson and the prime minister.

Certainly we have seen how the prime minister went out on a limb to bat for Dudus and to slow down his extradition. We saw the pressures put on the PM to act, and we also saw the spineless members of his Senate endorsing his refusal to resign at a time when, by the prime minister's own admission, he had been carrying the nation wide and playing dangerous games with the truth.

It is noteworthy that Minister Nelson is an important part of that spineless group of senators.

So, who should we believe? I am quite sure whose side I am on in this matter, which some of us just wish would disappear into thin air. Frankly, I have given up calling on the prime minister to resign because I know that at this time it is a requirement that he be made a fixture in Jamaica House... for now.

At the same time, I congratulate Rear Admiral Lewin for the simple reason that too many times our high officials resign in a rush, then go about their business and never tell the people of this country the real deal behind the 'resignations'. Lewin has done more than that, and I am certain that he can back up every word he has uttered.

The very fact that Tivoli began to erect barricades even before the prime minister addressed the nation, with a sham apology, tells us that at every stage, some high official in the JLP or the Government had been informing their 'president' of the details of the extradition process.

Who do we believe? We would like to believe that minister Nelson is telling the truth, but where is the hard evidence that truth and honour have not been the hallmark of this Government since the extradition request arrived in August 2009?

We have looked and searched, but Mr Lewin is more credible.

What if Dudus says nothing?

It is the hope of many in Jamaica that when Dudus begins to negotiate with US prosecutors he will cut a deal that will allow him a lesser sentence.

According to this view, the society needs to flush the criminal nexus between politics and donmanship from its system, and Dudus talking will be the start of that process. There is also a view which speaks to Dudus being the 'big fish' to the Americans, therefore they might not be interested in anything he has to say about what we believe was his close working relationship with those in high positions in politics and the police force.

One reader, a well-known, highly successful businessman and a friend of mine, said, "Let me suggest that our judgement in the matter/speculation of what Dudus may or may not say is clouded by our own perspective as to the relative importance to the USA of corrupt persons or crime bosses in Jamaica. To us Jamaicans, a cabinet minister or well-known high-profile businessman is a more important catch that an inner-city don. To the USA, on the other hand, it's not about cleaning up the politics in Jamaica (although that may occur as a consequence), it's about intercepting/eliminating drugs entering and being distributed in the USA.

"Their hierarchy therefore puts Dudus on top, and should a few ministers/businessmen be netted in the process, that's collateral, fodder for the press and excitement -- perhaps even good, for all of us Jamaicans. To the USA, however, they might prefer to use such information on our politicians, to guarantee the "right" votes in the UN and other such bodies, as IT'S THE USA'S INTEREST THAT THEY SEEK TO PROTECT (Bin Laden once fought on the side of the USA).

"In any event, with 40 charges lined up against Dudus, for which it will take an estimated two months to disclose the 'discovery' to the defence, I suspect that there is little Dudus can reveal about local co-conspirators that they don't already know. Plea bargaining has more to do with using a relatively smaller fish to get the big fish. To them Dudus IS the big fish here. He answers to no man, as far as we know. To my naive mind, therefore, his bargaining 'chip', if he has one, will have more to do with outside of Jamaica (Colombia, Haiti, the USA organisation) than within."

That is a line of reasoning that many of us have not yet reached. Let us 'satisfy' ourselves with the embarrassing knowledge that without the US input, the JLP would not have acted and it would have been business as usual. The JLP has claimed proactivity in many areas, where it was sheer pressure that got it to act. The administration has also been earning praises from many quarters where no such praise is merited.

From the Americans it is simple diplomacy. The Americans have got the man they want so their interests have been satisfied. To fully connect the dots, the Americans must also bring back Golding into their 'good books'

It is time for the PNP to agree that its decision not to attend the opening ceremony probably because 'Golding would a did di deh' is a schoolboy tactic. I am certain that many of the heads of government attending had private laughs among themselves with the PNP being the butt of the jokes.

observemark@gmail.com

 

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Saturday, 10th July 2010

The PNP's new morality

Dr Raulston Nembhard

Part of the modus operandi of a political party in Opposition is to win political power so it can one day form the government of the day. It does this by scrutinising and sometimes heavily criticising the party in power. It tends not to do anything that will give the governing party any possibility of continuing in power, even if this means subjecting the party to nightmares or doing anything that is expedient to ensure its return to power. The mistake that is often made by the Opposition is that it can become so concerned with its own return to power that it embarks on a self-indulgent obsession that is quite oblivious to the expectations of the electorate. Never mind that the interests of the people get lost in this obsessive drive to win the political prize. And do not mind if principles of truth-telling and integrity have to be sacrificed along the way, for the greater good is to wield power: all other concerns are peripheral to this larger goal.

The PNP today is a classic case of an Opposition party that has become obsessed with a return to power. There is no single agenda to which it is more committed than this. In its zest for power, it has begun to resemble in a sickening way the Republican Party in the United States. The only difference is that the Republican Party, in opposing everything that President Obama says and does, is obsessed with the desire to see that he does not succeed. They seem not to be able to digest any idea of a black president succeeding in the United States. So their opposition is against him personally, in my view, and winning power seems secondary. But the PNP is like them in its single-minded determination to oppose everything the government does in order to undermine it in the eyes of the electorate and so win state power.

Portia Simpson Miller is beginning to sound like the vacuous Sarah Palin.

Birds of a Feather??????

In doing so it has began to sound ludicrous. It is difficult to grasp what the PNP had to gain by boycotting the opening ceremonies of the 31st meeting of the Caricom Heads of Government meeting in Montego Bay. Their explanation that they were acting on moral principles since they believe that Prime Minister Golding is not a fit and proper person to lead the organisation is at best disingenuous and at worst a demonstration of the vacuity of thinking in that once august organisation. So obsessed were they in embarrassing Mr Golding that they could not see the larger picture of what such a meeting in Jamaica meant for the country. For the first time, despite Mr Golding's egregious actions as the PNP sees them, the UN Secretary General, the head of the OAS and the head of the IMF were in attendance, albeit briefly. We do not know what went on behind the scenes to get these men to attend, but it is clear that they were not going to be deterred by the local politics; that they put principles above any personal positions they may hold which is what the PNP failed to do - in the interest of Jamaica.

If the PNP is ever going to regain political power, it has to do better than what its new-found morality of late suggests. This new morality is devoid of substance because in just over two years it is asking the people to forget what transpired in their almost 19 years of power over the Jamaican people. When they accuse the government of a lack of integrity and transparency in the conduct of governance, they must preface their statements by an acknowledgment, indeed confession, that they had not been too transparent themselves in the ways they conducted the affairs of the country. I acknowledge that it would be political suicide to do this and so the people will have to be the final arbiter in these things. It is inconceivable that people could have forgotten so soon the reason they booted the former government out of office and what life was like for them over the past 20 years. They cannot forget too soon the egregious behaviour of Dr Davies in running fiscal deficits to guarantee the return of his party to power. The lack of transparency in the divestment of government assets is another case in point. Admittedly, the present government has continued this lack of transparency in doing the people's business and this indicates the persistence of a pernicious disease that needs to be excised from the Jamaican body politic.

In its scramble for relevance, it is sacrificing cherished principles that once made the party the envy of the Caribbean on the altar of expediency. When the party spokespersons speak, there is no deep philosophical construct that informs the party's raison d'être; no organising principle that speaks to the integrity of the positions it holds. In other words, there is still the urgent need for the kind of soul-searching that will demonstrate to the Jamaican people that the party is a credible force that can once again be entrusted with power. High shrieks from a political platform are hardly a demonstration of this credibility or of a new morality.

stead6655@aol.com

www.drraulston.com

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This Cowardly New World.

"World bullies, scam organisations and NGOs, ungodly governments, unscrupulous banks and other businesses can only oppress people who allow them to. The majority of mankind is good, but the demonic minority keeps them bamboozled and oppressed. Listen, Jamaica, Bob Marley fought on your behalf with every lyric that God gave him and it is time to practise his gospel, especially the words in Babylon System. The devaluation of the Jamaican dollar and other IMF atrocities in Jamaica will end only when Jamaicans get up and stand up for their rights. Marley, Martin, the Mahatma and Messiah himself taught Jamaicans how to fight oppression peacefully, while protecting and defending self. Jamaica, Jamaica, for too long you have allowed JLP and PNP politicians to scam you, hit you with burdensome GCT fees and make fools of you! Wake up now or forever face more Dudus sagas and Zimbabwe-style poverty. Only you, the masses, can deliver yourselves from mental slavery and from continually being victims of this Cowardly New World.

Shameful and pathetic is the submission by Jamaica and other nations to scams being run by certain developed nations which make up so-called principles of economics used to rob other nations blind. Some contract to mine bauxite, drill for oil, build highways and undertake other "investments", but pilfer the resources of weaker nations. Multinational corporations are like invading armies, dumping inferior items in poor nations and gobbling up those nations' wealth while paying poverty wages. Jamaica needs no multinational fast-food giants because its food is healthier. International trade is skewed toward making rich nations richer and the poor poorer. The United Nations, World Trade Organisation, IMF, and other international groups are often puppets of global bullies, used to optimise the oppression of poor nations. Jamaica is now locked into IMF austerity measures. PM Golding (????) must declare that it is not fair for Jamaica to spend nearly 60 per cent of its Gross National Product on repaying debts. Jamaica must rethink its memberships and agreements with international organisations and foreign countries".

INMerv@hotmail.com

Change the System!!!!!

Support the NDM......Singapore escaped ...why can't we????

elmystic@hotmail.com

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Living In A Dereamworld???

The reason there has been such little progress on the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), regional integration and the free movement of citizens is that none of our island neighbours wants to be in any kind of union with Jamaica! West Indians are no fools - they know very well what awaits them should Jamaicans be given free movement throughout the region.

Foot-dragging

It is merely out of respect for our former role within the British West Indies that our Caribbean neighbours have resorted to foot-dragging and stalling, instead of saying this to our face. So we can continue waiting and hoping for deeper CARICOM integration, but as long as Jamaica continue to be a part of the picture, this dream will never become reality.

Are you crazy???

Hepkat3@hotmail.com

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Friday, 9th July 2010

Are the Good Old Over??

SHANGHAI (AP) --Beijing's decision to stop tethering the Chinese currency to the U.S. dollar, allowing it to appreciate and thus boosting costs in yuan, has multiplied the uncertainty for companies already struggling with meager profit margins.

A series of strikes over the past two months have been a rude wakeup call for the many foreign companies that depend on China's low costs to compete overseas, from makers of Christmas trees to manufacturers of gadgets like the iPad.

Where once low-tech factories and scant wages were welcomed in a China eager to escape isolation and poverty, workers are now demanding a bigger share of the profits. The government, meanwhile, is pushing foreign companies to make investments in areas it believes will create greater wealth for China, like high technology.

Many companies are striving to stay profitable by shifting factories to cheaper areas farther inland or to other developing countries, and a few are even resuming production in the West.

"China is going to go through a very dramatic period. The big companies are starting to exit. We all see the writing on the wall," said Rick Goodwin, a China trade veteran of 22 years, whose company links foreign buyers with Chinese suppliers.

"I have 15 major clients. My job is to give the best advice I can give. I tell it like it is. I tell them, put your helmet on, it's going to get ugly," said Goodwin, who says dissatisfied workers and hard-to-predict exchange rates are his top worries

In an about-face mocked on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," Wham-O, the company that created the Hula-Hoop and Slip 'n Slide, decided to bring half of its Frisbee production and some production of its other products back to the U.S.

At the other end of the scale, some in research-intensive sectors such as pharmaceutical, biotech and other life sciences companies are also reconsidering China for a range of reasons, including costs and incentives being offered in other countries.

"If costs go up by half, it's about the same price as in the U.S. And you don't have 30 days on the water in shipping," he says.

Even with recent increases, wages for Chinese workers are still a fraction of those for Americans. But studies do show China's overall cost advantage is shrinking.

Labor costs have been climbing about 15 percent a year since a 2008 labor contract law that made workers more aware of their rights. Tax preferences for foreign companies ended in 2007. Land, water, energy and shipping costs are on the rise.

In its most recent survey, issued in February, restructuring firm Alix Partners found that overall China was more expensive than Mexico, India, Vietnam, Russia and Romania.

Mexico, in particular, has gained an edge thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement and fast, inexpensive trucking, says Mike Romeri, an executive with Emptoris, the consulting firm

So far, the biggest impact appears to be in and around Shenzhen, a former fishing village in Guangdong province, bordering Hong Kong, that is home to thousands of export manufacturers.

That includes Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology, a supplier of iPhones and iPads to Apple Inc. Foxconn responded to a spate of suicides at its 400,000-worker Shenzhen complex with pay hikes that more than doubled basic monthly worker salaries to $290. Strike-stricken suppliers to Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp., among many others, also have hiked wages.

Given the intricate supply chains and logistics systems that have helped make southern China an export manufacturing powerhouse, such changes won't be easy.

But for manufacturers looking to boost sales inside fast-growing China, shifting production to the inland areas where many migrant workers come from, and costs are lower, offers the most realistic alternative.

"The new game is to find a way to do the domestic market," says Goodwin.

Massive investments in roads, railways and other infrastructure are reducing the isolation of the inland cities, part of a decade-old "Develop the West" strategy aimed at shrinking the huge, politically volatile gap in wealth between city dwellers and the country's 600 million farmers.

Yu Hai, a sociology professor at Shanghai's Fudan University.

Education = Production = Opportunity = Lower Crime Rate = More Investment = Better Jamaica.......

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Oil Spill and Jamaica

Despite President Obama's declaration that life in the Gulf Coast  will return to normal, knowledgeable insiders and experts are saying it is possible that the Gulf oil disaster will create a dead zone. If that were to happen, it would cause the displacement and evacuation of several cities and towns within range of the disaster. The final cost for addressing the disaster could run into the trillions of dollars. See the following article from OilPrice.com for more on this.

Will the Gulf situation ultimately have an adverse impact on the Caribbean marine environment?

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In The Meantime ... Back in old JA.

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Caricom - and carry-go where?

The dean of Caribbean political analysis, Ricky Singh, in a column in the Observer on Wednesday, gave one of his usual astute overviews of the event which the editors headlined. "Caricom - decisions minus theatrics". It depends on how you define "theatrics", but from the distance of Kingston and relying instead on print reports and broadcasts which came out of Montego Bay, I gained the impression that at least some "theatrics" occurred.

Time and again you hear stories of how when we head into the Caribbean, we're met with suspicion at every port. From they see us getting off the plane, Immigration runs out to pull in the welcome mat. The only other members of the Caricom family who are dissed as much as JA people are the Guyanese, and even they diss us when they're ready. Our dancehall artistes are branded and stereotyped, treated like carriers of the plague, accused of contaminating peaceful island kingdoms with "dutty music", "bad wud" and the demon drugs, not unfamiliar to those passing judgement.

So was Caricom-31 a total waste of time and money? Word that the bill to be met by us as the hosts has made some persons decidedly antsy and has incited a reminder to the government about its obligation to nurses, teachers, police, correctional officers and the growing public sector unhappy about delayed settlement of overdue debts. In that scenario, some people say Caricom is the last thing on their minds.

gloudonb@yahoo.com

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Is CARICOM beneficial to us?

The Editor, Sir:

I never thought the day would come when I would say this, but I hink Jamaica should get get out of CARICOM as everyone seems to benefit from it except our country.

I'm afraid Bustamante was right, Jamaica needs to look inward. Call me a protectionist or whatever, but I really think we should get out of it and improve our market share in the European Union, United States and Canada, etc.

As a nation that is energy deficient we can never compete with Trinidad and Tobago, which will continue to subsidise its industries and agriculture. They will win this trade war heating up with Jamaica because they have the natural resources to fight with. The fact that Jamaica is running a US$1-billion trade deficit with CARICOM, a good chunk of which is with Trinidad, means that we need to do something about this.

Another area I'd like to touch on is energy, we need to start thinking outside the box. Fossil fuels are not the only source of fuels; we need to explore solar and wind technology - we have so much sunshine and wind in Jamaica going to waste.

High overheads

I see some small hotels in Jamaica paying $700,000 in light bills every month! How do they stay in business? These hotels could invest in a simple windmill generator that would solve the problem for them.

Our love affair with expensive imported oil must come to an end, there are a lot of other alternatives.

BONYEKA KINDUELE

pagee92@aol.com

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Thursday, 8th July 2010

Prove It Lewin

Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter

Prime Minister Bruce Golding has challenged Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin, the former police commissioner, to provide facts to back up his allegations that ousted west Kingston strongman Christopher 'Dudus' Coke was tipped off about the pending extradition request minutes after National Security Minister Dwight Nelson was briefed.

"All he has said is that in the 15 minutes he left Minister Nelson and came to me Coke was tipped off and bolted into Tivoli. Now, what I know of Tivoli is that Coke was there every day, so in a sense he bolts there every day," Golding told journalists in Montego Bay, St James, yesterday.

"But Mr Lewin cannot be allowed to stop there because even if each of us can make these unsubstantiated allegations and then people are demanding a commission of enquiry to determine the truth of those allegations, he must go further.

"He must say the basis on which I made that statement is as follows, so that we have something to respond to," added Golding.

"Golding is fully aware that Lewin cannot reveal his source ....The State Department had Dudus on line all the time...Lewin will not go there..".

"The Americans have a national rule of thumb that any criticism of the United States of America or participants in the local political process or policy making bodies should stop at "the water's edge". That is to say, any differences in opinion or criticisms of the internal American system or personnel should not be entertained at international forums. In spite of sharply divided and polarised politics in America today, this policy has by and large, served them very well."

And Lewin knows this...."

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Bolt may forgo sprinting after 2012 Olympics

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP): Jamaican sprint superstar Usain Bolt may switch to other disciplines such as the long jump after the 2012 London Olympics. Bolt said yesterday he fears his fans will get bored with him if he wins the 100 and 200 metres in 2012...

Spain outsmarts Germany as Puyol header launches Spain into first World Cup final

DURBAN, South Africa (AP): Carles Puyol soared high to head in the goal that sent Spain into the World Cup final for the first time with a 1-0 win over Germany yesterday....

The Better team Won... But Netherlands will win......

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Wednesday, 7th July 2010

• JLP associates buy Finsac properties....

At heavily discounted prices.......What happened to the Finsac Commission?

Senior Staff Reporter More evidence is coming to the fore about persons associated with the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) amassing Finsac properties at heavily discounted prices.

The latest case is that of JLP candidate for North West Manchester, Tim Scarlett, who bought a property in Manchester, which was valued at over $120 million for $68 million.

When the property was taken over by Finsac in 1997, it was reportedly valued at $210 million. Questions have been raised about the sale of the 68-72 Caledonia Road, Mandeville property to Scarlett, the sitting councilor for the Mile Gully Division in Manchester, given the heavy depreciated value.

In addition to buying the property, Scarlett paid a further $12 million to purchase the business, which the property houses, Jamaica Transformer Limited, which was used as security for a loan from Workers Bank.

The business and property was taken over by Finsac in 1997 when the bank was closed in the financial sector meltdown.

Scarlett told the Sunday Herald that in total he paid $80 million for the property, the business and the associated equipment. However, shortly before he died in April at the age of 88, Leslie Lewin, who previously owned the property and Jamaica Transformer Limited, reported that when Finsac closed the business, which was the only one in Jamaica manufacturing transformers, the building was valued at $210 million and the equipment $175 million.

Refusing comment

This latest revelation has strengthened calls for the Jamaica Redevelopment Foundation to cease selling all Finsac properties, particularly in light of the growing perception it is seeking to dispose of all properties before the Finsac Commission of Enquiry completes its work.

Jamaican Redevelopment Foundation, which bought the Finsac real estate portfolio from the Government has sold a number of prime real estate to persons connected to the governing party, most of whom the Janet Farrow led company has refused to comment on.

Anecdotal information indicates that at least seven persons directly connected to the governing party have bought Finsac properties in the past two years at heavily discounted prices, while a former Cabinet minister in the People’s National Party administration, who was intimately involved in the establishment of Finsac is a director in a company, which brought a prime real estate property in the Trafalgar Park area in upper St. Andrew.

Our sources point to case in which a JLP political representative actually bought two Finsac properties. However, the Sunday Herald is yet to get any official confirmation from Jamaica Redevelopment Company, which carried out the sale, but refuses to comment on any property sold, neither would Finsac give any information on this or any other sale made by Jamaica Redevelopment.

Above board

In the meantime, Scarlett is defending his purchase of the property saying that the deal was above board, explaining that the property was advertised and he and a business associate discussed purchasing the property but the individual withdrew at the last minute.

Not being daunted by the setback, Scarlett went ahead and sourced loans to purchase the property but have since run out of cash to restart operations. “I am looking for money to get the business up and running,” Councillor Scarlett quipped.

The JLP politician declared that he got no special favours in purchasing the property and that the transaction was above board. Scarlett has since renamed the company, Carib Transformers Limited and plans to start production in January 2011.

While the property and the business have been sold for $80 million on a loan of $24 million from Workers Bank in the 1990’s, Lewin was served with a notice from Jamaica Redevelopment shortly before he died that he still owes over $40 million on the loan.

Meanwhile, the Finsac enquiry, which has been on a long break owing to legal challenge to the suitability of its chairman, retired Appeal Court judge Boyd Carey, is to resume hearings on August 9 at which time, an appeal will be made by Finsac .. No Better Herring

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Shame on the PNP... or shame on the system?

Article Published: Sunday, July 4th, 2010

We are extremely disappointed that the People’s National Party (PNP) is prepared to succumb to pressure to water down party-funding proposals that were first mooted over 30 years ago by a former leader of the party, Michael Manley.

Rather than pushing for political parties to make public disclosure of their donors, the PNP it seems is going along with proposals being finalised by the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) that the parties would disclose their donors to a private committee and not the public at large.

This would be a shameful compromise because secrecy would only perpetuate wide-scale corruption where the award of government contracts is dictated by political contributions.

Jamaicans who are being confronted with increased frequency by reports from the Office of the Contractor General and elsewhere of malpractices in the award of contracts are incensed by the wanton waste of public funds coming from their hard-earned incomes.

They see, too, the neglect in vital but under-funded social services, while public funds go to waste. Nothing less than full disclosure of party and campaign contributions should be accepted, and no hiding behind a private committee, as proposed, should be tolerated.

It would be hard to miss, even from a cursory glance at major contracts being awarded, that the lion’s share is going to a select group, to whom the saying, ‘a fi wi time now’ would apply. This applies also to the handpicked Jamaican companies, which are being engaged as sub-contractors on major government projects, funded by overseas entities.

Shouldn’t the citizenry be entitled to know the extent of the campaign donations by these people? And why wouldn’t the PNP insist that such information be made public? Only through full disclosure and transparency would we gain access to such information. As the government’s procurement system now stands, sub-contractors escape scrutiny of their tax compliance or registration with the Contracts Commission, which is facilitating the flow of substantial government work to companies connected with criminal networks. Since records of sub-contractors are not being kept, anything goes.

Without full disclosure of political contributions, our political parties could run the risk of being dictated to by crime bosses. The Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke and Manatt affair is a harbinger of where this would lead — the slippery slope to a narco state. The call last week by Grace Kennedy chairman, Douglas Orane, for full transparency in party funding, has completely demolished the attempt by those in the private sector who had wanted to hijack campaign-financing reform.

The PNP should stop talking out of both sides of its mouth and boldly insist on full public disclosure of political party contributors. Along with this, it must also campaign for reform of our libel laws that would allow the press greater freedom to expose and track corruption, especially that involving kickbacks from campaign funding. (No Better Barrel)

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Ronnie Thwaites....He Should Know!

Animal Farm at it's Best

Last Tuesday the House was asked to guarantee a loan of over US$300 million to repair unspecified roads as well as the environmentally dubious Palisadoes Road expansion. Minister Shaw told us that the works programme is “now being designed.”

After what consultations and on what criteria is this programme being chosen? Why has there been no Environmental Impact Assessment of the Palisadoes works, as there would have to be if the funds were coming from say a multi-lateral source — perhaps at an even lower interest rate than three per cent?

Why charge out the debt to the public before we understand and have agreed on what the money is going to be used for? Who has agreed to the announced trade-off of $5 billion worth of houses this fiscal year to accommodate this road fund?

Does this assumption of debt which was not part of the current budget or the public sector bodies budget fall within the new Fiscal Responsibility legislation, which require consideration by the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee before coming to the House?

And is the single pretext at dismissal of these points to be that after all, the PNP did similar things and so should not be heard? If you say it was wrong to do things like deferred financing then, what makes similar things right now?

Stubbornness

None of these arguments would be heeded by a Government, which confuses stubbornness with strength. True, Andrew Holness did come over to better understand the point about the dissonance with the Financial Audit and Administration Act but that bore no fruit. Because none of the questions above were satisfactorily answered, I voted against the Bill in the face of silence from the Opposition benches and was roundly promised that, for my sins, Central Kingston “nah get one road.” I am sure that those Government members expressing such intent are very serious. It is their nature.( our Nature)

They do not recognize how terminally sick a Government is when even ministers harbour let alone express these sentiments.

Backbenchers

Apart from Mullings, the JLP backbenchers seldom speak other than their incessant eructations.(Cheering Section Stupid).Their role is that of a Shakespearean chorus. Where are their critical faculties if they end up agreeing with the Cabinet line every time? Is that a useful way to spend your time or to represent your constituents?

Small Business

The Government seldom fails to show its true character. Earlier in the session, Mr. Hibbert — yes, Mr. Hibbert — presented the report from the Ethics Committee and I received some ribbing for allowing the Question Paper to be commendably empty. Mr. Vaz told the totality of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition that “whole a yu fi go wheh…” Et tu Brute? And Mr. Warmington emitted his weekly flatulence directed this time at Dr. Duncan and for which he refused to relent — except you are deluded like Speaker Chuck to think that repeating the words of Chuck’s admonition constitutes a withdrawal.

Sharon Hay-Webster tabled an important motion calling for a full debate on the causes of crime, as a basis for formulating effective counter-measures rather than the present reflexive recourse to repression. Want to bet that this motion never sees the light of debate? But Mair’s effort to unseat Sharon probably will. What does all this say about the Government’s character and modus operandi?

The House had earlier approved a guarantee of an already used and paltry J$150 million to the Jamaica Business Development Corporation for small and micro business lending. While we were promised that there is more to come, the small sums indicate wrong priorities.

Setting up a small business if the only hope of honest earnings for most persons in Central Kingston and elsewhere and deserves much higher profile. My suggestion that domestic savings through the institutions holding local capital must be nudged towards the small and micro sector was conveniently ignored.

Dr.Tufton The Minister of Agriculture had brought a large covey of his supporters to hear him speak on Tuesday. They became restless, as did he, with all the preliminaries described above delayed his start until almost five o’clock when media interest wanes and many uptowners shun the nightshades of Duke St. Barely half the members of the House stayed to hear him. Does all this tell us anything about the way parliamentary business is arranged?

The NDM rests its Case.....

elmystic@hotmail.com

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Monday, 5th July 2010

 

Silence is Golding Unless You have something to Hide.....

MINISTER OF National Security Dwight Nelson should not have publicly criticised former Commis-sioner of Police Hardley Lewin, particularly in the way that he did. In verbally lashing Rear Admiral Lewin, the minister has streng-thened media and public interest in this story.

Minister Nelson should have simply responded to Admiral Lewin in this way: "I will not engage in a public battle with a former commissioner of police. Christopher Coke has been extradited and the Government is fully focused on and engaged in dealing with the monster of crime in a critical and meaningful way at this crucial time in our history. This is all I am prepared to say on the matter at this time."

It seems that 'foot-in-mouth disease' remains alive and well in the ruling party. They should perhaps take a page out of PJ Patterson's playbook on how to respond to harsh public criticisms and/or allegations against a member or members of the ruling party. 'Silence is golden' is the new mantra that the current Jamaica Labour Party administration should adopt when dealing with highly sensitive issues. Lest they forget, words often come back to haunt politicians, particularly at election time.

I am, etc.,

PATRICK GALLIMORE

 

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Whistle Blowing Smokescreen?

ONE WONDERS what the Cabinet of Jamaica was thinking when it suggested to the Parliament that whistle-blowing on matters that could affect national security should, at all times, go through the minister of national security or the prime minister.

It is a proposal we find most untenable, not only because persons making disclosures could find themselves revealing information to the colleagues or accomplices of those on whom they are reporting, but also because the structure of the proposed legislation affects the principle of separation of power.

Under the proposed law, the minister has the power to not only receive the reports, but also to cause the reports to be investigated. Sadly, too many of our politicians cannot be trusted. The link between politics and the underworld is the worst kept secret, and the provisions within the proposed Whistle-blower Act will not help the situation.

We believe that Parliament should structure the Whistle-blower Act in such a way that the disclosure on issues that would affect defence, national security and international relations would be made to either the office of the director of public prosecutions or the proposed special prosecutor. But one wonders why that appears not to have been a consideration of the Cabinet? Could it be that the Government is of the view that it should have an investigating role? Or is it that the Cabinet is merely a rubber stamp for draft legislation on its way to the Parliament?

We believe that the proposed bill, which is currently before Parliament, is not only faulty but incomplete. For example, the act proposes that an employer must set up a mechanism to receive complaints from staff about corrupt or illegal activities within the business. But, as Government committee member Clive Mullings rightly protested, gifting employers the power to decide whether a complaint is worth reporting to the authorities could go against the intention of whistle-blowing. The employer can kill the report and allow the now uncured mischief to fester into a sore.

There is also the matter of protection for media which has not been covered in the bill. On the surface, it may appear that the call, made by Opposition committee member K.D. Knight, to expressly grant qualified privilege to the media with this proposed legislation is unnecessary. They are some who would argue that if media are granted qualified privilege in this bill they would perhaps use it as a licence to be reckless, and in so doing sully the good name of citizens. Some have even gone as far as to say the media do not need unfettered powers. The Gavel agrees.

Extend whistle-blower act to students

But we don't believe that granting the media qualified privilege in the legislation would serve, or should be seen, as a licence to be irresponsible. In fact, we think it should be a backpocket legislation to help save the media from contrived lawsuits.

Beyond the issue of protection for the media, it is also our view that the Whistle-blower Act must be extended to students. The present proposal only allows employees making disclosures to employers or set bodies or agencies. But we feel that students, who spend countless hours in schools, should receive protection from the Act to sound the alert on scandal, danger, malpractice or corruption. They know, fior example, about a lot of sex crimes and there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that many could be punished for speaking out.

thegavel@gleanerjm.com

Help communities with money that would normally be for extortion

Monday, July 05, 2010

var addthis_pub="jamaicaobserver";

Dear Editor,

I am recommending that the companies and agencies which used to pay money to extortionists now contribute the same amount of funds or more on an ongoing basis towards a special community development fund which should be established and administered by a non-government committee drawn from civil society.

This fund should be used to assist the low-income communities to fund development plans which the communities themselves should draft with the assistance of competent facilitators. Procedures should be put in place to ensure complete transparency in the management of the funds. This should include some strategy for public accountability such as reports to town hall meetings and/or publication of reports in the press in language and formats that are easily understood.

My rationale for this recommendation is that these companies continued to be very profitable despite paying the extortionists, so continuing to make the sacrifice should not cause them pain. Based on the feedback from the communities, there is indication that some of the funds, if not all, which were collected by the extortionists, was used to fill various needs in the communities. The fact is that these communities are dreadfully poor and the drying up of this source of assistance will mean greater hardship and the level of desperation that may spawn more criminal activity.

I am appealing to the social conscience of these agencies and organisations.

J Wilson

wilsonjenny89@gmail.com

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Sunday, 4th July 2010

World Cup Final.... GermanyvsNetherlands

Germany wins 2-0

Truth Will Swim Like Oil.. no matter, gag or no gag!

The Government is combing through the Official Secrets Act to see if it can find provisions to silence Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin, whose devastating allegations have rocked the administration.

The former police commissioner broke a self-imposed six months' silence weeks ago and since then, has made several damning charges against the Bruce Golding administration.

Now, National Security Minister Dwight Nelson says the Government will be monitoring all further comments from the former army man and, if needs be, will seek to use the law to shut him up. (big deal, if the man is lying, sue him)

Lewin last week alleged that deposed Tivoli Gardens don Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, who the United States has charged for drug-smuggling and gunrunning, was "tipped off" about the extradition request within 15 minutes after he, in his capacity as police commissioner, had advised Nelson.

'Strange coincidence'

According to Lewin, he had hardly briefed Nelson and arrived at Vale Royal to inform Golding on the pending request from the United States when Coke beat a hasty retreat to his enclave of Tivoli Gardens.

"Strange coincidence," Lewin said.

Lewin has charged that the Government has not been serious about crime. He has also criticised the Golding administration for its handling of the extradition request for Coke, arguing that criminals were emboldened by the reluctance to extradite Coke.

Concerned about link

Long before Lewin's revelation on television last week, well-placed security personnel had been telling The Sunday Gleaner that they were concerned about the link between politicians and Coke.

Security personnel said they were able to track Coke's movements and were always in a position to intercept him but this changed once the political directorate was informed of the extradition request.

However, Nelson said he has never heard this. (deaf or stupid?)

Last week, Nelson described Lewin's statement as a "reckless outburst" and attributed it to "his abject failure as commissioner of police".

In the absence of evidence, the public is asked to decide whether Mr Lewin or Mr Nelson is telling the truth. It is not an easy choice, especially against a background of a litany of misleading statements and obfuscation by the administration throughout the saga.

Back in 2005 Mr Lewin, then army chief, described Tivoli Gardens as "the mother of all garrisons". The discoveries by the security forces since they took charge suggest that he has been largely vindicated.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com

Wrong Road Driva!!

"I said it then and I say it now, it was a bad law that should not have beenenacted," declared Rattray at the time that the Gun Court Act was being repealed.

On Friday, Samuels was just as forceful: "The anti-crime measures being pushed through Parliament could suffer the fate of the Gun Court Act and the Suppression of Crimes Act in that they failed to deter crime."

Mullings warned that the anti-crime bills could be railroaded by a lack of supporting measures.

"What you are seeing is a proliferation of gun crimes which legislation in and of itself cannot cure and will not cure," the former government minister asserted.

Goffe charged that the Bruce Golding administration was rushing blindly to pass the measures, unmindful of the obvious pitfalls.

"There have been no proper analyses of some of the problems this raft of bills says it is seeking to correct. So you are stacking the six bills against a situation which has not been assessed and analysed with empirical data to determine whether they can actually address the problems," she contended.

Water down effectiveness

Samuels predicted that despite some welcome amendments to the anti-crime bills, they were likely to water down the effectiveness of the judicial process.

According to Mullings, the legislation is trying to tackle the problem at the wrong end and it will not work.

"To do it at the end of the process - that is, when the person is arrested and tried - is to me, trying to heal a problem when the horse is through the gate rather than to take measures which are necessary," Samuels said.

Mullings was in full agreement with the arguments advanced by Samuels that the bills could be used as a tool to settle scores instead of crushing crime.

"So this is a serious pitfall," he cautioned.

"I believe that it is not just a situation of legislation. Our policing has not been as it ought to be in detecting crime. Our borders are open. I believe that contem-poraneously, as best as possible, we ought to deal with policing, deal with our borders, and deal with the legislation.

Goffe argued that the State went into a period of the Suppression of Crime Act with a different type of policing.

She charged that this precipitated far-reaching and unacceptable changes in the crime-fighting culture.

"We moved away from the focus of detective work - the careful collection of evidence - and more on a reliance on the break-down-the-door crime-fighting style that has coloured the way that our police operate.

"What we are doing is putting in a series of bills that are in our minds unconstitutional and are going to lead to violation of rights, and you have not even looked to see if they are in fact going to be effective," Goffe contended.

We agree.....band aid can't patch sore foot....

gary.spaulding@gleanerjm.com

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Editorial

Don't take this so personal, Minister Robertson

According to the Office of the Contractor General (OCG), its checks of the records of the Registrar of Companies of Jamaica show Mr Moore as a director of Caribbean LNG (Jamaica) which was incorporated in Jamaica on June 19, 2009, approximately seven months after he demitted office as chairman of the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ).

The OCG said its search also found that the listed majority shareholder of Caribbean LNG (Jamaica) is a corporate entity named Caribbean LNG (BVI) Limited, which is registered off-shore in the British Virgin Islands and holds 5.2 million shares, or approximately 80 per cent of the indicative issued share capital of Caribbean LNG (Jamaica) Limited.

Where the major problem arises is in the OCG's claim that the LNG procurement process was initiated in April 2007. At that time, Mr Moore was still chairman of the PCJ.

The contractor general and the Press cannot therefore be faulted for wanting to determine whether Mr Moore's firm benefited from any insider information he would have acquired while he chaired the PCJ board.

Mr Moore may very well have acted above board in this issue, and he has clearly stated that he has nothing to hide. In fact, he has instructed Caribbean LNG's corporate secretary, Coverdale Trust Services Limited — domiciled in the BVI — to furnish all relevant information pertaining to Caribbean LNG to the OCG to further assist it with its probe.

We submit though, that while the OCG's investigation may determine that there was no impropriety on Mr Moore's part, all this could have been avoided had there been regulation that delays, say for two years, holders of sensitive positions in public office from investing in projects in the sectors in which they served. Especially if the project was initiated during the life of their tenure.

That, we suspect, would protect people with a wish to invest their own money from the pain of unnecessary accusations and suspicion.

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IIn the Meantime... Back in the Ghettooo..................

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Saturday, 3 July 2010

Talk is cheap! Is LNG?

Marcia Forbes

Saturday, July 03, 2010

Following the most recent announcements and pronouncements about Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) has been an interesting experience for me. A "game changer" is how it is being positioned. Changing the game for whom and when? There is much talk about the significant savings to come from the LNG project. Some US$1.2 billion savings in energy costs is how the argument is being presented.

Question - over what period will these savings be realised and by whom? Government proposes to spend $1b of taxpayers' money in the project. In what ways and over what time will this investment be recouped? Where is JPSCo in all this cheap talk?

Environmental benefits

Soon after I had resigned as permanent secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Mining, I engaged in a conversation regarding LNG. Having expressed concern in the manner it was beginning to be positioned to Jamaicans, with focus entirely on pricing, I opined that a better strategy was to spell out its environmental advantages. I was concerned that based on everything I had learnt about LNG, by the time it became available to the householders of Jamaica, light bills would perhaps not actually be reduced to the extent they were led to believe would happen.

The person with whom I was talking declared that environmental matters were of little interest to most people and that anyone not in support of LNG was a traitor to Jamaica. Despite my clarification that I was not opposed to LNG per se, but rather to the tack being taken in selling it to Jamaicans she continued to "huff 'n puff". Her friends seemed to have fed her the "sweet drink". She seemed to have willingly drunk it and thereafter appointed herself "missionary spreading the gospel of LNG".

PAULWELL... questions the ability to deliver LNG to Jamaicans at the cost benefits being promoted

Paulwell is right!

Former Minister of Energy, Phillip Paulwell, has voiced some of the concerns I have regarding LNG. He questions the ability to deliver this product to Jamaicans at the cost benefits being promoted by the government. He highlights the significant infrastructural work required to deliver gas to households. Say what you may about Paulwell, the man has a brain which he uses and has been making some valid interventions.

The process and quite likely progress of delivering LNG to householders and the business community will in all probability cost much more than the U$600 million plus the price of gas that is being fed to Jamaicans. The timeline of 2012 for its implementation is likely to be a pipe dream. Wake up, we are already half-way though 2010! Skilfully, we are told that this deadline is contingent on the project remaining "on track". Yet we have no idea if the 2012 timeline was based on fast-track, that is, with most optimistic projections, which all of us who run businesses know is tantamount to the "road to hell paved with good intentions".

Paulwell questions the extent to which the bauxite sector, a key stakeholder in supporting the LNG initiative, is "on board", meaning not just word-of -mouth support but a signed commitment. He also knowledgably alludes to LNG prices within the context of global oil economics. The price of LNG, though cheaper than oil, does track that of oil. When oil prices climb, so does the price of LNG. Similar to discoveries of natural gas with new technologies able to explore and exploit it are discoveries of oil reserves with new technologies to go "where no one has gone before".

One does not get the impression that Paulwell is arguing against LNG but rather that the country be given further and better particulars regarding the project. That is also my position. Beyond party politics there must be deeper commitment to Jamaica. Some time ago a politician seemed aghast and mildly amused when I told him that my first and foremost duty was to my country, not to any minister or to any politician or party. He thought I was joking. Based on my subsequent action, he learnt that I was quite serious.

Sweet talk

Politicians need to know that service to country means more than "roundin' up dem mouth, believing dem talking nice and soundin' bright". Based on the numerous snickers and in some cases outright laughter I've heard from media as well as those who tweet, when these people begin to pontificate in what they may believe are sweet-sounding words, very few believe them. Many laugh loudly behind these politicians' backs, while others, especially those under 30, tweet away with expressions like LMAO (laughing my ... off) and ROL (roll over laughing) when commenting about them and their words.

Jamaicans are reading through the act and the staged performances. They are looking at the actions of politicians on all levels, including the company they keep, the assets and lifestyle they boast. Many are being found wanting, not just in sincerity but in their ability to deliver on promises and to take the country forward.

Jamaicans from all walks of life are moving beyond those who aim to sound "posh to impress white people", as one tweeter recently described the affected delivery of a politician, to just wanting to hear "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth". As it relates to LNG, give Jamaicans the unvarnished truth even if the savings on our light bills may not be the much-vaunted 30 per cent. There are other benefits to the country!

Anyway, with the intervention of the OCG to save Jamaica from any LNG mix-up, some truth will be revealed! Jamaica may be a long way off from the cheap gas being promised. In the meantime the sun shines bright and "breeze blow" sweet. Solar and wind energy anyone?

Marcia Forbes is a media specialist.

marciaforbes@hotmail.com

www.marciaforbes.com

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'Dutchstroyed' Brazil exit stings local fans

THE UNEXPECTED exit of the FIFA World Cup five-time world champions, Brazil, left many Jamaicans hurt yesterday.

Brazil went down 2-1 to an unhyped Netherlands.

For many, it was as if the wind had stopped blowing.

"Bwoy! The Brazil man them watch the game and bawl and left," said Jackie, the operator of a Caymanas Track Betting outlet on Duke Street in downtown Kingston.

The betting centre, which also operates a bar, has been accommodating World Cup matches since its June 11 start.

"We nuh sell nothing from morning. A only football, football! Nobody nuh care nothing about horse racing," she said as she lamented the economic costs of the World Cup to the business of the sport of kings.

Wayne was one of the few Brazilian fans who remained at the bar after Brazil's hopes and dreams were 'Dutchstroyed'.

His face was swollen from crying and he covered red eyes behind a blue rag, which he used intermittently to wipe the sweat of his former excitement.

"Bwoy! me nuh know wah fi seh. This was our year to win."

Pained, he could no longer withstand the jeers of fellow patrons and exited the betting centre, with his handy blue rag covering his face fully.

Another Brazil supporter was quick to put the blame squarely on Felipe Melo, who undid his early golden work as the game grew older.

"A number five mash up the game. The number five shouldn't have played. From the match start, him nuh good. A first him a come inna the game from the Cup start. Him just a start this match. I don't (know) where him come pon me side fah. Me not even know him name," the fan said.

Melo was a hero after his defence-splitting pass allowed Robinho to give Brazil an early lead.

But later, Melo scored an own goal and then slammed's Brazil wagon into the wall with his red card-earning 73rd-minute stamp on Arjen Robben's hamstring.

While some fans wanted Melo's head, some patrons criticised the 'folly' of what they deemed an overrated team.

Wayne Bachelor believes that it was overconfidence that led to Brazil's defeat and cautioned Jamaicans about not believing in the hype.

"Some supporters lose bets and money. But they should have noticed that their team is a lot of hype and dem lazy," Bachelor said.

"Jamaicans love the star ballers business too much. Most of we follow Brazil, but Brazil can't win everything, especially when the other side is hungry," he added.

patrina.pink@gleanerjm.com

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Friday, 2 July 2010

The Blind Leads...

We say if, because we don't believe -- even in the face of the Reverend's admission to his misdeed -- that a conviction is a foregone conclusion.

However, we do believe that Rev Miller should have stood aside the minute he became involved in a criminal investigation and not follow the disgraceful examples set by Messrs Kern Spencer and Joseph Hibbert who, with the blessings of their political parties, still sit in the Parliament representing North East St Elizabeth and East Rural St Andrew respectively.

It doesn't matter that the Reverend, or anyone else for that matter, feels that his actions were justified.

The implications of a potential conviction are clear. A criminal -- at least an outright one -- can't lead the national transformation process no matter how charismatic he/she is.

That it was necessary to point these things out to a man of the cloth whom we expect to know and do better than the secular leaders, is sad.

For we are badly in need of leadership that is informed by good morals.

Those who lead must be prepared to do the right thing, even if it costs them their position. They must be prepared, as a certain leader once said -- albeit under drastically different circumstances -- to pay the price (Golding ?).

We submit that those who are unable, for whatever reason, to see this are not fit to lead. (Golding?)

The true leader does not need an official title. The true leader can, by example, exert far more influence in the field of societal change than even the most bombastic headline grabber. (Golding?)

Because headlines can only go so far in effecting change. At the end of the day, it is the hard work of men and women who are willing to put their money where their mouths are that will effect real change. (NDM)

So although we welcome the headlines like the one in yesterday's edition of our sister title, the Observer West, urging the society on behalf of Mr Steve Warren, the deputy mayor of Falmouth, to change course by giving full support to the police in the fight against crime, we acknowledge that it is easier said than done.

The decision by Mr Karl Samuda, the commerce minister, to relieve the so-called area leaders in his North Central St Andrew constituency of their traditional intimidatory election campaign roles is illustrative.

On the face of it, this cannot have been an easy thing for Mr Samuda to do, but, according to him, he did it. (nice, if you plan to retire)

That is remarkable and worthy, not just of commendation, but of emulation. (Message to Golding?)

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Who Laugh Last.....

The REAL story of the week for me, though, is how Mr Golding and President Obama have kissed and made up (speaking metaphorically, of course. There could be no other interpretation, not in our PM's Cabinet!) The delivering of the Presi to the US justice system seems to have cleared the air for President Obama to express renewed faith in our country and feel comfortable enough to tell Mr Golding a joke while they were attending the G8 Summit in Toronto last week-end.

And so Mr G laughed in Toronto. There is no report of what kind of joke Mr O shared, but it must have had a good punchline to elicit the kind of response which the photo depicted. Reports have followed since then that Mr O and Mr G did get along well and all the mess of recent months appears to be forgiven and forgotten. It is said that the Pres (the real one this time), has pledged better times ahead for our two nations.

So here we are back into the cycle of challenge. Despite all the sweet talk and the papering over of the cracks, by those who rule the nation, today's youth are not finding it easier than those who went before. In some respects, it is even harder. They deserve better than that... and that should be the real agenda now.

gloudonb@yahoo.com

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Pay Al Miller the $5m reward for Dudus

Friday, July 02, 2010

Dear Editor,

This is an open letter to the commissioner of police.

 

 

. and wish him a safe passage on the highway to heaven..!!!!!

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threat on Lewin...

Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer

Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin, once the highest-ranking crime-fighter in the army and the police force, seems destined to engage in a fierce legal battle waged by a government minister.

National Security Minister Dwight Nelson yesterday launched a broadside at Lewin over damning statements he made on a CVM TV interview programme on Wednesday night.

Lewin alleged that Tivoli Gardens enforcer Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, who the United States indicted on drug-smuggling and gunrunning charges, got word of the extradition request for him within 15 minutes after Lewin, then the police commissioner, advised Nelson.

The security minister confirmed that the matter was headed for the court.

"I will be seeking legal recourse and as such will be discussing the matter with attorneys," Nelson told The Gleaner yesterday.

In a rebuttal of Wednesday night's interview, Nelson assailed the former police chief, describing his tenure as an abject failure.

He also claimed that Lewin's comments were politically coloured.

"His (Lewin's) strident call for the resignation of the prime minister must be seen as a rearguard action to achieve what the People's National Party's censure motion in Parliament failed to do," charged Nelson.

crime would "get worse before it got better".

gary.spaulding@gleanerjm.com

Question is ... Was Lewin right on "the Mother of all Garrisons"? Or is Nelson Blowing in the wind??

Elmystic@hotmail.com

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Thursday, 1July 2010

An inconvenient Truth

An important point not to be missed in our discourse on the post-Dudus Jamaica, is the fact that Mr Coke did not and could not have acted alone and in splendid isolation from other Jamaicans who assisted in building and maintaining his crime fiefdom. These persons must be identified and be brought to justice.

Thinking persons know that if the security forces stop at Mr Coke, then the cause is lost. The dark men who assign the contracts and sign the cheques will only wait out the security forces and resume their criminal ways, at the earliest opportunity. Our country needs iron resolve to go forward with this campaign. There must be no retreat, no surrender.

Of course, we are aware that political opponents of the governing party are concerned that the prime minister seems to be getting away with his misdeeds related to the Coke extradition — the Manatt Phelps and Phillips affair — and that the anti-crime thrust is his way back to redemption.

We suggest that those who hold this view are wrong. To believe that Jamaican voters lack electoral sophistication is a mistake of monumental proportions. The innate wisdom of our people can be relied on to pass correct judgement on all those who offer themselves for leadership.

Indeed, there are those who are worried about the continuation of the limited state of emergency and the possibilities of human rights abuses. To them we say, imagine what the over 1,500 Jamaicans who make up the annual death statistics would say if asked 'human rights or death'?

The current coalition of interests which support the security forces campaign know that it is a coalition of convenience to achieve something good and lasting for this country.

It may be an inconvenient truth. But let's face it.

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As fit as a Fiddle...

When Ruby Lawrence walks into the gym, she gets all the stares.

Of course, that's not uncommon for busty 20-somethings with butt-hugging tights. But for the bespectacled fitness buff, who is quite a looker in her own right, eyes turn for a completely different reason.

Lawrence is 92 years old, and while that's impressive enough, she's also an active member of the Gymkhana fitness centre in New Kingston.

"I work out twice every week, for an hour each time," she said.

"I don't eat junk food or drink sodas. I love fruits and drink five glasses of water each day," she said.

Clean bill of health

It might be a good example to follow, as Lawrence is healthier than many half her age. She is not diabetic, has a strong heart and, when asked if she suffers from arthritis, her quick response was: "Oh no! That's for the older people!"

She is, however, a proud survivor of colon cancer, which was discovered and treated by her doctor more than 20 years ago. There has been no trace of it since.

Lawrence thinks it's her eating and exercise regime that has kept her in such good health all these years. And she has no signs of quitting her workout routine, which her personal trainer Damian Christian describes as "impressive", anytime soon.

"Some 18-year-olds can't use the weights she does. It's largely because of her positive attitude," he said.

Lawrence said she has spent most of her life paying keen attention to her health.

"Working as a nurse, I came across persons with all kinds of illnesses. It was an eye-opener for me, making me realise that I had to take care of myself in order to avoid getting sick," she said.

 

 

Wednesday, 30 June 2010

Windies yield - Crash to Proteas on ill-tempered 4th day

Overpaid Ill Mannered Underperformers......

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) -- West Indies surrendered meekly to lose th,e third Test against South Africa before lunch on the fourth day but a verbal clash between fast bowler Kemar Roach and South Africa batsman Jacques Kallis threatened to overshadow the result yesterday.

Setting South Africa a paltry 47 for victory after being dismissed for 161 in their second innings, the visitors pulled off a seven-wicket win 25 minutes before lunch at Kensington Oval, to complete a 2-0 series victory.A fired up Roach greeted Kallis with three successive short balls, the last of which struck the veteran right-hander a fearsome blow.

The incident sparked a war of words between Kallis and Roach and forced Shivnarine Chanderpaul to intervene to defuse the heated exchange.

Predictably, Roach served up yet another bouncer next ball which again triggered a confrontation between the two players. This time, umpires Simon Taufel and Steve Davis became involved as Roach, clearly incensed by something Kallis said, lost his temper and had to be restrained by his teammates.

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Mr Samuda's confession good for the soul!!!!

This man not running again... any bets?????

Mr Karl Samuda's revelation in today's edition of the Observer that he is rejecting assistance from "area leaders" in his North Central St Andrew constituency at election time, is indeed encouraging news (for whom).

According to our report, Mr Samuda said he has told these so-called area leaders that he's prepared to lose his seat rather than benefit from their assistance. (This man not running again).

"I have advised everyone at the area leader level. Those elements exist and they have existed," Mr Samuda is reported as saying yesterday. "I have had discussions and I have indicated in the strongest way I can that any continuation of activity that results in breaking the law, intimidation, extortion, anything of that kind has no place." (All of a Sudden?).

What has made Mr Samuda's confession even more heartening is that he went further to declare that his party was also intent on giving the cold shoulder to gangsters who are associated with the organisation. (Ho Ho).

"Gone are the days when persons engaged in gangsterism and donmanship can seek to find political affiliation with the party we represent as the Government," Mr Samuda is quoted as saying. "There is no safe haven in the Jamaica Labour Party for persons engaged in crime and violence and who lead gangs. Those days are over, it is a redundant notion that through U.S.force you can influence people to vote one way or the other." (Thanks to the U.S. State Department).

It is, as we said, reassuring, for it is an open secret that politicians have been benefiting from support from unsavoury characters, especially in garrison constituencies where residents' votes are determined not by their conscience, but by thug rule and fear of being harmed, even if they are perceived to be supportive of the opposing party. (Tradition)

We have no reason to doubt Mr Samuda's conviction. However, we will be looking on to test his commitment, as his actions going forward will speak more loudly than his words yesterday. (We Shall See)

That commitment, we expect, will be subjected to even more challenge, given Mr Samuda's position as general secretary of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party -- a position that requires him to interact with the party's membership which he now has the task of convincing to shun those who would blemish the party's attempt to burnish its image. (Hercules cleaning the Agean Stables)

We support Mr Samuda's call for other parliamentarians to take a similar stand against these area leaders. But the MPs, we suggest, should go even further and report to the police any illegal activities in which they know these "area leaders" are engaged. For by doing so, the MPs would begin the process of giving credibility to their efforts at staring down gangsters. (Asking Them to Commit Political Suicide ? ).

At the same time, the parties should go about cleaning from their slate of candidates, people of questionable character and those who have shown nothing but contempt for the people of this country.(Start with the 60 In Parliament).

In that regard, we note the position adopted by the Opposition People's National Party, through its Integrity Commission, to ensure that that party's candidates going into the next elections are above board. (When you are in opposition you can say anything).

It is a commendable initiative that we expect will be respected by the party leadership, especially in cases where the commission has reason to probe the activities of a senior candidate and finds that candidate unsuitable.

It is past time that this country enjoys political representation that is not tainted by greed or corruption. (Is this man serious?)

Mr Samuda's confession is good for the soul . (If you have a soul?)

 

"Be careful what you wish for"

 

Young Fitz-Henley informed the spokesman from the UK diaspora group that the young aspirants to political leadership, by and large, are not yet ready to wear the mantle, nor do they have the moral capacity to lead.

In 1936 several Jamaicans in New York gathered to launch the Jamaica Progressive League, with the sole purpose of seeking self-government for Jamaica. It is important to note that that group established itself in New York as a powerful institution that was able to provide concrete support to the decolonisation of Jamaica. E Adolphe Roberts, one of its earliest presidents, and other leading members of the leadership published, for public education, new ideas for change. Mr Roberts and others would travel to Jamaica to spread the word for self-government. In general, many of the leaders of the trade union movements and related political groups were led by returned residents, many from New York. The lesson here touches on the importance of our diaspora community in the process of change; also that they issue no wish list - they should educate, organise and actively campaign for change.

It is important that we inform ourselves adequately as we make the calls for change. In a normal situation it would follow that the next generation should lead change. But the situation is not normal. Many of our young political leaders are suspended in clouds of their own making - corruption. We need the experience of the elders and the new capacity in creative and critical thinking of the youth to forge a new alliance for change. The student leaders of the tertiary institutions of this country have hardly come forward to express their concerns regarding the crises in their everyday experiences. Youth organisations in general, and those affiliated to political parties are in their worst state of development since the 1960s. So, Mr Sydial, be careful what you ask for. There is indeed a crisis in this country but we cannot continue with the wish-list approach and the waiting for Moses. He is not coming.

thearchives01@yahoo.com

In the meantime the NDM continues to Toil. There are none so blind than those who can see and refuse see.....

El Mystic@hotmail.com

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Remembedring J.P.S., Trafigura, AirJa London Terminals...?????.

A consortium led by the Belgian firm Exmar, which includes the Jamaican entity Caribbean LNG (CLNG), was selected as the preferred bidder by the Government.

The selection process is now the subject of a probe by the Office of the Contractor General (OCG).

But the US company, CH-IV, says everything was done above board.

"We would not have made the recommendation if we thought there was any irregularity," CH-IV executive Joe Fossella told The Gleaner yesterday.

According to Fossella, the bidders were not aware of the matrix that would have been used in making a selection, so it was difficult for any entity to have an unfair advantage.

Fossella was responding to questions related to the decision of the OCG to investigate the process and the possibility that the Exmar bid was influenced by insider information.

He was supported by Energy Minister James Robertson, who underscored that the Government would not be spending any money nor providing a guarantee for the project, which Gleaner sources say will cost some US$600 million (J$50 billion).

According to Robertson, the Government's total expenditure will be about J$1 billion, accounting for the preparation costs.

Robertson said negotiations would continue with Exmar even as the OCG probe continues.

Christie weighs in

Last week, Contractor General Greg Christie sent a special audit team to the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) to seize records related to the deal.

Christie raised concerns that a majority shareholder of CLNG was Ian Moore, who was fired as chairman of the PCJ seven months before he established the company.

Christie also questioned the ownership of CLNG, which has as its major shareholder a similar-named company registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

According to Christie, he is probing "the possibility of a potential conflict of interest, taking into consideration Mr Ian Moore's former position as board chairman of the PCJ and his now documented position as a director of the 'local' company, Caribbean LNG (Jamaica) Limited".

Christie added that his probe would look at the possibility that Moore's prior involvement in the PCJ gave him insider information and the possibility of bid-rigging.

But CH-IV yesterday argued that any information available to Exmar would have also been available to the other bidder when the project was first floated years ago.

That was at a time when the People's National Party administration first indicated that it was considering introducing LNG into Jamaica.

Yesterday, government officials argued that for the year Moore served as the chairman of the PCJ the focus was on coal, which was the alternative-energy choice of then Energy Minister Clive Mullings.

According to government officials, the decision to go in the direction of LNG was made after Moore left the PCJ.

arthur.hall@gleanerjm.com

All does not Smell Well in Denmark,,, Saltfish Maybe???? Time is a wonderful thing.

Elmystic@hotmail.com

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Tuesday, 29th June 2010

The real crime lords are the 'untouchables'

THROUGHOUT the world, there is a double standard on the punishment for 'white collar' crime which frequently runs across class lines. Jamaica is no exception.

Invariably, the poor get a prison term for stealing the proverbial 'mango, while the rich get a slap on the wrist after using part of their ill-gotten gains to pay criminal lawyers.

A large part of the problem is that our police can beat a confession out of even an innocent man, but are barely able to build a successful case through a forensic financial audit.

The prosecution services of the Government are overmatched in knowledge of the law and the cerebral and advocacy skills of the private "Bar". They lose even when they tilt the playing field by non-disclosures and having judges who were formerly their senior colleagues.

The judiciary, while not attracting the top of the legal profession, will punish a transgressor, only if judges have properly prepared evidence and arguments put before them.

More disturbing are the delays and the backlog of cases which often lead to the disappearance of evidence, witnesses, jurors and even the accused.

As the security forces continue their campaign to flush out the criminals among us, they must be prepared to look right across the spectrum. Jamaica won't rid itself of the scourge of crime if it only targets the working-class persons who, by ingenuity and brutality, become dons. This can only be accomplished if, in addition to the dons, we go after the lawyers, accountants, politicians and 'respectable' frontmen who are an indispensable part of organised crime.

These middle-class and upper-class criminals are a permanent set of untouchables, while working-class dons come and go.

We must watch out for lawyers who provide legal services to criminals under cover of the dictum of not refusing services to anyone who requests and can pay.

Naturally, criminals have the right of legal defence, since a man is presumed innocent until proven guilty. And so defending drug dons has become very lucrative. But the criminal lawyers need to be held to account.

High-class criminals move brazenly among honest people, posing as learned counsels and legitimate "businessmen", the profession stated by everyone arrested for a criminal offence. They live in the most salubrious neighbourhoods, drive expensive motor vehicles, relax at their vacation apartment/villa in Ocho Rios and pay their US$ credit cards from accounts in Miami.

They pose as bastions of the church, like Don Corleone, patrons of the arts, circulate among the "glitterati" and are prominent in diplomatic circles. Some are involved in political circles and there is nothing to prohibit them from sitting in either chamber of Parliament or holding any office in the country. There is no opprobrium in Jamaican society about how a man makes a living, whom he associates with or whether he aids and abets criminals.

To change all this, we must find the human and financial resources and the will to upgrade our crime-fighting machinery to deal effectively with white collar crime.

Secondly, we must press the US Government to help Jamaica to expose the white collar criminals of organised crime here by providing the information to the Government of Jamaica, cancelling their US visas, freezing their US accounts, assisting in their investigation and, if necessary, requesting their extradition.

Let's go after the real crime lords

And we continue to believe in Santa Claus......

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A New Day for Whom???

A new day in Jamaica's history... we have turned the corner.

I am not convinced that we have. Lest we forget, the self-styled chief servant remains the prime minister. I note also that not much has been said about seizing the assets of Mr Coke based on the fact that much of his wealth was gained from his alleged illegal activities. Additionally, much is being made of the Proceeds of Crime Act, which places the burden of proof of legitimate wealth above a person's visible means of income on that individual. Neither have I heard anything of investigations on politicians - both JLP and PNP - who it is said have enriched themselves from "kick-backs" in many ways.

If we are to turn the corner as a country, let's see some politicians, police and businessmen, who are corrupt, have their assets seized and sent to prison. Or is it that we will again wait for the USA to issue an extradition request?

M Williams

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Surrender!

The police

\

have released the names of six men who should turn themselves in for questioning.

Among them is Christopher Linton, better known as 'Dog Paw', the reputed head of a gang, which is based in Kintyre, St Andrew.

The others are Daniel Bartlett, o/c 'Dan Dan'; Shane Jackson, o/c 'Shane Taliban'; Lamar Dean Thompson, o/c 'Lamar'; Okido Roberts, o/c 'Ocki'; and Craig Dawson, o/c 'Shopkeeper.'

The police described the six as major persons of interest and asked them to surrender at any police station.

What Bout the Cherry Gardens/Jacks Hill Dons??? ?

Elmystic@hotmail.com

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Monday, 28th June 2010

The Truth, like Oil, Will Float.....

While Dudus was being extradited, Al Miller was being slapped with charges of perverting the course of justice and harbouring a fugitive. He gave a hilarious press interview when he emerged from the police station after being granted bail.

Meanwhile, the PNP was stepping on its own toes in North East St Elizabeth last Sunday, as supporters of hopefuls to replace Kern Spencer became aggressive. The footage captured by the CVM cameraman was not pretty.....

These events have left neither of our two major political parties smelling like a rose. The general secretary of the NDM, Michael Williams, was making increasingly more sense as I listened to him holding forth on several discussion programmes. I decided that it was time to give him a hearing.

Mike Williams believes that the people of Jamaica have now felt the heavy hand of garrison politics and may want to support his party, to become their "conscience" in the House of Parliament. "Our objective is not to topple either the JLP or PNP," said Williams. "We want to have a voice in Parliament and to promote openness and accountability."

Williams claims that there are four JLP and 12 PNP garrisons in Jamaica, breeding grounds for criminals led by dons who are allowed to do as they please in the years between elections just as long as they deliver the victory to the party defended by the garrison. "Just look at which parties the lawyers come from who defend these dons, and you will know the party they are supporting," says Williams.

He believes that the Tivoli operation could have been peaceful if Bruce Golding had asked Edward Seaga to accompany him to the community, and they had made a joint appeal in person to dismantle the barricades. He opines that the people would have cooperated. "Why did they have to go in the night?" he asked. "It would have been quite different, if they had gone in the day with the cameras behind them."

"Tivoli is not such a big place," says Williams. "They could have easily surrounded it and posted forces at all of those tunnels. It should have been done in daylight. So many people did not have to die. Mr Clarke did not have to die. This is why the NDM is calling for an inquiry."

Asked how the NDM would have handled the extradition order, Williams said, "If we were the government, we would have implemented the order as soon as it came down. We got a copy and there was enough evidence for the action. It was full of detailed statements."

Recounting the NDM's history, Williams said it was ex-JLP member Brascoe Lee and others who formed the NDM in 1995 with Bruce Golding as its president. Golding's defeat on the NDM ticket in the 1997 elections was a huge blow to the aspirations of the party which had attracted such stars as Wayne Chen, Hyacinth Bennett, Chris Tufton and Gregory Mair. When Bruce Golding returned to the JLP in 2002, he started an exodus that left the NDM a shadow of its former self.

Mike Williams was an active member of the JLP for 27 years before, he says, "I got kicked out", for trying to interest the JLP leadership in adopting some of the NDM's policies. "I was always a supporter of the NDM," he says. "But in 2002, I became a member."

He says he is working hard to bring the NDM back to life so they can work on some serious national priorities. "Crime and justice are our biggest problems," he says. "We have a backlog of nearly 500,000 cases in the RM Court. Government has to invest more in the justice system. This draconian crime bill will not solve anything. They are already detaining people without charge for two months, so when they are allowed 60 days, where are we going to put all these people? What will