http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20060716/focus/focus2.html
Published: Sunday | July 16, 2006

IT'S HARD not to admire those who spend a lot of time and energy for little pay defending the rights of the less fortunate.

So, I greatly respect bodies like Amnesty International and Jamaicans for Justice. But, rubbish is rubbish even when it emanates from organisations founded on noble ideals. And ­ of late ­ human rights groups have been making some rather dubious comments about the Jamaican situation.

PATENT NONSENSE

Take Amnesty International's recent claim that discrimination against women is institutionalised in Jamaica.

To quote the Jamaica Observer, June 23,: "Discrimination is entrenched and often exacerbated in the police and criminal justice system. Women and adolescent girls are rarely believed by the police, so have little confidence in reporting crimes against them ... In court, women's testimony is explicitly given less weight than men's, thereby depriving women of the right to equality before the law," Amnesty said.

Now, to anyone who lives here this is patent nonsense. If anything, the law in Jamaica is perceived by both sexes as being biased in favour of women.

It's a reality expressed in Professor Nuts' 1990s hit Tanso Back where a female boldly threatens her cowardly mate "Me no 'fraid fe kill you cause woman no heng."

Strangers to this country reading that Amnesty report would think Jamaica some kind of medieval, female oppressing, fundamentalist country.

The truth is our women are as liberated as any on earth. Nowhere else are females so much more educated than males.

And no Jamaican girl grows up thinking any position might be denied to her because of her sex. In fact, it is the boys most educators worry about.

No wonder Faith Webster, head of the Bureau of Women's Affairs, described the report as 'one-sided' and 'somewhat sensational.'

As she put it "I just don't know where Amnesty gets their information from."

And it makes you wonder how accurate their reports on other countries are.

Like many other places, Jamaica suffers from state abuses that need to be exposed if they are to be remedied, and independent human rights groups are vital to this end. But how does Amnesty expect to be taken seriously here when it spews such drivel?

HOMOPHOBIC CLAIMS

Nor is Amnesty the only culprit in making wildly inaccurate claims about this island.

Take the April 12 Time magazine piece 'The Most Homophobic Place on Earth' where Rebecca Schleifer of the United States-based Human Rights Watch says "Jamaica is the worst any of us has ever seen." Well, obviously, she hasn't seen very much.

Now, some dancehall deajays do bang on tediously about Boom Bye Bye, and I am not for one minute defending them. There's no justification for preaching hate against any person or group. I have no sympathy for artistes banned from performing in certain places because of their gay bashing. Live and let live is my philosophy. If homosexuals don't bother you, why bother them? Anyway, the more men who like men, the more available females for those of us who consider women God's finest creation.

But, only the naïve could equate the rather cartoonish dancehall deejay view of the world with the reality on the ground. Jamaicans on the whole do dislike the concept of homosexuality and often express anger at open displays of it.

But rarely, if ever, is anyone here killed solely because they are gay. Lovers' spats are by far the leading cause of homosexual murder in Jamaica.

There is no comparison between our situation and that in places like Iraq and Iran where suspected homosexuals are often summarily executed by state militias.

In April, Iraq's senior spiritual leader, the Grand Ayatollah Sistani, issued a fatwa calling for the execution of gays in the "worst, most severe way."

Yet, foreign human rights activists cite P. J. Patterson being taunted at opposition rallies with 'Chi Chi Man' songs as a sign of Jamaica's 'extreme' homophobia - and Patterson never lost a general election!

IRRESPONSIBLE STATEMENTS

Sad to say, our local human rights groups are often just as irresponsible in their public statements. Take the response to Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas' call for better guns because 'We should not be lagging behind criminal sophistication and fire power'.

According to a June 7 Jamaica Observer report: 'Two of Jamaica's leading human rights groups, the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights (IJCHR) and Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ), are against a request by the police chief for better guns to help cops in the fight against crime ... Nancy Anderson, legal officer at the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights, said members of the constabulary do not need better guns as this would only promote more violence ... Meanwhile, Dr Carolyn Gomes, executive director of JFJ, said she understood why Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas wanted better guns for his men and women, but said the approach was misguided. "We [at Jamaicans for Justice] prefer to concentrate on other things they need."

Now, how on earth can Ms. Anderson or Dr. Gomes consider themselves greater experts on what the police need than the head of the force who is in constant contact with his men in the field? Do they know that police have seized guns from criminals capable of taking out targets a mile and a half away?

Maybe it means nothing to these ladies that the Jamaican Constabulary Force has one of the highest on the job death rates of any profession in the world. But, do they really expect our police to effectively confront criminals who have more accurate and powerful weapons than they do?

Now, Jamaicans For Justice has done excellent work in seeking justice for the families of persons, like Agana Barrett and Janice Allen. Nor can it be doubted that many police misuse the power granted to them by the state and that it's vital for these abuses to be properly publicised and investigated.

But, to do any good, criticism has to be fair. And it's my distinct impression - and that of most people I talk to - that human rights groups in this country never have anything good to say about the police force.

MORE BALANCE NEEDED

They are quick to accuse the police of murder after fatal shoot-outs, but rarely express sympathy for lawmen killed in action. And almost every crime-fighting initiative proposed by the JCF is met with knee-jerk opposition.

For instance, when Assistant Commissioner Mark Shields proposed a DNA and fingerprint database for criminals in Jamaica, as is done in the United Kingdom, some human rights activists immediately started bleating about 'invasion of privacy.'

As if what's good enough for Britain isn't good enough for Jamaica, and our policemen must be content to fight crime with technology from the dark ages.

The 20 per cent drop in the homicide count so far this year has been very heartening. But even if it continues throughout 2006, Jamaica will still have one of the world's highest murder rates.

We can only become a relatively peaceful island if all sectors of society work towards that common goal. Most critically, police and citizens need to learn to cooperate more effectively. And our human rights groups could considerably further the process if they expressed a more balanced attitude towards our thin red stripe.