http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20071014/focus/focus1.html
Published: Sunday | October 14, 2007

Over 10,000 radio and television ads were run in the recent election campaign. Not a single one focused on crime, even though Jamaica has one of the world's highest murder rates.

It's easy to understand why the then People's National Party (PNP) government ignored the darkest stain on its record. There were 429 murders in 1989. In 2006 there were 1,340. No government can defend a 300 per cent increase in homicide levels during its tenure. So who can blame the Comrades for pretending crime wasn't an issue?

But, incredibly, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) didn't even mention these damning statistics. It's beyond belief really, that a party seeking power could say almost nothing about the country's biggest problem and its opponent's major Achilles heel.

Why did the JLP triumph by only 3,000 votes despite out-advertising and out-debating the PNP? Well, a win is a win, and a short head is as good as 10 lengths at the payout window. But in my view, Labour would have won decisively instead of just scraping home had it not wilfully ignored the electorate's major concern.

Just as strange as the JLP's 'Crime? What crime?' attitude was the media's reluctance to raise the issue. I remember being on a television programme where the host and the other three guests all nodded in unison that yes, there was really nothing the Government could do to control crime. I pointed out that places like Colombia and South Africa, which used to have higher murder rates than ours, have drastically reduced their homicide levels. But no one seemed interested.

Big issue

It was weird. Almost daily newspapers headlined bloody murders, and grieving relatives wept nightly on television. On the streets you kept hearing "Crime is the big issue man. Fix crime and you fix Jamaica. If the JLP can just show me a crime plan they have my vote." But all election talk show buzz was about free education and free health and 'don't draw my tongue'. As Vernon Daley wrote recently "It's as though the political leaders sat down and hammered out a pact to downplay the issue [of crime] during their campaigns. It's as though the media were enticed to go along with it."

Discussing crime in Jamaica is like entering the twilight zone. Strange incidents happen, even stranger explanations are given, and you walk away rubbing eyes wondering if you are imagining things. Take the Brandon Hill campaign incident. Labour leader Bruce Golding, and initial police reports, said that someone shot at the JLP motorcade, and TV cameras showed bullets being fired. But then PNP general secretary Danny Buchanan claimed the shots came from the JLP. The police command then announced a high level investigation. We have heard nothing since, and probably will never hear anything again about this matter.

Which brings to mind the 2001 Tivoli incident that left 27 Jamaicans dead. Who were the security forces firing at? Who was firing back at them? What had caused the confrontation in the first place? To this day we, the general public, have no idea why these people were killed. All we learnt from the commission of enquiry was that 'no one was criminally responsible'. Now Passa Passa parties take place every Wednesday 100 yards from where 27 bodies laid for days in the sun for no apparent reason, and life goes on.

I assume that somewhere there are logical explanations for all the above, but that it's not in the interests of any powers that be to tell the public exactly what happened. Either that or Jamaica exists in some sort of parallel universe where normal human reason does not apply.

For even non-Jamaicans start behaving bizarrely when they come here. Look at the Bob Woolmer case. A respected Scotland Yard detective and Indian pathologist together manage to produce a world-class 'Yes, it's murder! No, it's not!' cock up that makes Jamaica a global laughing stock. Neither is fired or even reprimanded. The requisite inquest has been ordered. But few, if any, expect a different outcome from the Tivoli enquiry.

Peter King tapes

Nor does anyone really believe the Peter King tapes will ever be allowed as public evidence in his murder trial. As the song says 'Defend yours, we will defend our own'.

Not that the Jamaican public acts any more sanely as a body. In 2005, after a prominent businessman was shot, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica led a crime protest march which drew less than 1,000 people. Some commentators sneeringly remarked that the turnout was poor because the masses felt no common cause with the elite uptown 'tappa narris' organisers.

A few months later the grass-roots movement 'Mothers in Crisis' held a 'Million Woman March Against Crime' on Emancipation Day. This time not even 500 persons showed up. Media pundits duly pointed out that nobody in Jamaica supports 'small people something' and only 'big man affairs' draw crowds.

Or maybe, as a friend explained, it had been a mistake to hold a crime rally on a holiday when 'everybody gone beach'. Of course, later that year over 30,000 people nearly mashed down Emancipation Park to see the Rising Star finals. Like our politicians, the public has its priorities.

It would be almost funny if it wasn't so tragic. Over the last 10 years more than 11,000 Jamaicans have been murdered, far less than have died in 'war torn' Palestine over the same time. If Jamaica had the same population as America, that would translate into 1.3 million violent deaths over the last decade, over 10 times the actual U.S. figure of 125,000. But no one seems to care.

Sure, there is an upsurge in chatter when some prominent uptowner is killed or a particularly brutal inner-city murder takes place. But the horror soon dissipates into business as usual.

In October 2005 10-year-old Sasha-Kay Brown and her family were burnt to death in a blaze set by gunmen. Nationwide News organised a memorial vigil, and not a single politician turned up, including MP for the area Omar Davies. But last month he still got his normal 90 per cent-plus of the votes in his constituency.

Nice and decent

I'm hoping things will change under this JLP administration, but it's hard to get excited. New Minister of Security Derrick Smith, like Peter Phillips before him, seems a nice and decent man. And it makes little sense to start castigating a government after two parliament sittings. But Mr. Smith has not so far given off the aura of a man with a coherent plan or the energy to implement one.

Last May the JLP unveiled the MacMillan Crime Plan with great fanfare. We were repeatedly informed that its 33 main points did not require money, just political will. A JLP government, we were assured, would make sure all its recommendations were quickly implemented.

Well, we heard almost nothing about the MacMillan Plan during the election campaign, and Mr. Smith has said little about it since. Prime Minister Golding has been speaking impressively about implementing the JLP manifesto's governance promises. When will he fill us in on the MacMillan Plan, the National ID card system, and additional powers for the Police Commissioner? Speaking of whom, Danville Walker is, in my humble opinion, the perfect man for the vacant post.

Call us cynical. But we, the public, have seen crime task force reports come and go, including the Hirst Report (1991), Wolfe Report (1993), PERF Report (2000), Report by National Committee on Crime & Violence (2001) and National Security Strategy green paper (2005). Mr. Smith and Mr. Golding better convince us soon that the MacMillan Plan is not also already disappearing into the never to be seen again twilight zone of Jamaican crime fighting.